Installment #6, 2007

Las Cruces, New Mexico – we toured a Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, http://spectre.nmsu.edu:16080/frhm/museum/museum.lasso, 3000 years of New Mexico agricultural history, including a leather working shop for making saddles. Tony & I each tried our luck with a small piece of leather which we stamped with our initials. Sat through a presentation on "Dowsing" by a civil engineer – half-way believable at first, but then got ridiculous (see picture of Tony using dowsing rods after presentation). We watched an exhibition by a blacksmith – Sharon got a nail made by the blacksmith (picture). Also saw 1897 Sears, Roebuck catalog, bale of cotton, dairy cow information, Mogollon pithouse, and a horse decorated in beads (took 100 volunteers two years to complete (see picture)), long horn cattle, and much more.

Just inside the Texas border along Interstate 10, we saw gas at $1.97, unfortunately when it was time to fill up, the gas was back up to $2.25. We were pushed by the wind all across New Mexico and part of Texas, so got better gas mileage on the new motorhome than we ever did on the old one.

After going a whole 70 miles in one day, we stayed at a rest stop. Signs on picnic tables "do not sleep on benches or tables". Next morning we saw a bum going through the garbage – now we know the reason for the sign (picture). Also saw our first live roadrunner (picture). If that’s not a good enough picture, take a look at the next picture of the "world’s largest roadrunner" found in Fort Stockton (picture) (11 feet tall, 22 feet wide).

On our drive towards Fort Stockton, we were parallel with the Rio Grande and all the little Mexican villages – again we saw helicopters in the sky and border patrol vehicles everywhere. Encountered a stop on Interstate 10 by border patrol with one dog sniffing for drugs.
Arrived at Fort Stockton http://www.tourtexas.com/fortstockton Wal-mart (another night with over 20 motorhomes making use of the parking lot). Sights seen - oil derrick, oldest house in area (supposed to be haunted), picnic benches made of stone, wagon used in John Wayne (picture) movies (Comancheros and Undefeated), bench with wagon wheels as sides, chimneys made of brick, cemetery with metal pieces with cross cutouts for some grave markers (picture), cross cutouts used as other grave markers. Just 20 miles east of Fort Stockton we finally saw some working oil wells, and flattop mountains (buttes) taking advantage of wind with hundreds of wind chargers.

Next morning we drove through Ozona, Texas (Crocket county), described by the town as the "Biggest Little Town in the World". Stopped for a look at Davy Crocket memorial statue in the town square. Will probably hear more about him at the Alamo in San Antonio down the road.
Our next overnight stay was in Kerrville, Texas. Here we found another replica of Stonehenge – this one called Stonehenge II, with some emphasis on Easter Island http://www.alfredshepperd.com/Stonehenge/main.html Stone must be plentiful here – we saw stone suppliers everywhere and it seemed every home was made with the stone. Appropriately, on Valentine’s Day, we toured the visitor center of James Avery, jewelry craftsman http://secure.jamesavery.com/about/index.jsp We watched craftsman making the world famous jewelry.

On our travels we saw a mini pickup advertising Red Bull Energy Drink (see picture); quite a few of the wind generators being transported down Interstate 10 (see picture). We calculated it takes six trucks to haul one wind generator. Parked behind us in Wal-Mart was the strangest motorhome I had ever seen….Tony recognized it as a Renault. On closer inspection, we discovered it was licensed in Great Britain (see picture).

On day 48 of our trip we arrived at yet another Wal-Mart – this one is perfect – access to Wi-Fi, a laundromat across the parking lot, cheap gas at the Wal-Mart station, great TV reception. We discovered how to find Rest stops with dump stations and water refills, so are pretty well set for our trip into Houston next. We spent Day 49 touring San Antonio. Of course, our first stop was the Alamo http://thealamo.org/main.html. Notice the picture of a huge old Oak tree on the Alamo grounds. We loved the river walk in downtown San Antonio (see picture). We stopped at a special effects show (picture) at Aztec on the river http://www.aztecontheriver.com/. We walked to the La Villita Historic Arts Village (San Antonio’s first neighborhood). Tony wants Jonathan to see some chairs we saw there (see picture) – selling price over $1000. We toured the Gunther House, located on a bend of the San Antonio River (founder of Pioneer Flour Mills http://www.pioneermills.com/AboutUs/History.aspx ). We took a picture of the flour mill with the turrets on top. Also saw the Tower of the Americas http://www.toweroftheamericas.com/.
We have now arrived in Houston, Texas, Friday, February 16. This is the most traffic we have seen since leaving the Los Angeles, California, area. More pictures and blog information in another week or so after we get out of this mess. Thanks again for all the phone calls, emails, and blog messages.

~~Sharon and Tony