TX Archives - Our View From The Road

Day 10: Trains, Plains & Automobiles

In the canyon we were sheltered from the sun’s earliest rays and the morning was brisk. We completed our morning routine, vacated our campsite and dumped the tanks (no mess on me).

Our route took us North into Amarillo where we again joined I-40West towards New Mexico. We soon passed the ‘Cadillac Ranch’ where we had stopped last year. The winds were light being early and there were many people adding to the spray paint on the cars embedded in the field.

We stopped again in Adrian, TX to visit the Midpoint Café and enjoy an early lunch. A 50’s style roadside café, they serve the BEST homemade hamburgers we’ve ever tasted.

As we leave Adrian, the landscape begins to change rapidly towards open rangeland. There are very few trees and endless expanses of grasslands.

We head towards New Mexico but stop just before entering at a small mostly vacated town called Glenrio, NM. It technically just across the state line and has 1 visibly operating business, a cannabis shop (now legal in NM).

We didn’t stop for that however, we stopped to look at a now abandoned Post Office and Cafe. Ghosts of a simpler time along old Route 66.

As we head across New Mexico’s barren landscape the temperatures rise and hit 29C by early afternoon. The A/C is deployed. The pictures below don’t do the vastness of the spaces justice and at times you really wonder if you’ll reach to ridge on the distance and what could be beyond? Yep, more trains, plains & automobiles.

Below is a collection of pictures from the day. The sixth picture is of a mountain that we felt reminded us of ‘Jabba-the-Hutt’ from Star Wars. Yep, it was a long day in the sun.

We stopped in Grants, NM at the KOA Journey as a place to rest for the evening. To remind us that we are now at a higher elevation, the chip bag has puffed up due to the lower air pressure. Must remember to be careful opening other containers! (ask me how I know!)

Tomorrow we head into Arizona and make a few more Route 66 stops.

Day 9: Amongst the Mesquite

A short post today as we are staying in Palo Duro State Park for another day; however, we have to change sites as this one is booked by someone else for tonight.

We slept in, a little, until 7:30am and started the day with a cup of coffee as we gazed out upon the canyon walls. It’s 4 degrees outside and sunny. As the trails in the park are closed due to recent heavy rains I went for a short walk along the park roadways. The birds were singing and the breeze was gently blowing (the reason it’s so cold).

We decide to have a full egg, bacon, fried potatoes & fried bread breakfast. A real treat from the yoghurt and banana we have been starting each day with. It was delicious.

Out of the wind the sun is warm, the views spectacular. I’m writing yesterday’s blog post when Barb reminds me that we need to go to the gatehouse and get our ticket for tonight’s site. The drive takes about 20min, we get the ticket and turn around to drive back down into the canyon to our new site (#007) in the Hackberry campground.

The site is a drive through intended for longer rigs than our van but it’s again level and dry. The biggest difference is that we are now near a river lined with Mesquite trees that are just leafing out and we don’t have the majestic views down the canyon we had from yesterdays site. The red stone cliffs still tower above us and we hope the sunset will be as stunning as last night.

I tried the showers in the park and rate them a 4/10. No private change area and shower curtains past their prime. The water temperature and supply was plentiful and the shower itself moderately clean. I used it in early afternoon ahead of the influx of new campers that can’t check-in until 3:00pm as this gave me the best chance of having no-one join me in the shower room. It worked.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent reading at our campsite and enjoying the warmth of the sun out of the still cool breeze.

A quiet evening lies ahead and hopefully a restful night. Tomorrow we head into New Mexico.

Day 8: Texas bound

It rained last night. Not a light Spring shower, nope, a Midwest rolling, windy, thunderstorm. Welcome to Oklahoma folks. The wind jostled the van and woke us both several times throughout the night, but by the morning a light shower was all that remained. The rain was supposed to last the day in El Reno, luckily we were heading West into Texas and would drive out of the rain mid morning.

We were on the road by around 10:00am, enough time for a relaxing breakfast as we watched others depart.

Out on the highway the spray from passing vehicles was bad but as stated above, the rain wrapped up mid-morning and the sun started to appear through the breaks in the clouds showing us the magnificence of the plains.

The temperature climbed into the low 20’s as we headed further West and we found ourselves turning down the heat closer and closer to the point of turning on the A/C. We didn’t, but it was close. The sun blaring in the windows on the South-side of the van really warmed the vehicle.

Nearing the Texas border we took a short detour off of I-40 and onto the historic Route 66 through the towns of Erick, OK and Texola, OK. Erick is still fairly well populated, as a small town but we couldn’t see much in the way of an active commercial district, just many boarded-up buildings.

Texola however is practically a ghost-town. Wikipedia lists the town as having 42 residents in 2022, we saw none of them.

We stopped in Texola as Barb had read that an old one-room jailhouse still survived from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. We found it on a back street made of concrete blocks and a concrete roof. It’s as unspectacular as the town, but here it is with some other pictures. The list of names is evidently the school graduating class list from 1938; however, no sign of a schoolhouse remains and one wonders why it was engraved in stone and now stands besides the jail.

Returning to the I-40 we soon entered Texas and stopped in a rest stop to have lunch in the van.

Arriving in Amarillo we took the ring road around the South of the city to Canyon, TX to top off with fuel and groceries before heading to Palo Duro State Park where we will be camping for the next two nights. We had visited last year and did some hiking but this year have been able to successfully snag a couple of sites courtesy of the Milddogs and their Campnab subscription.

Our first night is in the Mesquite campground at the Southern-most end of the canyon. The site (#090) is perfect. Quiet with amazing views (see below) and level-enough that we don’t need to add blocks to level the van.

We enjoyed a quiet afternoon relaxing in the hammocks and made a Texas steak dinner before watching the sunset and the stars appear overhead. We’re both looking forward to a quiet day tomorrow before moving to a second campsite within the park.

‘night Y’all.

Day 41: The start of our drive home

So here we are, the beginning of the end. Today we begin our drive towards Ontario & home. It will take a few days, but compared to the past few weeks our pace will seem meteoric as our goal is to cover distance and not dawdle about.

The sunrise was beautiful as we watched through the Mesquite trees while eating breakfast. We packed up the van and headed out. The Bisons politely congregated near the entrance to the park allowing us to take some final pictures.

We headed North across country towards the I-40E. This route had us driving through some small towns that for the most part are now almost ghost towns as most of the Main Street stores are sadly vacant and boarded up. One of the towns, Memphis, TX has all of its downtown streets paved with cobblestones which have it a really charming feeling, that is until you see all of the vacant shops. Sad.

Once on the I-40E we quickly cross into Oklahoma. Near Hydro, OK we stop to look at our last Route 66 site, Lucille’s gas station was operated by Lucille Hamons from 1941 until her death on August 18, 2000, the site was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

We are accompanied by strong crosswinds as we cross Oklahoma; however, the grasslands slowly disappear and by Oklahoma City many more trees can be seen including now large leaf deciduous trees and larger conifers. Large-scale farming has been replaced by smaller farms interspersed throughout the wooded hillsides. By the time we get to the Arkansas state line, the farms have mostly disappeared (as have the winds) and now the scenery is forested hillsides amongst the lakes and waterways that will become the Ozarks.

After almost 9hrs on the road, we pull off at Russellville, AR and pull into the Cracker Barrel parking lot where we will have dinner and spend the night.

Day 40: Caprock Canyon State Park 2

I’m up at 6:45am to turn on the propane and then the furnace. This means going outside at 6C in my shorts. Brrr. However, the warmth from the furnace feels nice and by 7:30am the inside of the van is a toasty 18C. Time to make some coffee.

We move from the Wild Horse campground to the regular campground today but first it’s time for eggs and sausage cooked on the griddle. We figure this will be the last griddle cooked meal for this trip so a little extra time is spent cleaning after we’ve eaten.

We pack most items into the passenger area of the van as the move to the new campground is only a few kilometers. Once ready, we back out of our site and leave the campground turning away from our destination as we want to briefly explore the deeper areas of the park. Some of the road is very steep and not accessible to those with trailers. The tenting campgrounds look nice but remote; however, they have fantastic views of the red canyon walls.

We see a few Bison grazing near the road and taking a drink in a lake.

We visit the park office to get our tag for the new campsite but we can’t occupy it until 12:00pm. Off to the showers! Ahhhh, hot water. This is nice. We both are less smelly as we arrive at our new campsite.

We’ll only be here for the day and overnight, but we both agree that this is the nicest state park campsite we’ve had all trip.

We have lunch and go for a walk along the canyon edge and take a few photos. We see a herd of Bison not far away, but watch them to ensure they’re not looking our way and potentially blocking our return to the van. No problems, they’re busy grazing and are far enough say that we pass without them paying us any heed.

Sitting under the shade structure writing this and I just got blasted by a dust devil that blew right through our site. Might need to clean the van out again as the door is open!

We spend the remainder of the afternoon planning the last few days of our trip and chatting with friends and family.

Day 39: Caprock Canyon State Park 1

A warm night last night and neither of us had a good sleep initially. Then the temperature dropped and we both slept really well into the early morning. Uncharacteristically we didn’t wake until around 7:30am.

I decided to go for a walk along the Wild Horse trail and explore the lower portion of the canyon. Initially the trail starts at the top of the canyon wall with some lovely views across and along the canyon. It then descends down into the canyon where it wanders along the bottom crossing a dry riverbed several times.

It was while descending into one of these crossings I turned and saw a small herd of Bison. They were about 100m from me but the bull saw me and turned to look at me. I stood still and took a few photos before quietly retreating back along the trail I had walked.

Returning back to the campsite I passed Barb who was going on her own exploration. She found some interesting plants to take pictures of.

We cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast and settled in for a quiet day of reading and relaxation. I finished the book that I had picked up in Albuquerque and Barb finished what was her 6th book of this trip.

We watched as others left the park and new neighbors replaced them. We even witnessed a couple riding horses towards the canyon as they passed through the campground.

The winds returned around dinner time and we were forced to eat in the van to avoid having Texan dust added to our meal as a seasoning. It sure is windy in these parts.

Last night and tonight we are staying in the Wild Horse campground of the park. It is an area designated for folks who camp with their horses as each site has a corral for Horses and is fenced from having the Bison wandering through the sites (evidently Horses and Bison do not get along). We chose to stay in this area because there was no available sites in the regular campground. Tomorrow we move to the regular campground within the park where the sites have electrical connections as well as water. There are also showers which we are very much looking forward to using.

That’s it for today, check back tomorrow to see what we get up to.

Day 38: Palo Duro Canyon State Park

The winds died down overnight and it was calm by the time we woke. Today we will stop at the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We had originally wanted to camp there but they had no sites and thus we will become day visitors instead.

We’re leaving the winery at about 9:30am and the state park is only a 20 minute drive. There’s a small line up of cars entering the park so it only takes a few minutes and we’re in.

Our first stop is an overlook that provides a picturesque vista of the canyon. We also visit the gift shop and interpretive center to learn a little of how the canyons in this part of Texas were formed.

Access into the canyon is down a steep 10% grade with several switchbacks. At the bottom the main park road encircles the canyon bottom and is several miles in length.

It is hot. 31C hot. I’ve heard people say “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat”. OK, but hot is still hot so sunscreen, hats and bottles of water are a must as we set out to do a little walking on some of the trails.

We choose an easy trail that is near the river and only about 1 mile in length. We took off down another trail by accident and when done had walked over 2 miles with little to no shade. Oops.

For lunch we parked the van in one of the many picnic spots that have shelters over the tables to provide shade. Lunch was yummy and a nice reward for completing the hike.

Leaving the canyon we head southeast towards our next camping spot at Caprock Canyon State Park in Quitaque (pronounced Kitty-quay). On the way from Canyon to Quitaque the landscape changed from flat (really flat) agricultural grasslands to less flat central Texas plains where there are trees and things seem to be much greener than up on the grasslands above the canyons.

We are staying at Caprock for 3 nights and plan on hiking some of the trails and relaxing. This is our last ‘destination’ for this trip. On Monday we begin our eastward drive toward Ontario. I will blog along the way, but before then come back and see what we get up to here at Caprock.

Day 37: We get our kicks on Route 66

Up and at ‘em. The sun’s up and so are we, ready for a day of driving eastward out of New Mexico and into Texas.

Today Barb has decided to drive our campervan leaving me to be passenger and photographer. The other rigs that stayed at the brewery we us left at about 8:30am and we headed out by 9:00am as is our habit.

We start by joining I-40E and heading toward Santa Rosa. The highway seems extra busy with truck traffic as the scenery slowly changes from that of the high desert towards the central plains.

We take a small detour into the town of Tucumcari, NM. This detours takes us onto historic US-66. Although the town is surviving it is clear that it has seen more affluent times when Route 66 was the primary east-west route that ran directly through town.

After a couple of hours we leave New Mexico and enter Texas. The sky seems larger as the land flattens to become the grasslands of the plains. Again, we leave the interstate and head into Adrian, TX. We stop at the Midway Cafe that sits at the mathematical midpoint of the historic US-66. Halfway between Los Angeles and Chicago. We take a few photos outside at a sign that marks this point and then we head into the cafe for lunch.

The Midpoint Cafe has operated in this location for decades under various names and owners. It is decorated as a 1950’s diner and the menu reflects this era containing hamburgers, fried bologna sandwiches, hot dogs, milkshakes and homemade pies for desert.

We settle on each having a cheeseburger and Coke Zero. The owner is working in the kitchen and is delayed on a complicated order ahead of ours and so instructs the waitress to offer us a complimentary piece of pie! Barb chooses Chocolate & Peanut Butter which tastes amazing. When the burgers are delivered we they are large and look delicious, we are not disappointed, in fact we both agree that the burgers are the best that we have tasted in a very long time.

Returning to the interstate we notice that the West Texas winds have returned and Barb is working hard to keep the van in our lane. Nearing Amarillo we pull off to top off the gas tank before driving a short distance to what has to be the weirdest stop along Route 66, the Cadillac ranch. Ten 1950s-era Cadillacs have been partially buried hood-first in a field and visitors are encouraged to use spray paint to decorate the cars. We do not bring paint, only our cameras to capture the absurd art installation.

Our last driving segment takes us around the western edge of Amarillo towards Canyon, TX where we drive to the Bar-Z winery where we are staying the night. We enjoy a flight of wine and purchase a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to enjoy on another day. The evening is enjoyed relaxing in the van.

Day 16: from wineries to refineries

The wind let up around midnight and the cool air arrived bringing with it a heavy morning dew and fog down in the valley. We slept in. We ate a simple breakfast. We organized the van for a day of travel. We vacated the overlook parking area at 10:00am.

Looking back up the valley to where we stayed

We headed West down the SR-290 towards Sheffield, TX. Stopping briefly at the Fort Lancaster visitor center to take a photo of the fort ruins. Sheffield is a depressing, small town that time appears to have forgotten about around the time the I-10 bypassed the community.

Returning to the I-10W we continued toward Fort Stockton, TX where we stopped at the visitor center. The town mascot is a large Roadrunner statue that stands across the road from the visitor center. The visitor center itself is in a renovated train station that stands beside a SantaFe rail line that ran into Mexico. It’s no longer used.

We tried to procure a coffee at the local McDonalds but it was being overrun by teenagers when we arrived and so we chose to move on.

Leaving Fort Stockton our route turned NorthWest on SR-285 towards Pecos. We were entering Texas oil country. Everywhere we looked there are oil pumps, storage tanks, pumping stations and refineries. The oddest sight to us were the workers camps setup along the side of the highway that consisted of rows of RV shelters and temporary housing structures. The road was undergoing a major reconstruction and as such there were many reduced speed zones.

Arriving in Pecos, TX we stopped at the Pecos Museum where we parked in the RV parking area and made lunch in the van. Afterwards we walked about and took some photos around the museum.

The SR-285 North of Pecos was also under construction right to the New Mexico border, which, because of construction was marked by a bump in the road. No “Welcome to New Mexico” sign. Construction continued into NM however, reduced speed limits of 45mph instead of the Texan reduced speed limits of 65mph meant much slower progress was made. Eventually we turned from the SR-285 cross country towards Whites City.

We are trying for the first time camping on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. This is US Gov’t owned land and is open for public use. Camping is considered ‘off-grid’ as there are no amenities or even paved roads. Site selection is on a first come first served basis. We have chosen a spot about 500yds away from the highway on a dirt track in the middle of the desert. It is windy, but peaceful. Yes, there is some limited cell phone coverage. We plan on staying here for a couple of days.

Take care everyone.

Day 15: Head West they said

A bit of tidying up and a quick breakfast and we were ready for the road. Oh wait, the water tank needs filling and the other tanks need emptying. Ok, so 10:00am and we’re driving off of our site to the dump station, no waiting, we’re #1. No no issues, time to head west.

Our journey took us out of Austin westward on SR-290 and started as multi-lane highway that all-to-shortly ended at a construction zone. The 290 is an older highway that weaves its way westward across the state. After many traffic lights we were in the country, it was still cloudy and humid after the recent rain. The city had fallen away to Texas Hill Country, the flora was changing to be more tolerant of drought with the trees becoming fewer and the grasslands dominating the landscape.

Johnson City, TX. Not a place we stopped in but clearly the beginning of Texas wine country. Between Johnson City and Fredericksburg there are hundreds of wineries and a few distilleries. Some with interesting names, some trying to sound European, and a few just off the wall, like “Fat Ass Brewery” (where the ass is shown as an outline of a mule). Typically Texan, the wineries and tasting rooms are enormous, some even castle-like in size and appearance so it must be making financial sense to grow grapes and make wine in Texas.

Eventually the SR-290 merged into the I-10W. The surroundings were now clearly desert-like as there are few trees and lots of low scrub. Texans like driving fast, the speed limit is 80mph (130kph) which most seem to exceed. Not us, 75mph is plenty for the van, especially today as the winds have come up and are blowing across the highway not allowing me to relax at all. The temperature is now 29C (up from 17C earlier this morning). No, we’re not complaining of the heat but a little moderation might be nice.

We stopped in Junction, TX to have lunch in a park next to a river. It was warm and allowed us to dry out a few items while we ate.

We stop in Ozona, TX for provisions and fuel. The grocery store, Lowe’s Market, is a typical smaller town grocery store and Barb had some challenges finding exactly what she wanted. However, we will not starve. We decided that Sonic takeout would suffice for dinner and once acquired we were back on the road to our destination.

Fort Lancaster Scenic Overlook (on the old SR-290) had been recommended to us by the Milddogs based on their van trip last year. It’s a picnic area that overlooks an amazing valley. We arrived and chose our spot, there are two other vehicles that look like they’ve settled in for the evening. We ate dinner and then relaxed waiting for sunset. The sunset did not disappoint, the sky was clear except for a few very high clouds that turned a wonderful shade of orange as the sun slipped below the horizon.

We settled down in the van for the night having been joined in the parking lot by two more campervans. As the sky darkened, the stars began to show themselves and what a show. The sky is pitch black, there is no light intrusion from civilization, the stars are brilliant.

Good night all.

P.S. The Milddogs to which we have referred in several of these posts are our friends from home. They too have a campervan and have been traveling about Texas for the past few weeks. Our paths crossed and so we cross-posted in our respective blogs. Please give them a read if you have some time.