Wow, what a pleasant change the Triple T campground in Kerrville, TX is after the horrible SKP Livingston mess. Friendly staff and fellow campers, beautiful views of the Texas Hill Country, large pull-thru sites, exercise room, library, sparkling pool, and even a hot tub! The club house is nice from the outside and very pretty inside with stone arches and floors and a 60" TV with a very comfortable lounge area. Way more to do in this area than I originally thought. I extended my stay to 8 days in order to check out the historic and walking areas of Kerrville, Fredericksburg, and Bandera. The Kerrville winery was a nice surprise. I didn't realize Texas wines would be so good. They have live music at the winery on Saturday's and offer us vets free wine sampling (;=)! Admiral Nimitz grew up in the Fredericksburg area which now hosts a huge museum dedicated to him and the Pacific Theater of WWII. It would take several hours to go through the entire museum in detail, but well worth at least some time for anyone interested in WWII. The town is larger than I thought with lots of shops and restaurants. The Fredericksburg Theater presentation of the Little Shop of Horrors was first class as was the Point Theaters, just outside of Kerrville, presentation of the Big Five-O. Bandera is another neat town in the area, billed as the Cowboy Capital of Texas. They were having their annual Madri Gras festival while I was in the area with lots of quaint shops, music, and a parade about a mile long; lots of floats loaded with folks in Madri Gras costumes, ATV's, tractors, horses, a couple of long horn steers, and even a camel, all decked out for the parade. Several other folks from the campground were also at the parade. I was looking for a good Texas steak and they sure "steered (lol)" me to the right place. The Old Spanish Trail restaurant had great Texas fried steak. I got to chatting with the owner while waiting for a seat. A crazy old lady (nice kind of crazy) who the owner knew well was also a single. I should have known it was going to be fun when he asked me, rather than the gal, if I minded sharing a table. She and I ended up sharing the table with two other gals and a guy as well. This ole' gal Mary was a real hoot who kept us laughing all through our meal. We were looking for a place with music and dance and Mary suggested a nearby bar which we all strolled over to. The 11th Street Cowboy Bar is a hoot. They had a costume contest which was definitely a "ya gotta see it to believe it" event. I was pulled out to dance by several gals I'd never met. What a great time!! This turned out to be a great area to visit. At the cg I also met Art and Yolanda from Anchorage. Art hauls along a beautiful classic Harley Sportster which he fully restored. They promised some good fishing when I get up their way in Alaska.
I wanted to go directly from the Bandera area to Carlsbad, NM but at 9 hours it was to far for me to take my rig in a single day. Pecos, TX was on the way and a SKP park. The managers and workcampers were friendly. Unfortunately, the park has taken on a trailer park feel with all the oil workers staying there. I spent the afternoon and early evening sitting out and chatting with my neighbors. Lots of nice folks at the park but with nothing to do at the park, very little in the area, and the crowded trailer park feel I just stayed the one day. It was an easy drive to The Ranch, the SKP park just outside of Carlsbad, NM. This has got to be the friendliest cg around. They ring a bell as RV'ers arrive and folks seem to come from every direction with smiles and hugs. The cg is in a little oasis in the middle of the desert and the middle of a working cattle ranch. It is nicely laid out with large sites, most with concrete pads, and a large clubhouse. They let me use their maintenance shack to work on my fifth wheel hitch. The hitch had been giving me some trouble when hooking up. While at the campground I took the hitch off, scraped and sanded all the exposed areas, cleaned it off, sprayed it with a silicone coating, oiled and greased it and reinstalled it. The hitch is a fairly simple gadget but if it fails it could cause all kinds of problems (lol). I drove up to Roswell to find the aliens (lol). If you're ever in the area and check out the UFO museum in Roswell, you'll either be convinced "they" landed or at least begin to wonder if they did. It's amazing how many notarized affidavits they have from both eye witnesses and military personal who supposedly had first hand knowledge of the incident. The last time I had been to Carlsbad Caverns was about 35 years ago. They say they have been discovering a new cave within the caverns about once a year. There definitely are lots of new areas since the last time I was here. It took a little over an hour to walk to the bottom of the cavern and about two hours to hike out. The same afternoon I went back into the cavern taking their new adventure tour. On this tour we wore helmets with lights, special gripping gloves and descended on ropes and ladders beneath the lowest cave on the normal tour. There was some climbing and scrambling on our bellies but it wasn't very difficult. It was amazing to see areas that are still being explored. Another day I visited the Living Desert State Park & Zoo. I heartily recommend a long afternoon at this park. It's on a ridge line overlooking the Chihuahua Desert where, on a clear day you can literally see to the Earths horizon. The park is almost completely outdoors and has several desert plantings in their natural settings. They also have many animals, reptiles, and even bald and golden eagles. It was a very pleasant and informative afternoon stroll. This was a great RV cg to stay at. I enjoyed their daily fun and enthusiastic happy hours as well as their weekly men's only breakfast. At the MEWS (Men Excluding Women Supervision, lol), about a dozen of us drove to a great breakfast joint in a town that isn't a town. The oil workers have so much work and people that they created an area in the desert with lots of shops to buy and repair equipment. Among the shops are several restaurants, our breakfast joint is one of them.
The Deming SKP park is similar in many ways to the one in Pecos, TX. The managers and workcampers are friendly enough but not much going on. The sites are nice big pull thrus but the park is right off the I-10 with some constant road noise. My fifth wheel hitch is still not working right. In addition, it's time for the regular 5k maintenance on the truck and I need new tires on the truck as well. Lots of stuff to get done. The cg recommended a truck service place that would work on my hitch. They spent over an hour working on it and finally said, yes, it's broken, but no they couldn't fix it. I called the manufacturer, Reese, and they had me send them photos of the top and underside of the hitch. After viewing the photos they said they'd send me a new hitch head! I've used the hitch for about three years but they said it has a lifetime guarantee. It make it even better, since they didn't have in stock a replacement for my 18,000 lb hitch, they would send me a 25,000 lb one at no charge. Wow!! :=) The local Ford dealer took my truck in, changed the oil and filters and did the usual dealer inspection on the overall vehicle. They also included a free wash. Of course within just a few days with the desert winds blowing you'd never know the truck had been washed (lol). In preparation for the upcoming trip to Alaska, and the couple of thousand miles of dirt and gravel roads, I opted for a set of all terrain tires. That set me back a little but will hopefully pay off in the longer run. While in the Deming SKP cg I managed to get all the service "stuff" done and also met my site neighbors, Dick and Bernice who invited me to stay and hook up at their place in the Upper Peninsular of Michigan whenever I next get up that way.
My drive from the Deming SKP park to the Hi-LoW Ranch also in Deming took a loooong time, it was about 5 miles down the road (lol). This is the national headquarters of Loners on Wheels. It was incredible how welcome I felt as soon as I arrived. If you want to be busy doing things, this is the place. You don't have to be a LoW to camp here and they even accept Passport America!! We had a weekly Saturday night dance to 50's and 60's music. Wow, did that bring back memories. From about my 12th birthday to my 16th, we had a Saturday night dance at my friend Jeff's house. Kids don't have dances anymore and that's a shame. They were great at the time and remain fantastic memories. The cg also has a weekly luncheon at the Pink Store in Mexico, another great time. The owner and staff at the Pink Store really cater to the LoW's. The food is great and the live music was also. The first time at the Pink Store one of the LoW gals grabbed me and we danced to the live Mexican music. The second time there about a dozen of us formed a dance chain bopping all around the restaurant inviting all patrons to join in. It was lots of fun. The daily active happy hour, card games most evenings, and of course hanging out enjoying each others company and the beautiful New Mexico evenings really made this a great stop. The night of the first full moon about a dozen of us sat out drinking and howling at the raising moon. It was beautiful as it rose over the mountains. One day a few of us took a hike in the desert to an old spring along what was the Butterfield Stage Coach trail, about a mile from an Apache ambush site. Another day a few of us sampled wine at a local winery and still another day, another hike looking for the three ghost towns of Cooke, Hadley, and Jose. The desert is very pretty though I'd not want to be walking around here in July or August (lol). Of course all of this was in addition to the Fiesta Rally events. The rally was lots of fun. We divided into four teams of about 10 people each and put on skits. My team did a farce take off on Cinderella. I played one of the ugly step sisters, wearing a huge green wig, beaded necklace, and a dress. Yes, I wore a dress over my jeans rolled up to my knees to expose my sexy legs (lol). We had a rally trip to the City of Rocks State Park and even included a side trip to the Faywood Hot Springs. The City of Rocks is a fascinating park made up of these huge boulders, 40 to 50 feet high, that are scattered in one small site in the middle of an otherwise flat desert. They seem to be out of place like someone just dumped them there. The park rangers say a volcano some 30 miles away in distance and hundreds of thousands of years away in time deposited them here. Still, it's strange that they all would have landed in one relatively small area and not be spaced around the surrounding desert. The hot springs was a fantastic way to end this day. The rally group brought lots of wine which we enjoyed while soaking in the natural water from the springs. They actually have to cool the water before running it into the soak area. The natural water flows from the ground at about 139 degrees. This was a great rally and a very friendly park. I'd like to come back here again.
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