Dallas to New Mexico.

It was a pretty straight drive today, mostly across Texas on #82. The country was interesting, but there was a lot of it! We stopped in Haskell TX for fuel and also got 2 takeout fajitas for $5, very tasty.

Lots of cotton fields (mostly harvested), with cotton bolls along the road.

The steer below was a huge model made of plate steel welded together. This type of thing is getting common along the way. Borrego Springs, a place in California we hope to get to, has some amazing examples of this type of art.

The terrain crept up to higher elevations, but flat. We could see for miles - hundreds of Sandhill Cranes near Brownfield TX; a large mule deer stag with a huge set of antlers, in a group of 20 or more deer.

We didn't fully escape the weather bomb. It was mostly cloudy with rain off and on today. As we came into New Mexico the temp dropped down to +2C, and we were inundated with wet icy snow lumps. It didn't last long though. We camped for the night at the Bottomless Lakes State Park, just southeast of Roswell. We'll be watching for aliens tonight!

We've been getting amazing Internet access from the little device we bought at Walmart in Indiana. It connects to the Verizon cell network (?), and we then connect to the device with our computer and/or phones via their builtin WiFi. We're getting good Internet out here in the NM desert, 10 km from even the secondary road we've been on today, surrounded by hills. Amazing! It's kind of like a pay-as-you-go phone, in that you buy a card for the Gigabytes you want, and they expire once used up or at the end of a 30 or 60 day period.

New Mexico State Parks are among the cheapest State Parks. This one was just $14 for the night, with electric, water, showers and great scenery. We’d like to come back here when it’s just a bit warmer.

Arkansas to Dallas TX

It was 24C when we went to bed last night and 19C at 6am today. No heat needed overnight, the first time this trip.

We had planned a leisurely morning at Catherine Lake, such a nice park, and didn’t leave until almost 10 am at 22C. It’s a beautiful morning, birds singing. It was hard to leave such a nice spot.

However, after checking the weather map and seeing a large rain/snow system moving over Texas early in the week, we decided we needed to get west of Dallas asap, so that's what we did today.

The winds were milder this morning but picked up in the afternoon, out of the North now rather than from the south. We saw more and more daffodils out as we moved further south. It must be one of the few flowers that most varmints don't like.

Good roads today. We stopped in Texarkana for fuel for the van and for us (Cracker Barrel). On the waitress recommendation, we split the daily special of 2 pieces of boneless fried chicken with biscuits and 2 sides. Good decision to split it! 

We ended up in one of the campgrounds in Ray Roberts Park, just northwest of Dallas. Way too expensive, $39 for the night, the most expensive of the trip! It did include electric and water hookups though, and really good washrooms.

Illinois to Little Rock AR.

It was a long day on Interstates today, but first we had to find our way in the pre-dawn darkness out to the highway. Our campground of last night was well off the beaten path for sure!

We just followed I57 to I55 southbound today, picking up breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in Mt Vernon, down to I40 which heads southwest from Memphis across very flat countryside. Strong winds from the south buffeted us the whole way.

I40 has more big trucks on the road than I've ever seen, especially for a Sunday. This in spite of passing storage yards with many trucks and trailers parked for the weekend. I40 is clearly a major trucking Interstate route. 

The Interstates we were on today were generally in good shape. Of course our relatively small van likely tolerates bumpy roads better than many larger RV’s do.

We stopped for a break in Blytheville AR, and discovered an excellent DIY car wash there (main road west from I55). The van was a salty mess, so good to get it cleaned off. It was a good stop, with a fuel fill at a Mobil station, and a stocking-up browse at Walmart. This was the first real shopping we’ve done for groceries and supplies.

About 2:30 it was up to 27C (!!), which of course felt really warm to us. A McDonalds offered a good a spot for a break, and a change into warm-weather outfits. Strong winds yet again.

Between Memphis and Little Rock along I40, there’s not much to look at except all the trucks.

Tonight we camped in a very nice park, Lake Catherine State Park, an hour or two south of Little Rock AR (exit 97 off I30). Darkness caught up to us, so a later stop than usual. On the road in to the park, spring peepers were in full voice, and some daffodils were out. Lots of other campers here tonight and no free camping ($22 w/e).



Today the temp reached 27C for quite a while in Arkansas. When checking in, the girl at the desk was shaking her head about the wild weather, saying it was 30 yesterday. It took a couple of beats before I realized she meant 30F, about minus 1C! Quite a drastic and welcome change today, even though the driving got warmer than we prefer. You know it’s warming up when we had bugs all over the windshield after today’s drive.

We both had showers this evening, then sat out with a Glayva enjoying the quiet and the beautiful moon. To bed by 8:30 CST.

Auburn to Illinois.

We started pretty early today, but within minutes of starting the van, the Check Engine light came on. That's never good!

The van was still running ok though so we headed south, trying to figure out where to take it for some service. Jill, our GPS, came up with a Mercedes dealer address in Ft Wayne, right on our way. The service manager in there couldn't take the van in today, but did come out and diagnosed the trouble code.

He reset the code and sent us on our way, no charge. It was Emissions related, and he felt it was unlikely to be a problem (and as it turned out he was right).

It happened that the dealership was right on the road that became Hwy 24 outside of town, so we were able to just head west on #24, which is what we intended to do today. Not a really pleasant drive, with strong winds from the South blowing snow across the road and building up small drifts. It was actually better driving into the wind once we turned South on #41, as there was no snow blowing across the road then.

Along the way today we stopped at a WalMart and got a portable WiFi hotspot. It's one of their own brand, and a $40 card gives us 4Gb which expires after 60 days, so it could cover our trip. We deliberately tried to get it registered on the Verizon network, and apparently did. We've had web access when neither of our phones could connect with AT&T, even for phone or text access, and even at our isolated campground tonight.

We got to a basically deserted state park in Illinois this afternoon (Stephen A Forbes), with electricity live at the site. It got up to 13.5C today but is falling now, so will be good to have some electric heat. Free camping too!

It's dark now, but still 20C or so. I'm typing this email out at the picnic table in my shirt-sleeves. Nice change!

I should have mentioned yesterday that we had the smoothest US entry ever for us. The only car in front of us in the line pulled away as we were stopping. The agent checked our passports, asked where we were going and how long, how much money we had with us, and sent us on our way.

*START* of Arizona trip, Feb 2017.

We did get away ok today, just before 8am. Other than a bit of black ice on the 401 east of Woodstock and a few flurries at times, it was a pretty easy drive considering the time of year.

It never got much above -7C today, with a really cold wind chill too, so we decided to hotel it at the Auburn Indiana La Quinta Inn tonight. I69 through Michigan seemed better than it was the last time we were through this way (2009 I think), but it's still rough in spots.