Back Home in Texas

We started heading eastward on Tuesday back to the center of the US, but still staying south for warmth. The sides of the roads were littered with these bright yellow flowers.  Now that's MY kind of litter!

Our first stop was Las Cruces NM at a combination motel and RV park.  Translated this means parking in the back of a shabby rundown motel.  We only had electric and water hookups but with the Passport America discount it was only $11 a night, so we could live with that.  The first night was just settling in and seeing what we wanted to do since there was a misty rain.  They only have about 15 days of cloudy rainy days here and we got one of them.

The next day the weather was still not looking stellar…looks like we’ll be seeing two of those 15 days of icky weather so I found a rec center that had indoor pickleball and headed out for some play.  Left Brain was just as happy to spend the day with Gracie on his lap and a Kindle in his hands.  Although he did do a lot of research for our future stops and found a place to get inspected.  

Wednesday they had a double session of pickleball at the rec center, so for $2 I received four hours of total bliss slamming the ball around and visiting with people.  It was good therapy for me since I haven’t played since we left Mesa on March 8th.  I felt great going home but when I arrived at our site I could barely walk.  Seems I played a bit too hard and strained some things.

Since Left Brain hadn’t been able to eat due to the feline obstruction holding him down, we left in search of a late lunch in the old historic section of Mesilla.  My destination was La Porta, a restaurant I found online that has been in operation for 75 years.  It certainly has come a long way since it’s days as a stop on the Butterfield Stagecoach Stop.

The main lobby has a huge aviary with lots of brightly colored parrots and greenery overhead.  There were large fish tanks with piranha.  I made sure to keep my hands out of there.  
The rooms are decorated with in keeping with the old style and were just charming.

These stained glass areas made me miss my friend Beth who does fabulous glass work herself.  The food was probably some of the best Mexican food I've ever had. 

Thursday was spent mostly on the road for four hours with a brief stop at a truck stop for lunch and to stretch our legs.  We reached Fort Stockton about 4:00, having lost two time zones.  Arizona doesn’t follow the Daylight Savings Time, so when we hit New Mexico we lost one hour and then we lost another one somewhere in West Texas.  I was prepared for West Texas and had my knitting supplies ready.  By the time we landed for the night I had one dishrag completed and a baby cap started.
  
Our stop the night was the Parkview RV Park in Fort Stockton.  A charming location with dirt and gravel roads, lots of weeds and powerlines.  But again with Passport America the rate for full hook ups and decent internet is $11 for the one night we are staying here.  The view out the window might not be pretty but at least I’m comfortable in my own surroundings.  As long as it’s safe and the hookups work, we don’t care where we are during these trips through the area.

Tomorrow we will get to the vehicle inspection site nice and early and then head on to San Antonio.  There is an Elks Lodge there and now that Left Brain is an Elk member we are eligible to stay and we want to take advantage of this membership.  

We’ll probably just spend the night there since we’ve toured much of San Antonio already in past visit.  Then it’s on to Livingston TX where the Escapees headquarters are.  We need to get our wills redone to reflect our Texas domicile, something we’ve overlooked until this point.

From there I’m not sure where we’ll be…we just take it one day at a time.

Long Live the Queen of Texas