Out of Texas and into Arizona

Goodby Buckhorn Lake Resort in Kerrville, TX....we'll be back!


We left the Buckhorn Lake Resort in Kerrville, TX, on January 10 after a very enjoyable 2-1/2 month stay. A couple of days before our departure we were joined by Escapees Class of 2006 graduates Dick and Paula Fenner. We really enjoyed meeting our fellow classmates who joined us for a nice quiet dinner at Mamacita’s, a local Mexican food restaurant. We joined up for our drive west and spent one night at the Parkview RV Park located in Fort Stockton, Texas. This park was a Passport America camp and was basically a dirt lot with full hookups. It was adequate for an overnight visit, and the next morning found us on the way down I-10 to Las Cruces, NM. The Passport park there, Sunny Acres Resort, was very nice and had free WiFi service in addition to the full hookups. It was actually very quiet for it’s location in a city.

During our two-night visit to Las Cruces, we took a day trip over to the White Sands National Monument and the small town of Alamogordo, NM. The White Sands Monument was absolutely spectacular! The bright white and powdery gypsum sands provided a stark contrast to the dark cloudy skies. The passing clouds and short breaks of sunlight created an unforgettable changing landscape. The powdery sands stuck to everything and will be with us for quite a while.

Headquarters of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico

First view of the gypsum sand dunes

What a contrast between sky and sand!

Another contrast..T-Rex II and the white sands

Another feast for the eyes

Sand, sky, and shadows...a real photographer's dream

Darkening sky over White Sands

I just can't get enough of this!

Any sandy hill will do nicely!!

I guess you could call this all beach and no ocean

One more just because I can't help myself




Dick and Paula again joined us for our continued drive into southeastern Arizona. We stopped in Benson, and our new friends continued south to another destination. An Arctic air mass blasted down from the north and greeted us at Cochise Terrace Resort in Benson with very cold temperatures and high wind. Night time temperatures under 20 degrees made for the additional effort of unhooking and stowing the water hose each night, but the wind calmed sparing us wind chill. Cochise Terrace is another very nice Passport park with fairly wide spaces, excellent interior roads, and good facilities. The camp looks to be only a year or two old, and is very quiet even though it’s located less than a mile from I-10.

While in Benson, we met more 2006 classmates Dave and Barb O’Keeffe, who are staying in nearby St. David. They were very accommodating hosts and introduced us to geocaching. We’re hooked!! We went out into the desert in the Benson area and located two caches. Dave later logged our finds on the Geocaching website, and I immediately signed up with a new account. We joined Barb and Dave for a steak dinner at a local restaurant for good food and even better conversation. We will spend the next two days geocaching and taking in some local sights including Tombstone. On January 18 we plan to join more 2006 full timing graduates in Blythe, CA, to make final preparations for our big graduation party in the desert near Quartzite, AZ.