Snow? Seriously?

The term "snowbird" is used to describe a northerner that moves to a southern state during the winter months to avoid northern winters. In December of 2019 we sold our farm animals, bought an RV, and headed south. We traveled all over the southeast, with the exception of FL. We'd been there before and felt it was too hot and humid, even in February. We wanted warmer than northern NH but not as hot as FL so we traveled to NC, SC, GA, AL and TN.

This year we decided to try the southwest as part of our travels. It wasn't as warm in southern UT as we had hoped, but AZ was perfect weather. People describe the desert as beautiful. We thought it was interesting, but not beautiful. It was kind of all the same - miles and miles and miles of nothing but sand and cactus. We said we probably wouldn't go there again next winter.

Not how I anticipated dressing in TX

We started meandering eastward this month, landing in south-central TX as our first stop in February, just west of San Antonio. This was more like the northeast, except warmer. Trees, grass, lakes and streams felt more like home.

If you google the average temperature this time of year for this area you'll find that it's mid to high 60s for the day and low 40s at night. Perfect, right? Except when it isn't.

We just had a freak and rare winter storm pass through that brought record lows and 5" of snow! It was 7 degrees last night with 20 mph winds. The wind coming across the lake felt like needles hitting my face. I felt a little silly packing my winter clothes - jacket, mittens, snow pants, boots, even a balaclava. If nothing else, I was going to be prepared for anything. Little did I know how useful these would be.

Everyone says the snow is so beautiful. It may be, but we could have stayed home and experienced beautiful, even shoveled it! Texas, not being used to snow and cold, declared a state of emergency. They're just not equipped for snow and ice and many roadways throughout the state are currently impassable. Last Thursday there was a 133 car pile-up in Fort Worth, which is about 4 1/2 hours north of us. Apparently, the roadway on a bridge had a thin layer of ice which caused cars to skid, with others from behind unable to stop. There were tractor trailers on top of trucks on top of cars. Looking at the pictures made you wonder how anyone managed to survive.

So everyone just waits for it to melt, which may be a few days, since the temperatures aren't supposed to warm up significantly until later in the week.

Cactus in snow

Feels like we went to sleep in TX and woke up in NH

The wind coming off the lake felt like needles on my face

We may have to re-think our opinion of AZ. Perhaps miles and miles and miles of sand and cactus aren't so bad after all.

Welcome to Mexico?

We were in Sierra Blanca, TX for 2 days. Great hosts, and fantastic experience. If you missed our grand adventure getting there you can check it out here.

We arrived in Del Rio, TX, which is a border town on the Mexican border, this afternoon. Got a message this morning that our hosts were called away unexpectedly so they wouldn't be here to greet us. They told us their tenant, Tim, would show us where to park and where the electric and water hookups are. Tim was very accommodating, and even said it was OK to give our trailer a much needed bath. It was finally restored to it's original white color. We took the truck to a car wash for its beauty treatment.

We will be here for 3 days before moving on to Lakehills, TX for 2 weeks. Probably not much will happen as this seems like a pretty quiet town. Although our cell phones did send us a message "Welcome to Mexico" and informed us we wouldn't receive any roaming charges. That's good news, right?

Lost in the Desert

There are few things as worrisome when traveling than getting lost and your GPS basically saying it has no clue either. Add that to being in the middle of the Texas desert and it becomes the stuff of nightmares!

On Wednesday we headed out to our next 2 night stopover in Sierra Blanca, TX. The directions we got were to go 20 miles north of town, turn right at the overhead sign for Sunset Ranches, then follow the road around to the left past a house, go through the silver gate and turn right about 2 miles down the road. 

We saw the sign, turned right, and from there it was anybody's guess where we were. The road didn't turn to the left and there was no house, only a few RVs and trailers way out in the desert with "no trespassing" signs everywhere. It was the kind of place you could get shot just stopping to ask directions, if you could have found anyone to ask. There was no cell service, and when we found a place that showed 1 bar on the phone we tried to get GPS to tell us where we were. It basically shrugged its shoulders and laughed at us!

When hauling a 26' travel trailer behind you there aren't a lot of options when trying to find a place to turn around on a one-lane dirt road. Thanks to Jim's awesome backing skills we did manage to get going back the way we had come. As providence would have it, we met a car coming into the area that pulled over and stopped.

The man had long, salt and pepper, scruffy hair, a long scruffy beard of the same color to match, and ample empty spaces between what teeth he had left - the kind of person that you'd go out of your way to avoid if you met him in the suburbs. Strangely though, he looked like he belonged out here. Give him a pick axe and a mule and he would have looked like an authentic prospector. He was driving a beat up light gray clunker. Actually I'm not sure if it was supposed to be light gray or just the color of the thick dust that covered it front to back.

I'm not sure what clued him in that we needed help. Perhaps he's not used to seeing trucks hauling RVs through the desert, or perhaps it was the panicked and confused look on our faces, or maybe God whispered in his ear that we were totally lost. Whatever it was, we were extremely grateful. You've heard that men don't like to ask for directions, but thankfully Jim put his ego aside and decided to make an inquiry.

The man didn't know the address or people we were looking for but did say there were numerous gates all up and down the state road we had turned off of. OK, so maybe we turned in at the wrong one. We went back out to the state road and turned north to continue on a way further. To add to the confusion, Jim couldn't remember what the odometer had said when we left the town so he didn't know how far we'd come.

Several miles down the road we saw another Sunset Ranches sign and turned in there. This looked more like what the directions described. A short distance down the dirt road we saw a house and the road curved to the left. Another mile we came to a closed silver gate. I got out of the truck and opened it for Jim to drive through, then closed it behind us. The road was soft dirt and a slight wind was fortunately blowing the dust away from us. 

As I got back into the truck we saw a white F350 dually coming down the road toward us. At least I think it used to be white because it was that same shade of gray that the previous vehicle was. Our truck and RV were also now this same color. The driver pulled over and introduced himself as our host. He'd seen our dust cloud from his house (which was about 2 miles ahead, by the way) and figured he'd come get us. He did warn us to not honk our horn at the cattle in the road because it would have the opposite effect than what we wanted. Turns out that's how he calls them in to be fed. He drives to the top of the ridge, honks and they all come for the feed he drops off. Pavlov's cattle perhaps?

We followed his dust cloud to our camping spot down the road from his house. It was private, about a half mile away from his house, and not another house in sight. But oh, the dust and dirt! In English, Sierra Blanca means white mountain range, though I think it might be referring to the dust. The night sky looks like what you'd see at a planetarium exhibit, pitch black and blanketed with stars. He said there shouldn't be a lot of coyotes right now as he just shot about 40 of them. Good to know. Apparently, the state pays $20 a head but a neighboring rancher pays $50 each. I suppose that's a good side income and helps the ranchers out as well.

Sierra Blanca, TX

In this picture the buildings to the right are where our host lives. The small white spec to the left of them is our RV. As you can see, we were in the middle of nowhere. The vastness of the land is just mind blowing. Our brains can't comprehend how big the world is, but when we experience areas like this we are left with the feeling that we are but a tiny spec in the grand scheme of things. And yet, to God, we are everything.

Our neighbors in Sierra Blanca.
Our bikes on the front rack can double as cow catchers. Who knew?

Tree cholla

The road less traveled

The mountains in the distance are about 80 miles away

Soaptree Yucca

We're off-grid, or dry camping, while we're here, meaning no electricity or water hook-ups. We filled up the 60 gallon fresh water tank before we left our last stop. You'd be surprised how fast you can go through 60 gallons, so we conserve as much as we can. We use paper plates, plastic utensils, cook on the outdoor grill as much as possible, eat things that can be prepared without cooking, save the water that's used while waiting for the hot water to come through for other uses and take bucket baths. If we had to go longer than the 2 days we're here, the rule of thumb for the toilet would be "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." Living without electric hookup means we draw power off the two 12 volt batteries and recharge those when necessary with the generator. Fortunately, we got the battery system repaired while we were in Apache Junction.

We'll be here till Friday morning. We've been invited to our host's house to see his off grid system. He'll also show us how he installed a diesel heating system in his daughter's RV, which is supposed to be much more efficient than the propane furnace we now have. One of the benefits of RVing, besides all the memorable adventures, is all the interesting people you meet and all the things you learn from them. 

But the evil troublemaker in me has a strong desire to honk the horn! 

RVing During Covid and Other Random Stuff

Many people have asked if traveling is safe because of Covid-19. RVing is the perfect social distancing activity. Our RV is self-contained. When we're on the road we have to stop for gas but any lunch or bathroom breaks are done in the RV. We do have to shop occasionally to buy groceries and such, but other than that we socialize with other RVers outside in the fresh air and sunshine, keeping social distancing precautions of course. Even though we do travel around to visit the sights, we still probably have about the same chance of contracting the virus that we would if we had stayed home. Maybe less because we're not wintering in the bitter cold but rather in moderate temperatures with lots of sunshine.

In other news: After Cruz put Sammy in charge of the blog, he's gotten even older, as folks do with the passage of time. At approximately 15 years old he sleeps most of the time and he says he doesn't want the responsibility of keeping up with the blog. He tried to talk Dora into agreeing to the assignment, but she's only 1 1/2 years old and much too distracted. So Sandy will be taking over the responsibility. She did most of the work for Sammy anyway so it won't be too much of an additional task. We hope our readers will be as happy with her writing as they were with Cruz and Sammy!

Jim seems to be suffering from canine paralysis

Dora is such a mama's girl

The Town Too Tough to Die

Gunfight at the OK corral

We left Apache Junction, AZ on Monday, February 1st and headed to our first 2 night stopover in Wilcox, AZ. We found the place easily as our GPS led us right to it. It was definitely secluded - out behind someone's storage shed facing wide open desert. 

It was an hour and a half from Tombstone, AZ so we took a day trip there.

Tombstone has been nicknamed "The town too tough to die." Many movies have used this historic town for on location shooting. A radio broadcast from Feb. 14, 2010, explains the history of the fight between the Earp brothers and Billy Clanton and his gang. The transcript is a very interesting read and you can find it here.

We'd been there before about 20 years ago and nothing seems to have changed. But then, I suppose, that's the point of a historic old western town - being to keep it as much like it was when Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were alive. There were cowboy shootouts, old time saloons with names like Big Nose Kate's Saloon and Doc Holliday's Saloon, and a show at the Crystal Palace Saloon. Most of the town was dog friendly, which was nice not to have to leave them in the truck.

Big Nose Kate was a real person, by the way. According to Wikipedia: "Mary Katherine Honory-Cummings (born as Maria Izabella Magdolna Honory, November 9, 1849 - November 2, 1940), also known as Big Nose Kate, was a Hungarian-born American prostitute, and longtime companion and common-law wife of Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday."

Gordon "Crazy Fingers" Lindquist

 We were able to attend a dinner concert at the Community Center of the RV park we were at. Gordy "Crazy Fingers" Lindquist performed a memorable piano concert of various styles from roaring 20s music to boogie woogie and ragtime to patriotic songs. His humor was equal to his piano skills when he demonstrated playing upside down laying on his back, to playing while the piano was covered with a sheet, and even added leather mittens. 

I wasn't able to record any of his performance because the sound wouldn't have been very good, but if you want to hear his style click here. It's definitely worth the listen. (For those who get this blog in your email, remember you have to go to the actual blog page to access the links or to post a comment.)

Dwarf Car Museum

The Dwarf Car Museum at Flat Tire Springs in Maricopa, AZ is actually small scale working cars, not cars for little people. "Ernie Adams, originator of the dwarf car, has made a name for himself building Dwarf Race Cars and scaled down replicas of classic cars called Dwarf Car Cruisers." 

There's even a hillbilly car

A dwarf boat for the dwarf car

Ginger's Barber Shop

Flat Tire Springs also displays an old filling station from a day gone past and includes "Ginger's Barber Shop, a real working vintage barbershop just as grandpa took you to as a kid. It's not just a haircut, it's an experience!" 

Around the garage that houses the dwarf cars you might see anything from an antique washing machine to a vintage farm tractor on display. There's even an old cemetery! It definitely was an interesting place to spend an afternoon.