Changes

It's been a relaxing couple of days with many changes. We are staying in a tiny town called Fort Davis. It is named after the Fort that was built as a base during the days of the final frontier, when American soldiers were protecting people from / fighting with the Apache. We went to visit the site of the Fort and spent a few hours wandering around, going into the old hospital and buildings, and learning about life in those days. The hospital was very interesting. It had lists of the soldiers that died there, and what they died from, which the kids enjoyed reading. The place was very educational, and free with our America The Beautiful pass. Little Barney completed a junior rangers book and was awarded with a certificate and junior rangers badge.


We have been here three days, and apart from a walk through the town (it is really tiny, a small village really), the visit to the fort, and a trip to the play park, we have spent a lot of time in the RV. The weather here has been a shock since our stint in the desert. It's windy here , feels more like home. Although we haven't had all the rain and floods that other places in Texas have suffered from. With the weather here being cold we decided to look into the temperatures for the places we are heading to, and had a bit of a shock. Tomorrow we head north into New Mexico, which will be a bit colder than here. But after that we had intended to visit Colorado, even further north. It has been a dream of mine all my life to see The Rockies. But we were disappointed to find out that it is still covered in snow and we could be subjected to bellow freezing temperatures. So a sudden change of route was in order.

We have spent hours over the last few days, with maps out, researching, plotting and planning. Thank goodness for the Internet and google! Our route has completely changed and we will cover even more miles now, in order to remain warm. We had booked and paid for the RV for four months with the idea that we may stay for six months. We decided yesterday that we can't afford to hire it for six months, as it really isn't cheap, so we came to a compromise of 5 months. At that point we had been here 7 weeks and had 10 weeks left. Dan realised that we needed to book the flights home before they got any more expensive, so it was time to really sit down and plan. Dan phoned Cruise America (the RV hire company) and said that we'd like to keep the RV for one extra month, only to be told by the lady on the phone that our RV is going out on hire the day we are due to return it (31st May), and that they have no other RV's left for hire. It was really disappointing, and we decided to book our flights home after 4 months as there was nothing to be done.

But this morning Dan decided to go onto the Cruise America website and try to book the RV online. We were shocked to discover that we could hire an RV online, for the dates we requested, and that the lady on the phone had not told us the truth! Could she just not be bothered to sort it out for us? Dan immediately phoned the San Francisco branch of Cruise America where we are due to return the RV and asked to add another month onto it. They said that we could, but we'd have to go to San Francisco on 31st May to sign the new contract, and then return the RV to San Francisco on 28th June to return the RV. That was no use at all. We are due in California in about 3 weeks time, so theres no way we could be there on 31st May and then again on 28th June. But they said there was no way around it. So Dan, being the man he is, phoned the manager of Cruise America and told her the situation. She said not to worry, she would just extend our hire without all that silly fuss, and we only have to return it on the 28th without doing extra trips. So now we are staying an extra month! (14 more weeks from now!)


We have booked our flights home for the 3rd July, San Francisco to Dublin, a 13 hour flight. Our new route will take us from New Mexico, westard into Arizona, up to the Grand Canyon and into Nevada, through LA into the southern part of California, much much sooner than expected. From there we have two options... option A drive right up California into Oregon then East toward Yellowstone Park, down into Colorado and then west into Utah, coming back into California to hand the RV back and fly home, option B drive half way up California, head east into Utah, miss out Colorado due to weather, head north and drive west back to Oregon, then down into the north of California, ending in San Francisco. Which route we take will be dependant on the weather at the time. That was probably really hard to understand if you haven't been sitting with a map all day like I have, so here are two maps. Option A and Option B. The red lines are where we have already traveled, black dots are where we have stayed. The green lines are an extremely rough plan of where we will be going from here. But it's all subject to change. Click on the little maps to see the full size image.


By the way, if you are looking for the newest photos, they are in Texas Album 2.

Five days in the Chihauhaun Desert

Words can't really describe the awe inspiring beauty of the desert and the magnificence of the mountains that we witnessed over our five day stint in Big Bend National Park. Even the photos that we have don't do the area justice. The park covers some of the Chihuahuan Desert region of West Texas, which extends down into Mexico. At over 1200 square miles, the park has deserts, canyons, and the most amazing mountain ranges. It would take years to thoroughly visit every part of the park, but we drove around most of the roads accessible to RV's and stayed in two different locations. The first two nights were spent in the Rio Grande village, which is basically a concrete RV park with hookups, near to the Rio Grande river. It was a nice area to see plenty of wildlife, and convenient since there was a store there. But it was very close to all the other campers, and expensive at $28 dollars a night. So we asked about the back country camping and managed to book a primitive site for as many nights as we liked for just a one off $10 fee. We stayed three nights there. There are various back country sites throughout the park. Some are not suitable for RV's, but a few are. They are remote, have no electric, water or sewer hookups, and are what is called 'dry camping'. We thoroughly enjoyed our three day stint at 'Croton Spring'. We were totally alone for most of it (apart from the odd car driving in to see the view).

The clearing we were parked in was in the middle of the Chihauhaun Desert floor, surrounded by mountains on all sides. (If you look carefully at this photo here you can see our RV parked up at our camp spot, totally alone) The spring itself was bone dry. One of the first things we noticed was the silence. During the heat of the day the animals don't come out. And I don't blame them. Yesterday it was 95 in the shade at 4pm. But at night time what we noticed first was the absolutely stunning silence. Every night since we came to the US we have listened to the sounds of a million grasshoppers. But in the heart of the desert, there were none. The grasshoppers were out in force at the Rio Grande village near the river, but not at this site. Several of the nights we were there we heard the screams of packs of coyote, very close by. It was amazing to hear... so loud, a mix between wolves and women howling! At first I thought it was someone having a laugh outside the RV! Barney didn't like the Coyote noises at all and wouldn't go outside after dark.

We saw quite a lot of wildlife while we were there. We didn't come face to face with any bears, mountain lions, snakes, javelina or tarantulas, all of which live in abundance there. But we had great fun watching the Road Runners running about the place. One morning we saw a herd of deer walk right passed our camp site to graze. Dan got quite close to them and the one in this picture just looked up at him and started posing for photos! At night we sat outside the RV and watched the Kangaroo Rats scurrying about the place. They were very entertaining.

But we didn't spend the whole time sitting outside the RV. We took some walks along the various trails throughout the area, and drove to all ends of the park. The drive up to the top of the Chisos Basin mountain was stunning. The road was winding, with cliff edges, and rather scary. Our RV just about made it. It's 25 ft long, which is the maximum recommended to make it up the mountain. At the top of the mountain there are stunning views of hundreds of miles of desert. It was quite breath taking. In the photos there is no depth of field, so it doesn't look any where near as good. We took a walk to the Rio Grande river. The Rio Grande separates America from Mexico, but it isn't very wide. We looked out over Mexico and saw men riding on donkeys. The Mexicans can be arrested and deported if they go across the river. Apparently the Big Bend is a huge gateway for drugs into America, as well as immigrants. At the rivers edges there were rocks set out as little illegal gift shops. The Mexicans made souvenirs that were for sale in the park gift shops, and put them on display by the river, with price tags half the price of the gift shop. They would leave a tub for money and hope that a tourist might fancy something. We noticed them sitting in the trees at the other side of the river watching us to see if we bought anything, but apparently it is a felony to buy their stuff so we didn't. At one point a Mexican man made his was across the river on horseback so we all hurried into the RV and drove off in case he was a drug smuggler or something! It seemed a bit silly afterwards.

We took one walk along a trail down to a canyon by the river. When we got down there, we were greeted with the echoing sounds of Mexican song. Across the river were a hut full of Mexican men, and one man was singing his local songs in the hope of a tip or two from the tourists. It was quite surreal to hear the Mexican music echoing through the canyon like that.

The highlight of the trip for Jimmie was probably the early morning hike he took with his Dad. The pair of them got up before sunrise and set off to the Rio Grande overlook, where they sat and watched the sun rise together. You can see Jimmie in this photo sitting in Texas, looking over the Rio Grande into Mexico, just after sunrise. I know that's a memory that he will treasure all of his life.

All of the kids coped surprisingly well with the heat. Jimmie took it in his stride, Barney had red cheeks the whole time but never complained. Annabelle was ok with it although she didn't like it too hot. My body hates me and decided to finally have the migraine it had been building up to for a month. So on a really hot day, on a hike, my brain decided to feel like it was going to explode and I started violently vomiting. I'd felt it coming on for weeks and kept being able to subdue it by resting, or sitting in the dark, but this time there was no subduing, so I suffered an awful migraine on a stifling hot day in the desert. One memory I will not treasure. Poor Dan ran around like a madman trying to help me - fetching water, putting iced flannels on my head as I had a fever, making me drink more fluids. The boys fanned me down with home made fans, bless them.

There are two photo albums from our trip to the desert, so be sure to look through them as I can't post as many pictures as I'd like to on this blog. One night we sat outside and watched the sun set over the desert. And another evening I gave everyone facials in the desert! Including face masks, hand and foot massages and moisturizing. That was quite an experience. The desert really dries a person out. We could not shower for 4 days as we had no water hookups, but yet our hair dried out instead of getting oily. We were all constantly covered in a film of desert dust - it would be in our ears, around our eyes, in our scalp, up our noses! Just a slight breeze of wind would cover us from head to toe in desert dust. I couldn't wait to get a shower.

We also took a drive to Terlingua Ghost Town, outside of the park. It was an odd place, but fascinating. As usual Dan took no time getting to know the local people and he sat outside the local bar talking to a group of men whilst the kids and I looked around the gift shop. He was told that Terlingua is an abandoned mining village. The people here used to mine for mercury, and of course the miners kept dieing from poisoning. Then the town became a Mexican residence, but the Mexicans were all deported and it once again became a ghost town. The centre of the town has the strangest primitive cemetery. The land here must be rock and the graves maybe can't be dug deep because they are piled high with slabs of rocks. Each grave has a wooden cross and various religious artifacts places on it. One local man came over and told us it was essential that we place coins on the graves to ensure that the inhabitant didn't come and haunt us. He was deadly serious about this and truly believed that the dead haunted the town. All the street signs in the town were depicted in skeleton form. What a strange place. But well worth a short visit.

Now we are back in the land of the living and heading up to Fort Davis, still in Texas, before moving on to New Mexico. I have really loved visiting the first frontier of the wild west! But I am so glad its not summer yet as this is more than hot enough for me.

The Gage Restaurant, Marathon, Texas

We've been on the road now for almost 6 weeks and there are certain things we miss... baths, our beds, and good food. We have eaten out a few times since arriving in the US, but to be fair the places we have visited have been all-you-can-eat places, purely because of our budget.

But last night Dan took a walk as I tried to get the kids to sleep. He was gone quite some time, and when he eventually got back he was full of chat about the people he'd met. He really loves to meet the local people while we travel. We have both noticed that people are so much nicer in the rural areas than in the cities. There are nice people in the cities, dont get me wrong, but there are a lot of crazy stressed out nutters too. So Dan spent a few hours last night chatting to various off duty staff members of the local hotel restaurant. They told him that they serve the best food in America, and insisted we should try it. Well, let me tell you - they weren't wrong! I am going to be dreaming for weeks about the meal I ate tonight!

So Dan booked a table for 7pm this evening. I'm not entirely sure whether the restaurant is known as the Gage Restaurant, or Cafe Cenizo, as there were signs for both. We walked the 5 minute walk from the Marathon RV park to the Hotel. We sat out in the courtyard as it was such a nice evening, and such a nice area. There was a big open fire near us, a cobbled courtyard with a fish pond, fountain, a wall lined with cow skulls which the kids were totally impressed with. I felt like I was sitting out in the Old West, listening to the sounds of the old railroad every time a train went past.

Our waitor was the guy who Dan met last night. The manager came out and said he'd heard all about us and D would take care of us tonight. The menu looked amazing but we had no idea what to order... Elk, Bison, Scallops, Antelope, Quail - none of which I've ever tasted before. D recommended a few dishes and we went for Bison Ribeye and an Antelope Steak (ok, in the menu they all had fancy names but I can't remember that). Whilst Dan was chatting to the manager our waitor brought over a basket of hot homemade breads. He explained to me what they were and I wish I could remember the exact details as they were divine. One of them was a hot corn bread with some special ingredient in it (I know, I'm useless, I should have taken a pen and notepad with me!) and the other was bread with some sort of cheese in it. The butter was home made with molasses and goodness knows what (perhaps yaks milk or something). Well, it was bread like we'd never tasted before, and still warm. The kids ate a ton of it, and little Barney eat almost his own weight in it.

But soon after that the waitor came over with five starters and said they "were a gift from the chef" !!! Barney took one look at them and said out loud "I hope they dont give me one of them", just as the manager came up behind him and said "well, we're just going to give you one of them anway." I had to laugh. It was such a posh starter for a four year old and he had never seen anything like it. Jimmie and Annabelle looked suitably impressed too. As best I can remember it was pan fried scallop on a bed of tomatoes topped with a quails egg, and in the most delicious sauce. None of us have ever had a quails egg before, and Dan is the only one who has had a scallop before. But these scallops were huge, like steaks! It tasted, like heaven.

When our Bison and Antelope arrived, Dan and I divided our meals in half so that we could taste both. Both were truly the most amazing meals I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I wish I could describe what Antelope tastes like. (Annabelle was most disgusted with us eating such cute creatures, despite having half a cow on her own plate!) The Antelope meat was very strong flavoured, nothing like beef or pork or anything I've eaten before. It was just heavenly, but I'd have trouble eating the whole dish on my own as it really is very rich. Dan liked the Antelope best, but I really enjoyed the Bison. It was like a steak, but so much better than a steak. Honestly, I start dribbling every time I think about it. I want to move into that court yard and sit eating Bison for the rest of my life. Steak is tough, in my experience, even when cooked well. This was like steak, but it literally melted in your mouth. I have no doubt that this also had something to do with the chef - Paul Petersen. He could give Gordon Ramsey a run for his money any day, I'm telling you. I better not start talking about the veg, potato, sauces that came with the meat, or I will be here forever.

When we were truly stuffed the waitor said that he would give us some complimentary deserts as well. I nearly fell off my seat. We were treated like royalty, and I have no idea why. Just because people here are nice? Maybe they'd been tipped off that a top gourmet food critic from Ireland was in town!

Well, I've never talked so much about food, but this place just made an impression. If you are ever driving through the 'Gateway to the Big Bend', stop by Marathon, find the Gage Hotel, and eat here. You will not regret it. I promise you. They were so sure of it that they said to us "if this is not the best food you have ever tasted, your meal will be free." I'm happy to say it was the best food I've ever tasted. Tomorrow I go back to living on rice and beans though.

Roaming the Wild West!

Well, if this isn't one of the most beautiful places on earth! Every drive we take brings us to somewhere even better than before. And we haven't made it to Utah yet which is supposed to be spectacular.

Right now we feel as though we are in the wild west, where all the old cowboy films were made. We are in an area around Marathon and Alpine, on the outskirts of the Big Bend area. In case y'all start worrying we wont be online for at least 5 days, maybe longer. Tomorrow we are heading into the wilderness. Lol. Well, we are heading into Big Bend National Park which has no electricity, no water, and no wifi. We are spending a few days 'dry camping', as they call it, without RV hookups. So don't be worrying about us. I'm betting our mobile phone won't work either so, if there are any emergencies, you will have to call Big Bend National Park.

Yesterday we spent almost 9 hours travelling. We were relieved that we didn't take the interstate, because route 90 may have taken longer, but we just loved the scenery along the way. The locals tell us there's not much here to look at, but we disagree, as its just a totally different world to Northern Ireland. We drove 400 miles at least, and the scenery is just vast. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, was desolate cactus filled desert mountain land. We stopped quite a few times along the way just to absorb the landscape and stretch our legs. When we did get out of the RV Jimmie couldn't believe how 'Texas' the whole place looked.

The local people in Marathon are lovely. Last night Dan happened to meet the chef, waitor and bar tender of the local hotel. This is pretty much a one horse town, and they rely on the passing

tourists to make money. Tonight we are going to eat at the hotel, where the staff have promised us the feed of a lifetime. Dan spent all evening chatting to them last night. They told us if we come for dinner they will let us try all sorts of local dishes.

Last night we spent the night in a motel (part of the RV park). Just as we arrived in marathon our gas detector started beeping, and nothing could be done to reset it. We shut off the gas, phone Cruise America, and told them of the problem. Since it was night and no mechanics could be found, the paid for us to sleep in the motel, as the noise from the alarm was migraine inducing. Oh wow, it was so nice to sleep in proper comfy beds! The first thing the kids noticed was that the motel room had a TV, and they sat watching cartoons happily. At the moment the gas detector is switched off until we come out of Big Bend park, where a mechanic will be fitting a new device for us. We couldn't complain at Cruise America's service, they were great about it.

Well, if you haven't looked at the photo albums lately, check out Texas Albums 1 and 2 for more pics of the amazing area we are staying in. There are also some photos from our trip to San Antonio zoo, which I didn't get time to blog about.

The weather here now is just perfect. It's hot, but not at all humid, so it's just lovely. The sun is out, theres no sign of rain (thank goodness, we've had enough of that). Let's hope it lasts.

The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas

Little did we realise when we planned to visit the Alamo in San Antonio today that it is the anniversary weekend of seige of the Alamo. So, it was packed. There were people in costumes out the front of the Alamo re-enacting the battle. I had no idea before I came to Texas what The Alamo was, in fact I'd never heard of it. The Alamo was a fort where some of the Texan Revolution took place in 1836. For thirteen days a small band of about 150 Texan's held out against 6000 Mexicans before finally losing the battle and their lives. Amoungst the Texans who were killed was Davy Crockett. The place is a sacred shrine to the men who lost their lives fighting for control over Texas. Millions of people travel here every year to visit the place. We took a brief walk around it today with some friends of Jim and Pat, who happened to be in the area - Ned and Lorna. It was lovely to meet them and they gave us lots of hints and tips for the rest of our trip. We sat by the River Walk and had coffee with them.

After they left we took a walk up and down the river walk area. It was a cute place filled with little cafes, some live music, and little boats cruising up and down the river. We didnt take a boat ride in the end because we enjoyed the walk. We stopped at a cowboy type shop where Jimmie bought the cowboy hat he has been hankering after since arriving in America. He looks pretty cool in it. I noticed some Japanse tourists taking photos of him!

After our day in San Antonio we came back to the RV to crash. Annabelle has made friends with another 11 year old boy (who looks 14) and they have spent the early evening fishing together in the lake!!

Houston, we have a problem....

Have you ever driven for three days? I have! Ok, so not three days solid without a break. But we have spent three days getting to San Antonio Texas. Last time I blogged we were in New Orleans having a fab time. I never got to blog about the paddle boat ride that we took up the Mississippi River, or the Cajun meal we enjoyed, or having real french donuts and coffee at the french cafe in New Orleans that has been there since the city was built. I could have written a big old blog post about all of that. But we moved on and didn't have wifi, so you can always just look at the photos (see the Louisiana Album link in the sidebar).

Anyway, we are now in San Antonio, Texas. Although, as of yet, we haven't seen any of it as we just arrived and crashed out. We left New Orleans three days ago, and have been travelling since just to get here. The first leg of our journey took us to the edge of Louisiana, just before the Texas border. We drove there and slept over night. It was on the way to our second stop, Houston, that I noticed we had a problem. More specifically, I had a problem. Anyone who read my family blog will remember the time I fell down the stairs and broke my toes. You may also remember that a few weeks after that, I dropped a piano stool on my foot and smashed my big toe up pretty badly. The nail went black, and all sorts of yucky things happened to it. Just before we left for America it started looking like it was healing. The bad nail fell off and new nail was growing. Well, as is common after that sort of injury, the new toe nail started ingrowing into the nail bed and my big toe got extremely sore and red. Then it started developing a pussy blister and got just nasty. So, on the way to Houston I had to stop by a podiatrist and have a little minor surgery to the toe. How pleasant. I had my toe numbed with seven or so injections, then watched in horror as all sorts of torturous looking implements were used, as the surgeon chatted away to me about the horrors of the British NHS and how much better American medicine is. I had to laugh at one point when he brought over this amazing portable xraying machine that showed live images of my broken toe bones. He showed me the workings of my foot and where the old breaks were, as a special treat, because we obviously "wouldn't have technology like that in Ireland". This kerfuffle cost me $175 for the surgery, plus another $45 for a prescription. Not money I had intended on parting with on my drive to Houston. But these things happen. I almost died at the chemist when my prescription came to $45, after getting them for free at home. Still, you get what you pay for ... he has given me the mother of all pain killers. One tablet and you can't stand, talk, or walk.

We stopped just before Houston and slept another night (after countless drives up and down the interstate trying to find the camp site in the most treacherous rain). This morning we started day 3 of our drive through Houston to San Antonio. Houston is a scary place to drive through (maybe not quite as scary as New Orleans). At one point we were driving on a 14 lane motorway (7 lanes each direction) in the most intense traffic. People don't seem to acknowledge the whole "you'd be a fool to break the 2 second rule" thing when driving here and drive right up each others backsides. We had to change lanes countless times, in a 25 ft vehicle. Houstons roads seem to be built one above another. At points it was like spaghetti bridge junction. There were motorways above us, below us, either side of us, and all flying about at 70 mph with no gaps for unexpected stopping. It was scary as hell, but we made it through.

We stopped on the way at a place the podiatrist had told me to stop at. Buc-ee's. I'm not sure how to categorise it as a shop. It sells fast food, drinks, snacks, but there are no tables or chairs. It sells gas, cowboy hats, every imaginable type of jerky known to mankind, souvenirs, things made of beaver or cow, and postcards. But it was a great place to stop. There are signs all along the I10 saying "Buc-cee's - 247 miles". The fast food section works like our Argos at home. (Except Argos sells household furniture). One just uses the computer touch screens to order food, then a wee receipt comes out with an order number on it, and you wait to be called. Someone leaves your order in a little hatch area and there is no need for human contact what-so-ever. We could do with this at home where fast food servers rarely smile and have no manners at all (not like here in the US where all restaurant staff are delightful).

Anyway, Im waffling. We arrived at our RV park near San Antonio at 6pm and spent the evening bathing Barney, tidying up, and planning what to do over the next three days. And beyond. As of yet, I'm not sure what the plan is. I like Texas from what I've seen so far (just the I-10) On the way here there was the most amazing sky I have ever seen. It was just so blue and covered in amazing fluffy little clouds. It looked like a peice of artwork. Except if you saw it as artwork, you'd think the artist got carried away with the clouds and made them far too quaint, painting them the shape that kids would paint clowds. The grass is so green at the moment, and as spring has just started there are little red flowers blossoming all along the interstate. We noticed a lot of cactus in the grass too.

The kids were exceptional on our three day drive. They just sat in the back playing, reading or drawing, and we never heard a peep out of them. I was so proud of them and told them so too. We have about 12 days now to explore Texas and I'm really looking forward to it.