Thursday the 10th it was time to say goodbye to ET and move on down the road. We weren't going that far today, just 190 miles into West Texas and the town of Post Texas. So we got packed up and headed to the dump station, finally.
We got started about noon after we had a little trouble finding the next RV Park on our navigation systems. We had 2 places picked out but the first on our list wouldn’t come up on our Garmin or on the phone, so we went with the number 2 place.
The weather prediction was for high winds the next couple of days for West Texas and most of New Mexico. It was a good thing that I washed the rig so it could get more dust on it! The winds out here are really not a problem except for the huge amount of dust they churn up. In several places on the road we could see the dust blowing across just like snow does up north. The difference from snow is that we could even taste the dust inside the truck. Don’t think I ever tasted snow inside my vehicle.
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| Good example of the dust blowing across the road. By the way, gas stations are at least 50 miles apart here and no cell service. I really don't know what I would do if we broke down here! |
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| Loads of oil wells in west Texas. |
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| Many sunflower fields along the way. |
The wind was coming from the Southwest and blowing at the side of the rig. It really wasn't too much of a problem driving because of the dual rear wheels of the truck. There really isn't anything we have encountered that will move our truck around very much. The problem however was gas mileage. Fighting the wind caused us to drop to around 7 mpg from our usual 9 miles per gallon. With a 40 gallon tank that means we have 80 miles less we can travel on the tank which is usually my reserve capacity.
We arrived at Post Texas a little late for us at around 4:15 pm. We forgot that we had a time change and we lost an hour going back to Central Time.
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| One of the entrances to Post Texas |
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| Downtown Post Texas. |
Even our second choice RV Park was not showing up correctly on the GPS maps. I was getting a little anxious as we now had the low fuel indicator on, it was late and we were having trouble finding the Park. The park was going to be a right hand turn just off of US 84 north of Post. We passed the gravel road we needed to turn onto to get to the park because the GPS said it was the next road up. Now, US 84 is a 4 lane non-limited access road with a speed of 70mph. US 84 doesn’t have entrance and exit ramps where you can turn around safely, it has center crossovers that dip in the center. To turn around, I needed pull over in the left lane and cross over the center and into traffic coming the other way at 70 mph! For just a few seconds I was going to block one lane of the north bound side and both of the South bound lanes. I also didn’t know if I could make the turn without having to back up! I made the turn and I learned that the RV can make very sharp turns. In other words, the RV will turn sharply, pivoting on it’s wheels. I just need to gauge how much room I need in front of the truck to get the RV wheels where I need them. This was sort of a new learning experience for me. I just needed to start breathing again!
We finally made it to the RV Park which was off of a very rutty, washboard, dusty, gravel road. The place was a dump! We tried to find a site but it just wasn't happening. Too many low trees, sites too tight, or, not even being close to level. Then there was the dusty gravel road that we would need to be on all of the time. We decided to move on.
Patty found a new place that was in town with wifi and was only $20 a night. We moved over to 3G RV Park that is on the South side of town near the town municipal park. It has nice long and wide gravel pull-throughs. It will work for us! The only thing is we are only about 40 yards from a busy BNSF rail line with close by road crossings. When the train goes by you can’t hear anything except the train for a few seconds as it blows the horn. The first night it woke us up 2 times. The second night there were no trains until we were already up. So, it wasn't too bad.
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| We braced Rosey from the wind with boxes of wine! |
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| That is a BNSF train going south out of Post Texas just behind our RV. |
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| Very personal with the sign. Archie was once a mayor here in town. The name 3G comes from the fact that it is on 3rd and G streets. |
On Friday the 11th we walked into to the downtown area that they have been fixing up. Not really much here. A couple of interesting things we learned though. First, the town got it’s name from the founder C.W. Post, the Post cereal guy in 1907. So the town is pretty young. Also, the downtown looks to have very lush green grass growing there. Not so, it is AstroTurf!
C.W. Post wanted this town to be a utopian place so he purchased 200,000 acres of ranch land and built the town complete with a hotel and a cotton mill. The town doesn't have the mill anymore and is mostly reliant on local oil production and ranching. The town has oil wells scattered all through it. Also, the poverty here is near 30%!
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| Restored downtown. Note the small public library! |
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| Astro turf looks good! |
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| This is the oil well across the street from our site. Note the sign that says "CAUTION POISON GAS". These wells are all over the town and next to houses. |
After our walk around the town, we got the truck and headed to the only grocery store in town called Union. It was opened in 1967 and looks just like it did then. The store is immaculately clean and well kept up. It was very nostalgic! We even had a kid who said yes sir and no sir deliver and put the groceries into the truck. I tried to tip him but he said he wasn't allowed to take tips sir. There are really still places like this!
Back at the RV, we had a great dinner of BBQ ribs and onion soup. We made soup from the water that the ribs were boiled in. After dinner, we walked the park and played on the playground equipment. We played on the swing set and I tried to ride the merry-go-round but couldn't get it to go round. We got back at dark and watched some TV and then off to bed.
Tomorrow we head to Ranger Texas about 180 miles away to the south east. Nothing special there except it gets us closer to Dallas where we will start our one week stays. We just made the plan to start staying a week at a time at each place until we fly up north for the holidays at the end of November. So far we are planning to visit Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, South Padre Island and Harlingen Texas. Then after we get back to Texas from the holidays we will stay for 3 months at Nature's Resort in Edcouch Texas.
We will be in Texas for the next 6 months with the exception of the one month visit up north for the holidays without our RV.
Stay Tuned!
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