Long day with a nice finish

October 17 – I forgot to change the clock forward an hour since we are now in Texas, Central Time.  I thought I got up at 7:20 and it was 8:20.  Oh well, it is what it is!  We had cereal and fruit and headed on down the highway!  Well, that was the plan, but I didn’t use the leveling legs last night so figured all was fine.  I kept getting error messages and lights flashing.  I kept retracting them and it was find for a while.  We went ahead and left but the lights kept coming on.   

View from Marfa lights view
center, nothing out there

We stopped at the viewing center where we saw the lights last night.  I wanted to see it in the daylight to see if there was a road or anything where the lights might be coming from.  This morning the park manager told Bill the Spaniards recorded seeing the lights in the 1600’s.  So those lights have been around for a LONG time!  The leveling legs were still acting up so later we stopped and I put them down and Bill lubed them and they still didn’t all go up correctly so I got out my hammer and gave the 2 problems a couple of whacks and they were find the rest of the day.

The drive to Big Bent National looked about like the drive to Marfa.  Lots of nothing!  The

Interesting plateaus

plan was to stay hooked up and do the loop road of the park.  There is a ticket booth at the entrance and we got in free with our Senior Passes.  In asking where would be a spot long enough to park in to have lunch, the ranger was kind of at a loss.  It was all build before big RV’s and the best option was the rest area right after her booth so that’s where we had lunch. 

The section we took was only 26 miles but it’s all 45 MPH.  At least there is barely any traffic but really not much to see unless you are in a car and can go on the gravel roads.  We stopped at the Panther Junction Visitor Center and they had a very good movie about the park.  There wasn’t much of a display but they have the fossil of a wing of a Pterosaur, the largest known flying animal.   The gift shop was nice and they have a US Post office adjoining their building so we stopped for a few stamps. 

We made a wrong turn out of the Visitor Center and you can’t just turn around the RV with

Lunch time in Big Bend

the car.  We drove about 10 miles before there was a turn out we could pull in, unhook the car, turn the RV around, hook the car back up and get back on the road.  The wildlife has certainly dropped off since we left Colorado.  However, we did see a roadrunner and a mule deer (and 2 coyote and a fox as roadkill). 

Next stop, Ft. Stockton, no, not to see another fort.  We like the campground there and have stayed twice before.  The drive was just as long and boring as all the roads in Texas have been.  Bill immediately pointed out that the campground was bigger and there were 2 Rv’s in line before us and 3 behind us.  They have added 50 new spaces, so business must be good.  Our space is a tad short but the place is full.  Once we settled in and I had a glass of wine, we walked over to the on property, Roadrunner Café for dinner.  They made some good chicken fried steak.  You don’t get any choices, it comes with mashed potatoes and Italian green beans and the biggest biscuit you’ve ever seen.  I take that back, you can choose brown or white gravy, but who chooses brown gravy? 

We brought the biscuits home for breakfast and I got busy on the computer while Bill washed and waxed the front of the RV.  Then we realized we missed NCIS as it came on at 7 not 8.  We did see Bull and NCIS NO.  I posted 2 more blogs and worked on photos.