Week ending Dec 13, 2018 Deridder, LA to Huachuca City, AZ

Friday morning, we went for a walk to downtown Deridder to take pictures of the Beauregard County Courthouse, and the Gothic Jail, in a bit of drizzle, that eventually got heavy enough that when we got back to the hotel we used the hair dryer in the hotel room for the first time.

Beauregard Parish Courthouse

Gothic Jail

Then we headed across the Sabine River at the Texas state line to Jasper, to pick up some groceries.  From Jasper, we headed through the pine forests of east Texas to Lufkin.  Our stop there was the Naranjo Museum of Natural History .  It's attraction is the world's largest moon rock on public display. The moon rock was collected by the NASA astronauts of Apollo 18, and it was released by NASA to be indefinitely on display in this small city (35000) in Texas.

Largest Moon Rock

The museum itself cost $15 for the two of us, but it is well worth it.  The museum was created when a local collector was told by his wife to get all of his junk out of the house.  The collection covers a lot of the geological eras with extensive fossils, replicas of dinosaurs, mammoth, cave bear, etc collections of artifacts from human history from ancient times, through displays of the space shuttle and Mars Rover.   On our way back through town, we tried to get a picture of the Roadrunner statue  on Angelina College's campus but it is difficult to do from a freeway.  

As we were driving to our next stop, we got notified of a voicemail being left.  We didn't have the password to our voicemail, so we stopped when we could, and phoned to see if it was Hanner RV, where we left the trailer.  They had told us they should get to our trailer on Tuesday, 3 days ago.  It wasn't them who had called, but we found out they hadn't had time to look at our trailer yet, almost 4 weeks after we left it.  We told them that we would be picking it up on Saturday.  

Our next stop was in Crockett, to see Lightnin' Hopkins statue .  He was a country blues musician and sing-songwriter who was born 30 miles away.  We had some fun getting to this location too.  It turned out that our GPS wasn't aware that the street we were on became one-way, the wrong way, about a block before our turn.  Fortunately, the locals must expect people going the wrong way down this street, and gave us room to get going the correct way at the next intersection . 

Sam Lightnin' Hopkins

From there we headed over to I-45 (between Houston and Dallas), and then toward Waco to our hotel in Groesbeck.  When we checked in, we found out it was the hotel who left the voicemail to let us know that the elevator was out of order, in case that was an issue for us.  She figured it would have gone to voicemail without ringing the phone because we were in an area without cell service when she called .

Interestingly, about an hour after we arrived, Hanner RV called us to say they had looked at the trailer, and gave us estimates on what needed to be done.  They said that they could fix the slide-out not running in properly by the end of the day, but that they needed to order parts to replace the black water valve, and wouldn't be able to do it until Monday.   We told them to go ahead with the slide-out gear, and we would talk about whether we would get them to do the sewer valve on Monday.   Funny how when we told them we were going to pick up the trailer on Saturday, they found time to figure out what the trailer problems were, and then could do the biggest issue, the slide-out, the same day.

On Saturday, we got on the road once it was light, stopping just a couple of times along the way, to get coffee, then for lunch.  We arrived at Hanner about 12:30.  It was snowing a bit.  Two Arctic Fox RVs had just been delivered, covered in snow, on the way here from Lubbock.They had replaced the slide-out motor and some of the gearing.   Only US$1128.  In addition, they charged us $70 to give us an estimate on fixing the gap on the slideout, and $70 to estimate replacing the black water sewer valve.   Good to have the slide-out fixed.  Hopefully this fix lasts longer than the couple of adjustments we had done to it in Calgary.      

We got setup in Abilene RV Park, where we stayed before our Washington trip.  They were kind enough to give us credit for the day we didn't use when we paid for a week here in November.    Supposed to go down to 27F tonight, and there is snow on the ground in the RV park.

slush in Abilene RV Park

Sunday morning, we got hooked up, headed to Walmart in Abilene to stock up on groceries and wine.  We were surprised we couldn't buy wine at Walmart until after noon, so we  stopped in Big Springs after lunch.  They did not have our merlot, so we settled on a cabernet.   From there we drove through the Permian Basin oil area, of Midland and Odessa.  Almost continuous rows of RV parks in areas along the highway.   Not quite as full as we expected, since our neighbour in Abilene a month ago was commuting here to work.  Oil service companies continuously along the way for the  We carried on 18 miles past Odessa to Monahan Sandhills State Park.  It is a neat little area, parked in the middle of sand dunes.  People come here to slide down the sand dunes on discs. Unfortunately our Verizon signal wasn't strong enough here for 4G, so no internet hotspot for our computers.  Couldn't get a satellite signal, but that may have been because we squeezed the nose of the satellite between the truck and the trailer backing out of an awkward service station.  We'll see how that goes when we get further down the road.

Monday we walked the 1.5 mi back up to the visitor center to do the interpretive walk.  We popped into the center to warm up (26F overnight).  The warden there explained the hydrodynamics of the sand dunes.  These dunes were created from rivers of water running off the glaciers as they retreated from New Mexico.  The dunes are 100 miles north to south and about 40 miles wide here, and 100 miles wide further north in New Mexico.  The sand acts like a sponge, holding any water that falls. He pointed out a line of harvard oaks.  These oaks only grow to be about 10 inches high, on the tops of the dunes, which stabilizes the dunes.  

harvard oaks along the top of a dune

sunrise over the dunes

On Tuesday we drove through El Paso to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  We have driven by Las Cruces  twice without stopping, after we toured Texas, and after we came down the Mississippi.  This time we decided to stay an extra night.


Mid-morning on Wednesday, we drove out to Dripping Springs Natural Area to do a 3.5 mile return hike to Dripping Springs.

Organ Mountains

A resort was built here about 17 miles from Las Cruces by Major Eugene Van Patten, a nephew of Butterfield, of stageline fame.  In 1915 after financial difficulties, Van Patten sold the resort to Dr Nathan Boyd, who built a tuberculosis sanitarium near the resort. 

Boyd's Sanitarium

 Dripping Springs

livery stable fence

On Thursday, we headed west to Arizona.  Our first stop along the way was a rest area which had a sign marking Cooke's Wagon Road.   Lt Col Philip Cooke, leading the Mormon Battalion blazed a wagon trail from New Mexico to the west coast during the Mexican War.  After fueling up in Lordsburg NM, we stopped at Kranberry's Chatterbox restaurant.  They had a similar burger to Red Robin's bonzai burger, but it wasn't as good.  Must be the sauce that makes the difference.  Fortunately, they had a soup and salad bar for Joan, with a bonus being a 1-trip option.

We parked for a week in Quail Ridge RV Park at the intersection of highways 90 and 82 south of Benson.   We stayed here a couple of years ago, and figure there is more hiking in the area that we haven't done yet. Supposed to be just below freezing in the morning, but temperatures improve for the rest of the week.