Finally to Arizona!

On Monday, as we left Deming, we filled up with fuel. We've done that each day along our journey -- we don't like to get below 1/2 tank and Gracie has only a 100 gallon fuel tank, so 50 gallons gets us 300-400 miles -- our consumption generally ranges between 6 and 8 MPG. This trip has been nice because we have not only *not* had a headwind (common when crossing west Texas), but we've had either a tail wind or a partial tail wind for much of the trip, allowing us to get 8.4MPG on one day!

We'd been seeing signs across New Mexico warning of the possibilities of dust storms. Past Deming, there were a few places where they had signs that were reminiscent of the Burma Shave signs (albeit not rhyming):

I guess the more you read that, the more you will instinctively remember what to do if you get caught in a dust storm.

I know that a lot of people are not fond of desert landscapes...

... but we really like them!

Soon after noon, we entered Arizona...

... with a second welcome / state information sign (left over from Arizona's Centennial in 2012).

We had reservations to stay at Voyager RV Resort in Tucson. This is in the Thousand Trails - Trails Collection set of campgrounds. I had read that it was really a "resort" with lots of amenities and things to do, so we look forward to a few days enjoying ourselves in the Tucson area.

Arizona sunset over the (mostly empty) RV park section in Voyager RV Resort where we are parked.

We look forward to getting together with my niece Ginny and family while in Tucson.

Continuing west

We continued west from Fort Stockton. We were planning to stop at Cattleman's Steakhouse at Indian Cliffs near Fabens, Texas. We had stayed there a couple of times in the past, and we like the steaks.

Since we were getting there on a Sunday, the restaurant was open earlier in the day (noon). And, since we gained an hour just east of El Paso, we got there by about 1pm. We decided to eat, and then decide whether we wanted to stay for the night or not.

The place where they allow RVs to park is down on a lower level of the parking area, so we had quite a walk uphill to get to the restaurant.

Coming up to the restaurant... the lady who had told us where to park had indicated that the parking "up top" was all full, so we were anticipating that we would have a wait to get a table. As we were walking up, more vehicles were heading up the hill -- when we got inside, there were a lot of people waiting, but when I told the hostess that we just needed a table for two, we were seated immediately!

Our meals - yum!

We finished up with our meal (lunch) by about 2:30pm, so we decided to continue traveling west -- we had a reservation for a campground near Tucson on Monday evening, so if we made more miles on Sunday, we'd have fewer to travel on Monday. We had figured that we could possibly stay at a Harvest Host or Walmart at Las Cruces, New Mexico, or continue to Deming, New Mexico to the Escapees park. We had to disconnect the Jeep to get turned around in the parking area at Cattleman's, so after Gracie got turned around, we exited the parking area and hooked back up just outside the property.

I called the Escapees park and they had availability, so we decided to overnight there in Deming.

Continuing on our drive west...

... we soon entered into New Mexico...

... another sign for entering New Mexico.

We got to Deming just about at sunset, got a pullthru site in the RV park, and spent a restful night. A shorter drive for Monday to get us into Arizona!

Westbound

Friday morning (Black Friday), we left Thousand Trails Lake Conroe to start on our way to Arizona.

We were planning to make it past San Antonio on this first day of our travel - this involved heading south toward Houston, taking a loop highway around the northwest side of Houston, and then starting west on I-10. We got onto I-10 around mile marker 742... only 742 miles on I-10 before we leave Texas!

Carl likes a particular type of coffee that we have found at Ollie's Bargain Outlet stores, and we know that they are not present in all areas -- we had checked, and there are none in Arizona that we've found... so we decided to stop in a mall in San Antonio where there was a store located (it was only a couple of miles out of our way) -- "sure, stop at a mall on Black Friday, what could go wrong?" It actually wasn't too bad -- we parked at a larger mall next door to the one where Ollie's was (the parking at Ollie's was quite full). Unfortunately, however, Ollie's did not have the coffee he was wanting (he got some Keurig pods instead). As we were walking back to Gracie (a bit of a walk away from the store), we passed a BBQ stand in the parking lot. It smelled so good...

... so we decided to get a pound to take with us to eat at our stop for the night.

Cutting up the brisket that we'd requested

West of San Antonio, we had a reservation at a Harvest Host that was very near I-10 in Comfort, Texas.

Parked at the Harvest Host

The Harvest Host was a nano-brewery (smaller than a micro-brewery, I guess). Although they had indicated that they would welcome guests on that Friday, the brewery wasn't actually open, so we just stayed the night there. It looked like it would be a fun place to visit with nice outdoor areas for seating and nice lighting.

Saturday morning, we headed out...

As we headed out the driveway, the roof and top passenger side of Gracie was scraped by some live oak trees in the driveway (we probably didn't plan our exit as well as we should have). So we stopped briefly so I could go up on the roof and make sure that nothing on the roof had been damaged or loosened by the limbs (all was fine).

We easily got back onto I-10 -- our drive on Saturday was to go to Fort Stockton, Texas. Almost the whole drive would be on I-10, with no cities to have to drive around or through.

As we were heading west, we saw a vehicle with flashing lights a long ways ahead of us with other vehicles with flashing lights following it. As we got closer and decided to pass, we could see that it was a huge windmill blade.

We later saw a back up of traffic at an exit ramp, almost back onto the highway. There really aren't towns of any size, so we couldn't figure out why there would be a traffic backup -- I looked and could see that another blade was at the bottom of the ramp and the traffic was all backed up behind it. It appeared, however, that it may have gotten off at the wrong spot as the advance vehicle was heading back to re-enter I-10 westbound. That definitely is a vehicle that you don't want to get going in the wrong direction! (Note: if I-10 had been going under a low overpass, the load may have had to get off to avoid a bridge too low for the load, but I-10 was elevated there so that did not appear to be the issue.)

Just a view as we were driving -- as I frequently say, "There's a whole lotta nuthin' out this way!"

We eventually got to Fort Stockton. I had planned that we'd stay in the Walmart parking lot, but when I called earlier in the day, the person I spoke with said that they don't want RVs parking for the night in the lot... we considered called back later to see if we'd get a different answer from a different person, but I had checked on RV parks as alternatives and we decided that we'd stay at an RV park instead. Here we are in a nice pull-through site at Fort Stockton Resort and RV Park.

It is a nice place for overnight, and they have RV ports (covers) for many of the sites that would make them nice for longer term stays too. We did not need to unhook the Jeep which makes it nice for continuing our travels.

Moving on west!

Thanksgiving Day!

It seems that we've been celebrating Thanksgiving for multiple days, and on Thursday Thanksgiving Day, itself, we had been invited to join some of our SKP Christian Fellowship friends for a feast.

We had met Allen and Teresa at the SKP Christian Fellowship gathering in Quartzsite back in January, 2021. They have since purchased a house in Willis and have sold their motorhome.

Carl's loaded plate - yum!

The ladies were seated in the dining room and enjoying conversation. (The men were around the table in the dining nook off the kitchen.)

When the guys finished eating, they adjourned to the living room.

A funny sign in Allen and Teresa's house!

After enjoying lunch and conversation with our friends at Allen and Teresa's, we headed to Kim's for one last visit with family.

Granddaughter M had decorated the apartment for Christmas, so we got a group selfie in front of their cute Christmas tree.

M and L enjoying ice cream.

Pamela again mixed up chocolate sodas, and we enjoyed some more family time before heading back to the campground. We would be heading out on our way west toward Arizona on Friday morning.

Another day, another buffet!

The Thanksgiving pot luck at the campground was on Tuesday... with lots and lots of food... so we followed that up with a Chinese buffet on Wednesday!

A blogger that Carl follows had reported that they were driving up from Alvin to Conroe (71 miles one way) in the last week or so to visit this buffet and he raved about it so much that we wanted to try it out.

Kioku Supreme Buffet

It was nice and open (seemed a little odd that there were no tables in this huge front section -- maybe on really crowded days they use that space?).

View of the buffet from our table

View *at* our table (on Carl's side, anyway!)

In case you were still hungry on your way out, you could get cotton candy from the machine in the vestibule!

It was good, but not worth driving 71 miles if that had been required for us to visit! For us, it was on our way to Kim's apartment.

After eating, we headed over to Kim's...

We went for a walk in the State Forest that is right next door to their apartment complex.

After walking, we returned to the apartment where Pamela made a Williams-family-favorite: Chocolate Sodas!

Again, we're enjoying being with family!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry I missed posting Happy Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day -- we were busy, and my phone crashed (seemingly permanently) on Wednesday night, so I've been electronically challenged!

Here are some pictures from the campground Thanksgiving celebration that happened on Tuesday evening, hosted by the church that meets at the campground, and supplied pot luck (with the church providing items that had not been signed up for by the pot luck):

Lots of things on the buffet tables!

Another buffet table (there were a total of 5-6)!

Dessert table!

Lots of folks came too --

The pastor asked that women and children go through the line first...

... so we waited until they were through...

There was lots of food!

So plenty was left by the time we went through!

It was nice getting to meet some of the other folks in the campground!

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving too!

Sunday church at the campground and family Thanksgiving

Our home church in Irving has not been successful in broadcasting its livestream for a few weeks (we were there for a couple of the weeks when the problem started, so we weren't aware until we got here to Lake Conroe). There is a church that meets here at the Lake Conroe campground, so we decided to join the believers there on Sunday...

The church met in the Activity Center.

It was good to have a time of worship ...

...with our fellow campground residents!

Sunday afternoon, Kim and Kent had invited the family (Pamela and Dylan and his parents, Carl and me) for a family Thanksgiving dinner.

Kent browning the cheese on top of the scalloped potatoes!

Preparations continue!

Kent providing instructions!

Yum!

It is great to be able to spend holidays together with family!