Heading Home

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Lois and I worked really hard getting the cabin ready for the winter and packing the motor home for the trip home. Our friends John and Ferne came up from Santa Fe on Friday and helped immensely. John and I (but mostly John) were able to cap the water line in the cellar that led to the damaged faucet in the bathtub so we didn't have to shut off the hot water in the rest of the cabin. That will be a big help until we are able to repair or replace the damaged faucet. John also took on the task of looking for parts to fix the faucet. I've had so many friends helping me with cabin projects that I'm beginning to feel a bit like Tom Sawyer. The photos show some of the inside of the cabin as we were working toward getting it ready to close up.

On Saturday, I put up most of the security shutters and finished on Sunday afternoon. I also drained the hot water heaters, shut off all the water, put RV anti-freeze in all of the drains, shut off electricity and propane, and made the place as secure as possible. We spent the night in our motor home on Sunday, finished up a couple of last minute items early Monday morning and headed out a little after 9:00 a.m.

After dropping off our rental car in Santa Fe, we continued South on US 285 through Clines Corners, Encino and Vaughn, NM, to Roswell. We stopped early, and I phoned in for a committee meeting at Midway UMC, our home church in Douglasville, GA. While I was on the phone (sitting in a parking lot at WalMart), Lois did a little grocery shopping. After the meeting, we drove through Roswell and found an RV park on the south side, where we set up camp for the night. The weather was a little threatening, but I was able to grill some hamburgers outside, and we even had our dinner on a picnic table beside the motor home. Soon afterward, however, the proverbial bottom dropped out, and it rained a lot for a long time. Some time during the night the rain stopped, but we could see evidence of high water all day today.

For some reason, we have a problem pulling out before 9:00 a.m., even when I get up around 6:30 a.m. This morning was no different. We left Roswell around nine with the intention of taking in Carlsbad Caverns by early afternoon and continuing on to Alpine, TX. We made good time to Carlsbad and arrived at the National Park around 11:30. That's where our plans went awry. The Park Service is doing extensive renovations on the Visitor Center, and the overnight storms had flooded some of the elevator shafts that lead down into the cave. Because of this, they were evacuating the caves about the time that we arrived and would be making a decision around 12:30 when they would start allowing more people into the cave. Since Lois and I both have been to Carlsbad multiple times, we decided that we would push on and not chance being delayed further with no assurance of entry at all.

We had lunch in the motor home, and reluctantly left Carlsbad a little after noon. We continued South under cloudy, windy skies and drove though Guadalupe Mountains NP. We made a couple of brief stops for pictures and a visit to the Visitors Center. Soon after crossing the Texas State Line, we turned South on Highway 54, one of the most desolate stretches I've ever seen. In almost 60 miles from the turn-off to Van Horn, we met exactly 6 cars. You could also see numerous spots where water had covered the road earlier in the day or yesterday. You should be able to tell from these pictures how the weather has been today. It only deteriorated the further South and East that we went, to the point that shortly before arriving in Alpine, we were driving through "pea soup" fog.

I deliberately routed us through Alpine because I found it to be such a neat little town when Lois and I visited Big Bend NP a couple of years ago. Thankfully it hasn't changed in the intervening years. When we got to town and located a campsite, we splurged and ate at the wonderful Edelweiss Restaurant and Brewery in the old Holland Hotel in downtown Alpine. What a treat! We were even seated right in front of a guitar-mandolin duo who begin playing Willie Nelson- style country songs soon after we started our meal. I don't see how life could get much better than eating a Zeguener Snitzle (sp?), drinking a beer brewed on-site, and hearing "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind?"

Now we're wrapping up the day and making plans for the next couple of days. Tomorrow night we should be somewhere just West of San Antonio, and Thursday night we'll be in Houston where we've made plans to visit with Lois' sister Barbara and my childhood friend Weir Kyle.

More later.