Snowbird Route, Part III
If we had a small, light rig I would not even bother with hooking up the sewer hose for a one night layover. But we don't have anything resembling a light rig and we are close to our limit on the kingpin weight so I do what I can to get every last drop of water weight off-loaded before heading out. With only one night's waste water there is hardly enough to make it worth the time it takes to do all the hooking and unhooking of hoses. There is usually barely enough to fill the full length of the dump hose but that is still about 200 lbs between both the tanks. So dumping the tanks is time that needs to be spent regardless of how little there is.
Today will be a day spent exclusively on I-10, another long drive through the desert broken at about a third of the way through by passing through El Paso.
El Paso is the largest metropolitan area on the US/Mexican border at a population of about 700,000. It is a remote location for a city of its size with Albuquerque to its north 270 miles, Tucson to its west at 315 miles and Midland/Odessa 285 miles to the east. Being a resident of El Paso is a lot like living on an island, only instead of water being the isolator it is desert. If you are going to do something outside of El Paso, it is a journey to do it.
We passed through El Paso about noon on a work day and the traffic was a little tight right in the middle of town where I-10 makes some sweeping turns with closely spaced exit/entrance ramps. When towing the RV I normally stay to the right on multi-lane highways but today there was way too much merging and aggressive lane changing in those right lanes. I and most of the truck drivers were moving left and trying to stay clear of the auto ballet that was going on in the right lanes.
It did not take long to get clear of El Paso and on the east side of the city we pulled into our favorite truck stop, Flying J for some lunch. Once back on the road Cyndee got on the phone and started trying to secure a spot to stay in Fort Stockton. There are quite a few RV parks in Fort Stockton but several of them are little more than dirt parking lots where work campers set up for extended periods while on a job. But we had looked up a park on the internet last night and had our fingers crossed that they had an opening. Our luck was good and we got a spot at Hilltop RV.
The name of this park is very appropriate. It is literally on top of a hill out on the west side of Fort Stockton. They were pretty full so we ended up with a spot on the back row of the park, a nice pull-thru with a cute little fence between us and the neighbors on each side that screened the hook-ups from view.
Right out our back window was the fence to the property line of the park. We had a great view of the desert. And speaking of neighbors, we had a bit of a strange experience while pulling in. While getting out to check the position of the rig and unhitch we became aware that one of our neighbors, a couple about ten or fifteen years our senior, were taking an intense interest in us.
At one point when we were both out of the truck the woman spoke up and said she told her husband that he had to get out here and see this. We soon learned that what "this" was was our New Horizons RV and Classy Chassis truck. We had been pretty busy and had not noticed but that is the exact same combination that they had! The odds are pretty slim that one would see two of these combinations, ever, unless you hung out at the New Horizons factory. There is just not that many of us and we are spread out all over the country. But for two of us to randomly end up side-by-side in a little desert town in southwest Texas is pretty long odds. After getting unhitched and hooked up we were invited over for a visit and we spent about an hour talking about mutual acquaintances in the New Horizons "family". We were headed in different directions, they were on their way west to San Diego the next morning and we would be going south to Big Bend Headquarters in Panther Junction in a couple of days. Had they been around another day or so I could have foreseen a dinner at a local restaurant with them.
Today will be a day spent exclusively on I-10, another long drive through the desert broken at about a third of the way through by passing through El Paso.
El Paso is the largest metropolitan area on the US/Mexican border at a population of about 700,000. It is a remote location for a city of its size with Albuquerque to its north 270 miles, Tucson to its west at 315 miles and Midland/Odessa 285 miles to the east. Being a resident of El Paso is a lot like living on an island, only instead of water being the isolator it is desert. If you are going to do something outside of El Paso, it is a journey to do it.
We passed through El Paso about noon on a work day and the traffic was a little tight right in the middle of town where I-10 makes some sweeping turns with closely spaced exit/entrance ramps. When towing the RV I normally stay to the right on multi-lane highways but today there was way too much merging and aggressive lane changing in those right lanes. I and most of the truck drivers were moving left and trying to stay clear of the auto ballet that was going on in the right lanes.
It did not take long to get clear of El Paso and on the east side of the city we pulled into our favorite truck stop, Flying J for some lunch. Once back on the road Cyndee got on the phone and started trying to secure a spot to stay in Fort Stockton. There are quite a few RV parks in Fort Stockton but several of them are little more than dirt parking lots where work campers set up for extended periods while on a job. But we had looked up a park on the internet last night and had our fingers crossed that they had an opening. Our luck was good and we got a spot at Hilltop RV.
The name of this park is very appropriate. It is literally on top of a hill out on the west side of Fort Stockton. They were pretty full so we ended up with a spot on the back row of the park, a nice pull-thru with a cute little fence between us and the neighbors on each side that screened the hook-ups from view.
Right out our back window was the fence to the property line of the park. We had a great view of the desert. And speaking of neighbors, we had a bit of a strange experience while pulling in. While getting out to check the position of the rig and unhitch we became aware that one of our neighbors, a couple about ten or fifteen years our senior, were taking an intense interest in us.
At one point when we were both out of the truck the woman spoke up and said she told her husband that he had to get out here and see this. We soon learned that what "this" was was our New Horizons RV and Classy Chassis truck. We had been pretty busy and had not noticed but that is the exact same combination that they had! The odds are pretty slim that one would see two of these combinations, ever, unless you hung out at the New Horizons factory. There is just not that many of us and we are spread out all over the country. But for two of us to randomly end up side-by-side in a little desert town in southwest Texas is pretty long odds. After getting unhitched and hooked up we were invited over for a visit and we spent about an hour talking about mutual acquaintances in the New Horizons "family". We were headed in different directions, they were on their way west to San Diego the next morning and we would be going south to Big Bend Headquarters in Panther Junction in a couple of days. Had they been around another day or so I could have foreseen a dinner at a local restaurant with them.
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