Arrived in Houston 1-8-07

Yesterday was long, but not much to talk about. We left Deming at 8:30, it was 29 degrees. Las Cruces, NM had snow on the ground as we dropped down into it. It seems like a nice city; this hot air balloon was coming in for a landing. We just drove. We stopped at rest areas to eat and use the bathroom and we stopped for fuel twice. We lost another hour in Texas east of El Paso. We are in the central time zone now.

I drove a couple times; I need the practice. I am becoming accustomed to the weight, but have to get better at stopping. I almost overshot the Trooper at the border patrol checkpoint in Texas. That probably wouldn’t have been good, I was pacing myself with the stop sign and didn’t see him right away; practice, practice. I am still too scared to drive it through the cities. The third and fourth pictures are of west Texas. There were some flat places, but there were lots of hills, and mesas too.

We found a nice place to spend the night at a rest stop. We were on the end so we could put out the bed slide. We just went to bed. We stopped at 9:00; we had traveled 602 miles; a one day record for us.

Geez, today we overslept, we kept waking up all night. Our bodies haven’t adjusted to the time changes, the lack of activity and the weird hours we are keeping. It wasn’t as noisy as some RV parks we have been in. The highways get quiet during the wee hours of the night. Anyway our eyes popped open at 7:54 and we were on the road at 8:18. It was 34 degrees at our home at milepost marker #514, I-10 Texas this morning.

San Antonio was big. Their downtown freeway system had 4 decks! Roads crisscrossing in the air all over the place! A semi-truck to the left of us just disappeared as he swooped down below us! It was weird looking. Felt like we were at Disneyland.

After we got through San Antonio we stopped at a rest area for breakfast and made more phone calls. We have been working all weekend on figuring out where to stay. There are RV parks in and around Houston’s big Medical Center, but the ones closest are really expensive. The one that was the most convenient was the most expensive even with the “medical discount” and they were pretty much full up. They sounded like they could stuff us in somewhere, but we would have to keep moving around. Anyway, we found one north of the Med Center and south of where Darcy’s house is. We will be closest to the hospital for now and may move to another one closer to her home, when she gets home, but we don’t know when any of that will be happening yet of course.

So we just kept on truckin’. The truck was doing much better today, the bad fuel is working its way out, but we still need to find a fuel filter. Nothing was open over the weekend.

From about 30 miles north of San Antonio to Houston was hilly and had oak trees and juniper trees. It was pretty. We have always heard how flat, ugly and boring the Texas terrain is, but this part doesn’t seem to be. Houston is huge and busy. They are working on improving the west side freeway system along I-10 so a lot of little curves, bends and narrow lanes. It took us an hour to get from the west to the north of Houston.

We landed at the Red Dot RV Park at 2:00. We traveled 270 miles today. Now that the push is over, we are pooped. For anyone who wants to know, it is 2,176 miles from Ukiah in northern California to the north side of Houston, Texas. It took us 5 days.

It was wonderfully sunny and warm here. Opened all the windows and cleaned the trailer. Felt good to move around. The sun set around 5:30. Stays light longer down here. We’ll see my Aunt Gretchen and cousin Darcy tomorrow. Early dinner, showers and bed for us tonight!