Southwest Trip 22-23

 We are on the move this week we spent 2 nights in Lillian Alabama at a KOA just over the border from Pensacola Florida and our plan was to go to the Navy base to their museum, this is where the Blue Angles are based from however when we got there we found out the base is only open to military personal, veterans and their families because apparently in Dec of 2019 one of the students in the flight school from Saudi Arabia flunked out and there was a terrorist attack and the base has been closes to the public ever since so wow ok never heard that but there was no trip to the museum for us. We went to a restaurant that looked sketchy, was under a bridge etc I was reluctant, John was not and so we went in and had the best ever meal, we shared the best ever fried green tomatoes, I had local shrimp and grits that was devine and John had seared Tuna with a big salad and cole slaw, wow what a meal we had this was  the spot the locals eat at and it was packed.  We just  spent our last two nigh

On a trip like this, thoughts about gasoline occupy a large part of every day.  When we left NH, gas was about $3.90 per gallon and we were really grateful to not be driving a diesel truck as diesel was running over $5.00 per gallon.  As the driver, all day long I’m monitoring the speedometer, fuel gauge and the clever MPG per tank display.  The Toyota Tundra, a famous gas hog, actually pulls the Oliver easily at around 13 MPG on average. Hills and stop-and-go driving might drive the mileage down to 11. Under optimum conditions: flat roads, no wind, steady 60 miles-per-hour, we have gotten over 15 MPG on a tank ful.  So far this has happened only in NM and AZ.   The price of gas surprised us by dropping as we drove South and West from NH. By VA it was about $3.20 per gallon, by Texas we were paying as little as $2.50.  Even in California, notorious for high gas prices, we have been paying around $4.00 and opportunists are charging about $5.00.  Diesel everywhere is as much as $2.00 per

 After leaving NM we spent 7 nights in Texas and while we spend allot of time ignoring the “good old boy” mentality that permeates every corner of Texas (and most of the country but less than last year) we do like the state parks in Texas and this year we tried a few new ones. Our first night was spent in Van Horn Tx just a stop over at the usual place that always has room and friendly staff, hot showers and laundry. We did laundry in Tucson so we had the night off and enjoyed our usual making dinner, doing dishes and watching a movie. In the morning we headed for 3 nights at Seminole Canyon State Park, very close to the Mexican border. Our cell service was about non existent but we were able to check in with Carmen and send texts to others. The weather was very warm in the 60s and 70s each day, we drove to Where the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers meet and we found a large flock of both sheep and goats walking up the dry Rio Grande riverbed making all kinds of noise, also we saw allot of

 After enjoying every minute of family time we could we spent the weekend in Quartzite, then on to Tucson to a KOA a huge campground filled with mostly large fancy expensive class As ( the big motor homes) we can stay anywhere for 1 night but these were not our people lol. The next day we went on to City of Rocks State Park in Deming New Mexico, surrounded by boulders as tall as a house with an expansive prairie filled with golden grasses, a windy cold day/night but the feel of this campground has the best “energy” of all of our stays, this is our #1  Quartzite Boondocking Quartzite City of Rocks NM