Pecos River Canyon

Friends we made in Door County, fellow workampers, stopped and camped with us over Thanksgiving. They took us to see some of their favorite sites around the Del Rio area. They volunteered one winter with the National Park Service here at Lake Amistad.

We went north about 40 miles to the Pecos River boat ramp and rec area that is part of the National Park Rec Area around Amistad reservoir. One picture shows the boat dock and ramp with the bridge (hwy 90) over the Pecos River. The other water picture shows, although not very well, where the Pecos River dumps into the Rio Grande. I also tried to get the Ocotillo cactus that is blooming in the picture. It is the dead looking branches on the right with tiny red "flowers" at the tips. This boat ramp is the least popular of all along the reservoir because its so far out and because it is a long steep walk from where you launch to where you park.

The other picture of of flowering Purple Sagebrush. It only blooms after a rain and if it is also warm enough. We had a little rain and poof two days later it was blooming in a few places. The blooms only last a day or two but it was very nice to see something blooming in the desert in November.

We had a great Thanksgiving feast at the park. The park owner cooked up 4 turkeys and a ham and everyone in the park brought a dish to pass. I made wild rice just to have something from Minnesota on the table. Everything we ate was very good -- even the cucumbers in vanilla pudding.

Rough Canyon

We have tried two different boat launches on the lake. One called Black Brush is close to the RV park but when the wind blows its hard to fish here because its so open. The other launch we have tried is called Rough Canyon. Its about 15 miles north of us. Rough Canyon is along the Black River which dumps into the Rio Grande at Lake Amistad. It is one of many canyons along the river. The Black River is very nice to fish and has some beautiful homes and condos being built along it. The walls of the canyons range from flat to very high so there are some fairly scenic places.

We are happy to be back in the desert again. Although we miss seeing the mountains in the distance that we saw in New Mexico. We can see Mexico from our campsite, way in the distance and it looks like there may be mountains that way but we won't be finding out. Acuna is the Mexican town on the other side of the dam. From the sound of it, it is a pretty large town of around 200,000 but the little tourist area that you could walk to across the border has pretty much shut down. The need for passports, the economy, the rumors of drug violence, and the H1N1 flu scare pretty much killed it.

We are getting to know Del Rio and have found groceries at the HEB are a pretty good deal. HEB is the big grocery chain in Texas. They have an amazing array of fresh, dried and canned chili peppers. I just wish I knew which ones were milder and how to use them in some recipes. After a year of being full time RVer's we are getting faster at settling in and finding decent shopping and services. I'm starting to really appreciate one stop shopping, banking, pharmacy, hair salon and optical departments at Walmart. We do like to find local places to buy from but sometimes its just easier to go to Walmart.

Del Rio, TX

We are finally settled in Del Rio, TX. It's located about 160 miles west of San Antonio. We found a nice new Rv park with huge sites called Broke Mill Rv Park just west of Del Rio and close to the lake. It is good to be done traveling after almost 3 weeks on the road. It was nice to take our time getting to our ultimate destination but it's even better unhooking the boat and starting to fish again.

Lake Amistad is the lake we are fishing. It was created by a dam across the Rio Grande by the border with Mexico. If you want to buy a Mexican fishing license you can fish both sides of the lake. There is more than plenty of water on the American side to fish so we won't be fishing the Mexican side. The water level is high for this time of year which is nice for fishing and the water is still pretty warm. Jim found out how warm it was when we put the boat in the water and it started to sink. He jumped in the water -- we were still at the boat launch -- and dragged the boat back to the boat trailer while I madly cranked it up out of the water. He had put the boat plug in the wrong hole so it took on water quickly. We still managed to go out fishing after we got the excess water out. Jim caught three smaller large mouth bass that fought like they were much bigger. So, over all it was a good day even though it was a Friday the 13th.

Its been beautiful here since we arrived with temps in the low 80's. We haven't been this warm most of the summer. It is not as dry here as it was in New Mexico but it is still considered desert. The weather here is only about two degrees cooler than the southern gulf coast of Texas so it should be very nice all winter.

We've been told it is very safe here as long as you don't do anything stupid. The drug war violence seems to be in El Paso to the north and Laredo to the south of us. For whatever reason its not a problem around here. I hope its true but if not we will just move out.

Traveling Across Texas

We managed to get through Houston on a Sunday morning. Thank goodness because the traffic during the week is indescribable. We then spent two nights about 80 miles or so west of Houston. We took a day trip with just the truck down to the Gulf Coast. It was only about an hour and half from where we camped so we quick drove down to catch some really nice warm sunshine. We took some pictures of the piers there with beach and palm trees in the background.

We were going to head up toward Austin to an RV dealer that does warranty repairs on our brand of 5th wheel but they suddenly shutdown their business. We ended up going to San Antonio and staying at a very nice "luxury RV park" for a week. We wanted enough time in San Antonio to have a mobile RV repair service come to our rig and fix it. The guy came right out and took less than 2 hours to fix it. The repair was a very minor adjustment on some grease fittings for the axles. He also gave us plenty of advice on the best way to get around the city to see the sights.

We went downtown and saw the Alamo. Jim took some good pictures of it. I posted the best one. We love to see American historical places and this one has been nicely restored. We also strolled along the riverwalk. It is surprising how narrow the "riverwalk" sidewalk is -- not sure how people don't fall in on busy weekends and especially when it gets dark. It is very pretty and there are great hotels and restaurants right alongside it.

We will be heading west from San Antonio to Del Rio next and probably staying there for the rest of the winter. It will be nice to get out of San Antonio -- very nice town but the traffic is something else.

Memphis

We stayed in Tom Sawyer Mississippi River RV Park in West Memphis, AR which is on the other side of the river from Memphis, TN. We got to watch barges go by right from our campsite. At night the barges would come so close to our shore that it looked like you could jump right on one.

Another workamper couple that we worked with in Wisconsin met us down here and we rode with them to check out Beale Street. We ate some fabulous Memphis barbeque ribs and pulled pork at the Pig on Beale Street. We also tried them again at BB King's but the BBQ at Pigs was better although BB Kings restaurant has a very famous banana bread pudding with caramel sauce which is served warm and is truly wonderful. We listened to some live blues music while at BB King's. A band played that was led by a 15 year old boy who could really play the blues on guitar. He was amazing to watch and it sounded great.

We stayed in at Tom Sawyer's for a week and then headed south through Mississippi. We spent a night south of Jackson and had to give our bikes away. Our bike rack broke and we had no way to haul our bikes. We gave them to a nice retired Navy man at the park we were staying in and he was very happy to get them. The bikes were old, the seats were tearing and they had some rust. If we figure out another way to haul bikes we might replace them.

We spent two nights in Louisiana waiting for the rain to stop. It was in the high 80's and raining so the humidity was incredible. We ate great cajun food -- gumbo, etouffe, fried shrimp, crawdads and catfish. Next stop Texas.