Our Travel Blog

No heating needed last night, and a warm day climbing up to 22°C.

This morning was spent securing the camera wiring underneath the trailer now that the inside wiring is complete and working. Lyn got the sewing machine out and continued with the quilt. All was well until it was time to sew in a red piece to the quilt. Every time a red piece was sewn the air turned blue, something to do with the red pieces mysteriously shrinking!

After an outdoor lunch we headed out to do the weekly shopping, and also visit a large “antique” warehouse. The antiques, in most cases appeared to be peoples cast offs and will probably still be in the store a hundred years from now.

Back at the trailer it was time to unpack the radio control helicopter. It was so long since I had flown it I had to read the instruction book first! After I got the batteries charged up I went outside to a large open space just across from the trailer was. The flying went pretty well, and everything remained in one piece.

Tomorrow we’re off to Mexico.

Not as sunny this morning, but the warming trend continues.

As the day progresses we will have crossed the Rio Grande but not entered Mexico; the crossing did not involve using a bridge, or any form of vehicle, yet we didn’t get our feet wet. How did we do that?

After breakfast I headed out to see what the problem was with the rearview camera which died on the trip from San Antonio. After much searching and removing many bolts to reveal the areas where the cable runs the problem was found. Most of the cable was protected as it was above the base of the trailer, in a couple of places the cable was exposed to the elements, in one of these areas the cable had been damaged. I am guessing a small stone hit it at speed and damaged the outer cable as well as severing the powerline. With this repaired I tried out the setup, only to find that it still didn’t work. Further investigation revealed an intermittent connector on the camera, once this was fixed all was good. All I have to do now is put it all back together.

Meantime Lyn was working on her quilt, all must have gone well as there no mutterings today.

After lunch we headed out for our first serious geocaching expedition this year. We headed about 10 miles north, and first went into the Post Office for some stamps. We found a couple of caches close by, then headed about a mile west and drove along a levee on the edge of the mighty Rio Grande. All around this area are acres and acres of pecan orchards, at the moment all the trees are without leaves, but in the summer there will be millions of pecans on them.

Pecan Orchard

A series of caches had been placed along the levee, and we found the first one very quickly. The next one was on an island in the middle of the river, this could pose a problem.

The Mighty Rio Grande

As you can see from the picture above the river is totally dry, the island is showing on the right. In fact at this point the river only gets filled during the summer, I would guess from the heavy rain storms down here. Also at this point the Rio Grande no longer defines the border with Mexico. Just outside El Paso the Rio Grande heads off to the North West but the border swings west overland.

Further along the levee we came across a very different cache.

It was a bird box with a number of screws bolts and nails in both sides. One of these screws / bolts / nails on each side was connected to an electrical circuit. When the correct pieces were touched a buzzer went off and a code was displayed in a small window in the front of the box. This code then had to be used to open a combination lock, which then allowed the base of the box to open, revealing the log book. Very nifty!

A little warmer again last  night, and clear blue skies this morning. After breakfast we headed out to do some exploring of the local area. To start we headed south back into Texas and then took a road the crossed over the Franklin Mountain Range.

We climbed up to 5,300 ft at the peak, and had a good view over El Paso and Mexico about 5 miles to the south. There was still some snow at the higher elevations.

We went down the other side of the mountain, looking for the Tigau Tribe Indian Cultural Centre. This was a small museum outlining the history of the tribe, in addition there was some native dancing performed by younger members of the tribe.

The Eagle Dance

The Buffalo Dance

Mural on Museum Wall

Following this visit we headed back towards El Paso to another part of the Franklin Mountains State Park. There was an aerial tramway that went up the mountain, this was out destination. Unfortunately, when we got there the tramway was closed due to weather! The temperature was 17°C, calm and sunny. I’ve no idea what weather conditions are required to allow the tramway to run so I asked that question to the Texas State Parks in an e-mail!

It wasn’t really time to head home yet, but we had completed out itinerary. Lyn had a backup, so we headed out to a small botanical gardens, archaeological site and wetlands just on the outside of the city. This is a relatively new area that was discovered by the army corps of engineers about 40 years ago when they were doing some work in the area. The site is believed to that of a 4,000 year old village, probably the oldest sign of civilisation in the US.

Above are a couple of different types of cactus, in the background of the lower picture is part of a stone wall that bordered the area. These walls are quite common around properties down here.

It was cool overnight, in fact it was warmer back in Ottawa when we woke up. Got to find a way to get the trailer across to the Caribbean Islands where it seems be be consistently warmer. After breakfast I went out to check the propane tanks, not surprisingly one was empty. We hadn’t filled up the tanks since we left Alabama so that wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately the camp site doesn’t have propane filling facilities so we had to go into town to fill up.

After a very lazy morning, which included Lyn mumbling away at her quilt again, we had lunch and headed out in search of  propane and a Camping World store. We headed south from the campsite into Texas, we passed through the local town of Anthony which has the State line dividing the town in two; that must make for interesting administration.

We filled up the propane tank and then filled up the truck with diesel and headed off to camping world for a couple of things. The scenery around here is different to anything else we have seen so far on our travels. It’s pretty much desert with no grass, very few trees but a lot of low bushes. To the west it is flat as far as you can see and to the east are the Franklin Mountains that rise up to 7200′.

Once back at the trailer I had one of those afternoons where little things kept going wrong. The temperature was up around 13°C so I decided to give the trailer a quick wash to get all the grime off it from travelling through the snow, half way through the hose connector to the tap broke. At least I got the back window cleaned which let a bit more light into the trailer! Just after that had happened Lyn announced that there was no hydro in the trailer! It turned out to be a bad connection in the campsite junction box. On Thursday when we started the truck after lunch the rear view monitor flashed a couple of times and the picture faded. Today I decided to track down the problem. I have got as far as discovering that there is no power to the camera, it seems as though the wire may have got pinched somewhere and this has shorted out the power. Only problem is, the wire is 40ft long and runs under the length of the trailer. I may wait until we hit the warmer climes of Arizona before I tackle that one.

Later in the afternoon we walked around some scrub land at the back of the camp site. It looks as though there may be some space back there to fly the helicopter, assuming I remember how.

We woke up this morning expecting the worse, but we were pleased to see that although there had been 2-3 inches of snow overnight, it had not settled on the road, nor was there any sign of ice. This meant that we should have a fairly safe trip weather wise.

After breakfast we headed off to the I-10 again, we were leaving quite a snow storm behind us for a couple of miles as there was no way I was going to brush the snow off the trailer roof!

I know for most of you 2″ of snow isn’t much, but in Texas it is enough to delay school opening for a couple of hours, below are some pictures just after we set out. Again we started a gentle climb, topping out at around 3900 feet. The temperature slowly climbed from -1°C to 8°C.

We ran out of the snow after an hour or so, and had clear blue skies. We would climb a little and then cross a large plateau, then climb again and repeat the process. There were three or four ranges of hills / mini mountains that we crossed. The plateaus either had crop fields, oil fields or cattle. Well oilfields maybe a slight exaggeration, they were fields with small single arm pumps bringing oil to the surface and collecting it in storage tanks.

We gained another hour as we moved into the Mountain time zone, and then we started running close to the Mexican border. I was glad to see that they too had snow!

We arrived on the outskirts of El Paso to find it was a large and busy city if the traffic was anything to go by. We arrived at the camp ground around 2:15 and got the trailer set up. Things are looking up, the satellite took less than 5 minutes to tune in!

We still have a couple more days of coolish weather to endure, but then we should at least get up into the 60’s.

All this cold weather is due to one of California’s RRR’s (Ridiculously Resilient Ridge). Google it!