# Westward, ho!

Last modified by Kelly Morse Johnson on 2021/06/04 22:09
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Leaving the Memorial Day partiers at Willis Creek, as well as the terrible traffic jams in Austin, it was time to start heading toward Rockhound State Park in New Mexico. We calculated that we should take 3 days to get there (trying to travel around 250 miles each day, which isn't a lot, however it's a comfortable distance for us).

We created RV Park reservations at Mertzon RV Park in Mertzon, TX (a very small place we found via Google Maps, it doesn't have a web page, and you can only make a reservation by calling their listed phone number), and for the second day at Southern Star RV Park, in Van Horn, TX.

We packed up at Willis Creek, had yet another breakfast (which couldn't be beat!), and drove away into the west!

The drive was rather uneventful, which is good. We've been having too many "eventful" days lately and could just use some good, old fashioned, peace and quiet!

Arriving at Mertzon RV Park, we didn't see any obvious office or anyone to greet us, plus we were never given a site number! Calling the same phone number we used for making the reservation got us in touch with Joe, however. He said he was out of town but we should just pick whatever site we wanted, so we picked site #1, right up front and away from everyone else. Then, looking on WiFi, we found the "Mertzon RV Park" signal, but didn't know the password, so we called Joe yet again asking for that! He told us, and we got all devices back onto the Internet. Once getting on the net, we found that the WiFi signal strength here was great and the throughput was really good also!

Having established our new home for the evening, we went for the usual walk along Spring Creek, which is right next to the RV Park.

Coming back to our trailer (with a small threat of rain), we had a nice snack and watched the PBS Newshour over the WiFi, which worked really well! What a difference it makes to have a good, usable, WiFi!

Monday, it was time to head to Van Horn, TX. It was a lazy morning and we had a late start. (Maybe we've been spoiled by having visited a lot of campgrounds with checkout times like 2-3pm!) As we headed out, the weather reports were saying that we could be traveling into some rain, but for the last week or so, all rain had been traveling west to east and we were traveling east to west. It would be interesting to see just how much rain we would encounter.

In the afternoon, we did, indeed, encounter rain. It wasn't much at first, but began to get harder and the wind was picking up as well. Surprisingly, however, the rain actually only lasted about 30 minutes and then it was done! I guess that's what happens when you and the rain are traveling in opposite directions!

After the rain, we noticed that it was clearly more windy and the car & trailer were being pushed around quite a lot. We also notice that our MPG was down quite a bit, so it appeared as though the wind was probably head-on. After an hour or so of this, however, the MPG started climbing. It seems we probably went through a front and the wind direction had completely changed, now coming from behind and helping us!

We arrived at Van Horn with no incidents, checked in, drove into our pull-through site, hooked everything up, and took our customary walk. The winds here are rather strong. It's a good thing they're mostly coming from the direction of the front of the trailer. If they were coming from the side, we would be bounced around a lot more than we are! Also, the site is very level, so we just left the trailer hitched to the car, which helps some. (Remember, we're missing one of the stabilization jacks and thus only have 3 feet!)

Since we were in the middle of town, there weren't many places to walk but we ended up walking a few blocks down to the Dollar General Store (they're everywhere!) to get a few supplies. Returning to the trailer, we had supper, used the camp showers (they even had fluffy bath mats!) in preparation for 3 days of playing in the dirt at Rockhound Park, watched the news (using cellular, because, once again, the park has "Great WiFi", but it stopped working, possibly due to the rather high winds of the evening), and went to bed.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), we make the last (slightly smaller) trip to Rockhound State Park, leaving Texas at last, and entering the Mountain Timezone (which is amazingly just a few miles down the road).

(By the way, if you've been reading this blog and enjoying it, please leave a comment!)

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Created by Richard Johnson on 2021/05/30 19:24

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