Another state today.....

Our Location:  Walmart, Elk City, Oklahoma

We woke to sunny skies in Hereford this morning, but frosty temps for certain, close to the freezing mark. A quick breakfast, we were packed up and finished dumping our tanks, saying our goodbyes to Alison & Ellie around 8:30 am. We were out of Hereford before 9 AM, motoring along on US 60 East once again. 

US 60 East in Texas.

 

It was an uneventful day, we ventured through a number of towns before we passed through Amarillo, Texas and connected to I-40 East which we will travel for the next couple of days. The sky was filled with white fluffy clouds and a bit of sun here and there but the temperatures were warming up and we managed to reach about 60F/ 15.5 C this afternoon when we stopped for the night.
 

We noticed this bird covered big Texan along the roadway.

 

We passed into Oklahoma right around the noon hour and pulled in at the Welcome Center not long afterwards. The nice lady there was helpful when I mentioned I was looking for the park in Elk City. With a map in hand and a few written directions we headed on down the interstate to the park. We found it easily enough but all the spots were taken and with no where else to park we fell back to our trusty Walmart stops. Inside to ask if it was okay to park, assured it was and so we headed back to the Dogsled. However the lot wasn’t very level and this lovely new Hobby Lobby is right beside the Walmart, it has a wonderfully flat area away from the store and not really in their main parking lot and so we pulled in here for the night and will be on our way tomorrow morning. 

 

So green as we look out over the vast flat lands in the Texas Panhandle.

 

A walk or two around Walmart and we were home for the rest of the day. Not too exciting but it worked for us. A call to my dad after we arrived just to let him know we were off the road and after that it was a reading kind of day. I know it wasn’t a long day’s drive but it was enough for me and I didn’t want to go anywhere after we arrived even through we are close to a few interesting things. We have plenty of time stop and sight see when we get to Natural Falls in a couple of days. Now I just want to be off the road and getting ready for another day’s travel.

 

Still leaning....

So there you have it folks. I think it might be a bit noisy here as we are pretty close to the interstate and Walmart is open 24 hours, but that’s okay, it’s one night and we’ll be moving on tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all had a wonderful day.
 

We will be in this state for a while now.

 

Take care, be safe, 

Out our door tonight.

 

 

 

Deb

 

 

 

 

 

Hail, thunder, rain, and lightning...a flat tire too....

Our Location:  Hereford Aquatic Center, Hereford, Texas

No blog yesterday so I’ll do one big one tonight. Friday was a sort of quiet day, we did a fuel run (forgot to take the camera so no photos of that), a few groceries and found a First National Bank with an international ATM. Back home we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon just puttering around and doing a few little things. 

 

It was dark over there, the water was a dark green colour.

 

Well that is until I noticed one of the trailer tires looked a bit slack. Sure enough down to 40 pounds. Looking around I noticed a nail head sticking out of the tread. I was not impressed. Alison offered to remove the tire for me (she had also taken a nail out of one of her tires here the day we arrived) for me on Saturday (the next morning). 

 

A bright spot among the darkness.

Looking at the sky and checking the weather we were in the path of a severe line of thunderstorms moving at about 50 miles an hour through the area. We found a place here we could take refuge if necessary, pulled in the big slide and hooked up the truck due to the extreme winds that we were expecting. Soon the hail came, started off small, like the eraser on the end of a pencil, ending up about the size of a marble. It went on and on and on and on and on. Eventually it turned to rain and eventually stopped but for a couple of hours it was an ugly night here. A fair bit of lightning and some thunder but not the big winds they were expecting.

 

It was very dark to the north of us and we thought at first it miss us.

 

A few small dents on the truck but nothing major, and I haven’t yet climbed up the ladder to look at the panels on the roof. I will when we park in Natural Falls State Park. Still this morning there was a great deal of water laying around everywhere but I didn’t see any damage. Lark (a lady from Wisconsin and a friend of Alison’s) had both of her vent covers broken by the hail but other than that we couldn’t really find any thing except a couple of small dents on the vehicles. I think we were fortunate. At one point the hail covered the grass and the pavement, like snow. 

But then this rolled right over us.

This morning dawned with bright blue skies and warmer temperatures. After coffee, Lark left, heading toward Oklahoma City for the  night before heading on home. Alison came by to take the tire off and lucky thing she did because only two of the bolts were what one would consider is tight, the rest were snug but not as tight as they should have been. With the tire off, we headed to Walmart to get it patched. They assured me it was patched and plugged but I’m not so certain.
 

It was clear then to the north.

 

Back home Alison and I put the tire back on and went around to check all of the wheels, just the one with the nail was questionable, the others were all fine, very tight. So I’m not sure why that would be but I’m going to keep an eye on it for certain. 

After things settled down, it started to clear up.

 

After that I helped Alison with a couple little things, we chatted for a couple of hours discussing many things. Finally we parted ways and I came home to have some lunch, Riley and I spent the rest of the day doing a few puttering things. 

Blurry but you get the idea.

 

I chatted with my buddy Ron, we’ll be meeting up with him and his lovely wife Sharon on Tuesday. We are looking forward to that, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen them. 

Still raining but you can see the hail stones washed into piles. That isn't white stones, it's hail.

 

So the day is winding down and tomorrow we are off to Elk City, OK. One step closer to our week long destination. Hopefully we get no more bad weather. So that’s it, our last couple of days. 

 

The water has heaped the hail in piles.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  

 

That's water running down the sidewalk into the pond. A accumulating in puddles in the parking lot. I didn't do any enhancing of any kind to this photo. This is how it came from the camera. If you look at the first photo in this post you can see how dry the parking lot is before the storm.

 

Until next time… take care, be safe, 

 

Deb

We moved today......

Our Location:  Hereford Aquatic Center, Hereford, Texas

Morning dawned brightly at Bosque Redondo Lake in Fort Sumner, NM this morning. Not massive amounts of sunlight at first but it came peeking out and started to melt the thin coat of ice on the truck windows. We weren’t in a hurry but we were looking forward to moving on and so by 8 AM we were once again heading out on US 60 East. We enjoyed our time here in Fort Sumner and will return at some point but today we were happy to see it in the rear view. 

The moon last night out our living room window at Bosque Redondo Lake.

 Our US GPS whom we call Bella worked like a charm. We won’t discuss the RV GPS. We took our time, enjoying the pretty flat expanses out the windows, cows, horses, cows, flat grazing land, cows, and a few houses and buildings, and did I mention cows? Nothing overly exciting but still very nice, easy driving. A bit of construction slowed us down for about 10 minutes but only one spot and we seen no more. 

The morning skies as we headed out on our way leaving Fort Sumner, NM in the rear view.

 Trains, trains, trains, and more trains out our windows. So many trains, and most having at least 3 or 4 engines on the front and usually 2 on the back. We could see the lights of one following the other in a couple of places. So much stuff moving via the steel rails it’s hard to believe that there could be a need of trucks on the roadways. 

So flat for as far as the eye can see. That is a train track you can see running along beside us.

 

We passed through a number of little towns along the way, and at Texico, NM we passed over the state line into the Lone Star State of Texas. We also crossed into the Central Time Zone. That now leaves us only ONE hour behind Ontario, Canada. Which of course means that we lost an hour of our day.
 

We crossed into Texas here at Texico, NM. We are now in Central Time Zone.

 

We had a short day today coming only about a hundred miles to the large town of Hereford, Texas. We followed the directions to the Aquatic Center and upon asking they told me where the park is located. 

 

We are entering the town of Hereford, Texas travelling on US 60 East.

 

From the Aquatic Center we continued on to the Church with the Big Blue Sign, turned right, at the first side road we turned right again and on that block is the entrance to the park, another right turn. As you in there is 5 or 6 spots in this city park. Water, electric, dumpsters and a dump station. You can stay for 72 hours free of charge. It’s very clean, very inviting, a nice area for walking and of course I haven’t checked but I think you could probably pay a user fee for the pool and showers. (I can’t confirm that but I think I read it somewhere) You can SEND your donation to an address available on the sign. 

 

Cotton being transported in Hereford.

 

As we were parking we met Allison from Thunder Bay, Ontario. She too is a Northern Ontario resident heading home. Allison and her dog Ellie, along with Riley and I are the only people parked here. Apparently someone pulled out this morning but so far no one else has come in. Allison winters at Imperial Dunes and is very independent. She was changing a tire or repairing a tire on her vintage 1976 5th wheel trailer. She has a vintage Ford 250 Diesel that she replaced a headlight in early today. She is a very nice lady, a little on the loud side but very nice.

That is us over on the right, and Allison on the left.

 

We hooked up to water and electric which we haven’t done since on our way west at Crosbyton, TX in December about 31/2 months ago. After unhooking the Dogsled and hooking the Igloo to the utilities we enjoyed a nice lunch, a chat with my dad and then we headed out for a bit of a walk. We only put in about a mile and a half but it was enough for the day.
 

Some of the aquatic life around the park here in Hereford.

 

Back at the Igloo we had about a 45 minute visit with Allison & Ellie before coming home to do a bit of house keeping and settling down for the night. I think we’ll stay inside and watch a  movie tonight. Just to kind of relax and kick back. I know we haven’t done anything to wear us out but with the high elevations and colder temps I have more aches and pains the last few days so resting is a good thing.

 

A pretty view around the park.

 

We have a few plans for tomorrow and I’ll leave those for tomorrows blog. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful day where ever you may be!!!

Blossoms are coming out.

 

Until next time… take care, be safe,

 

Coming toward the park from the road behind the church.

 

 

Deb