Drive to Presidio

Took a 70 mile drive today on "Farm Road 170" into Presidio, TX.  It is considered one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US.  And it really was!  It follows the Rio Grande River for most of the trip, cutting through the mountains and valleys.  It's really nice that there is almost no one else on the road.  We were able to stop right in the middle of the hwy. to take pictures and never see another car.  Of course they do have lots of pull outs for viewing.  The river is the dividing line between Mexico and Texas.

The weather couldn't have been better.  It reached 85 degrees with wispy clouds in the sky.

Here are a few of the pictures we took today.  The old buildings are part of a movie set.  The Streets of Laredo and 9 other movies used this set. 

Big Bend National Park

Left Alpine today and drove a whopping 80 miles to a tiny little place called Study Butte, TX.  There isn't much in town except the combination motel, restaurant, gas station and RV park we are staying at.  The only positive thing you can say about the park is it is only 15 miles to the entrance to Big Bend National Park.  We plan on staying 4 nights so we have some time to tour the national park.

Here are some pictures of the 80 mile drive we made today.  I know scenery pictures all start to look the same after a while but the views never get old to us.  Seems like every curve in the road brings a new and different experience.

Alpine, TX

Spent 2 nights in Van Horn and then left Hwy. 10 for Hwy. 90. This will take us more south towards Big Bend National Park. We arrived in Alpine, TX yesterday and plan on only spending 2 night here but that all depends on what we find to do in the area. We drove through 100 miles of vast nothingness to get here. Not sure what this is, but think it's a weather balloon tethered to the ground. Today we drove over to Fort. Davis and mid 1800's fort. There wasn't much left of the original fort, only the footings of the original buildings were left and a lot of it had been re-built. From there we drove up the mountains to the McDonald Observatory. Beautiful views of the Texas hill country from up there. Texas seems to put a lot of little roadside pic-nick tables along the highways. This one was really unique. It seemed to be carved into the side of the rocks in the mountain. Almost looked unreal, like something out of Disneyland.

Arrived in Texas.....Finally

We've been trying for several years to make it all the way to Texas but something always seemed to drag us home before we got further east than central AZ. Not this time! We almost talked ourselves out of it because of the weather. We have really been looking for some place warm but the weather just hasn't been cooperating. But we decided we were so close, that to turn around and head back to SO. Calif. just because we were cold would be too depressing....so here we are in Van Horne, Texas. We plan on spending the month of February just seeing everything we can.

New Mexico

We arrived in Las Cruces, NM on Thursday. It's a really nice rv park but right in the heart of the city with no views. The price was a little higher than we like to pay but when you're the only game in town I guess you can charge what you want. We spent the day Saturday exploring El Paso, TX which was just a short drive away. Not much to say about El Paso except it was much larger than we expected and so close to the Mexico border that you could see the houses (more like shacks) along the hills of Mexico just off the side of the freeway. Only spent the 3 days in New Mexico and just the very southwest corner of the state. It was just too cold to go any further north and too cold to stay in Las Cruces. We drove to the White Sands National Park on Friday and it was really amazing. Thousands of square miles of snow white sand dunes. This is something everybody should see.

Finishing up in Arizona

Spending our last few days in Arizona waiting on truck repairs. Had some transmissions issues and were getting close to needing brakes so had those done too. We rented a car while the truck was in the shop and got a Dodge Challenger. Sweet little ride. Especially nice on the drive we took on the Mt. Lemmon scenic highway. The views were incredible but the haze was worse than being in Los Angeles. It really took away from the amazing vista and made picture taking a waste of time. I took some photos, but they just don't do justice to the actual views.

I always thought of Arizona as flat barren desert but it's not that way.

Arizona

Haven't posted in a long time because we have just been staying in the same old places. We hit several Thousand Trails parks around the Sacramento/Gold Country. Pic is of the RV park on the American River next door to Sutter's Mill where gold was discovered.

Then on to Palmdale and then Palm Springs where we spent lots of quality time with family and travel friends Phil & Darlene. From Palm Springs we finally headed east to Arizona. Spent a couple nights back in Hope, just outside Quartzite and then on to Cottonwood/Sedona area to spend Christmas with our friends Wayne & Kathy.

It was way too cold for us in Cottonwood. Down in the 20's at night but up in the 60's during the day. After three weeks there it was on to new horizons. We have never been farther east than Cottonwood. We spent 3 nights outside of Scottsdale, AZ in an area called Gold Canyon in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains. Wanted to do some genealogy research on Gordy's great uncle Shorty.

He was a cowboy in Globe around the San Carlos Indian reservation. Had some books written about him and wrote a book himself. No luck on finding anything about him in the Globe museum but did get to see the area where he was a ranch foreman on a large local ranch. We are now in Benson, AZ where we are staying for a week. Doing lots of touristy things like going to Tombstone to see the old town (OK Corral, Birdcage Theater, Boot Hill Cemetery). We even had breakfast in the "Bucket of Blood" Saloon, now called the Longhorn restaurant.

Also went to historic Bisbee, an old mining town. It was pretty unique. Built in a narrow canyon, the buildings are all built up the sides of the canyon. To go from one street to another you had to climb stairs. From Bisbee we went to Fort Huachuca. It was started in the 1840's to help protect the ranchers and miners from the Indians and is still a major army base today. Even though we are out in the middle of nowhere, it is really beautiful. You can see for miles and the vistas are breath taking. This picture just doesn't do it justice.