Monday, May 13, 2002

I got a little bit of a late start this morning.  Stopped and talked with several people at the office as I was checking out.  I finally hit the road around 11:00.  I figured that I was going to meet Charlie in Dallas after work, so I had plenty of time.  I stopped at a Circuit City just South of Houston, just to look around.  Didn’t buy anything, just wanted to see what they had that we didn’t have back in Maryland.  After leaving there, I breezed on through Houston and stopped at a rest area on I-45 about half way to Dallas for lunch.  As I approached Dallas, I got a phone call from Charlie.  It was a little later than I realized.  I was heading for the Cedar Hill State Park that Charlie had recommended, but we decided that I would go ahead and meet Charlie at his apartment in downtown Dallas, (in the middle of rush hour).  With the aid of my GPS system, I found his place with no problem, much to Charlie’s surprise.  I picked him up in front of his building and he showed me a very nice restaurant that he picked out for dinner.  It was a 3 star restaurant called Bob’s Steak & Chop House on Lemmon Ave, not far from where Charlie lives.  We had a great filet mignon with all the trimmings and enjoyed the evening very much.  After we left there, we got back in the RV, which I had parked on the street in an upscale residential neighborhood, and we drove to Dave & Busters for about a dozen games of pool.  We split fairly evenly: Charlie 7; me 5.  While we were there, I discovered a major problem with the RV.  My emergency brake, which is automatically set when the transmission is put in park, failed to hold.  This scared the hell out of me.  I parked the RV against a curb while we were at D & B, but I was thinking about all the campgrounds where I had stayed and went to sleep relying on the emergency brake to keep me from rolling down a hill.  I dropped Charlie off at his apartment around 11:00, and then drove the 30 miles or so to Cedar Hill Park.  At the campground, I got a couple of pieces of wood and propped them under my tire, plus I was a little reassured by the fact that I was on level ground and there was a concrete curb that I backed up to, plus a large tree close behind it.

 

Tuesday,   May 14, 2002

 

I went to Home Depot first thing this morning and bought two cinder blocks to put behind my wheels when I parked, but I would still have to park only on level ground, lest the vehicle roll while I was putting the blocks in place.  Next I got a phone book and started looking for an RV repair place.  Every place I called either did not do brake work, or they would not be able to get to it for several days.  Finally I found a Chevrolet dealer 35 miles away in Lewisville, TX.  I was told that it would be several days there too, but when I told the service manager that I could not leave it because it was my home, he said, if I could bring it in at 7:00 in the morning he would take a look at it and see if he could fix it.  When I got up off of my knees thanking him J, then I realized that it would be a trick to drive from South of Dallas to 30 miles North of Dallas during morning rush hour, I decided to scout out a campground near the Chevrolet dealer.  I found one in Carrollton, TX, four miles from the shop.  So I reserved a space there and spent Tuesday night there.  Charlie called me around 5:00 and I agreed to meet him at his place again around 6:30.  He told me that he found a good place for me to park the RV near his apartment.  It was a nice upscale shopping center just about a block away.  We had dinner in a very nice Italian restaurant there in the shopping center, and then we went to Best Buy, where Charlie bought me the camera that was my birthday/Christmas/Retirement gift.  We got a Sony digital camera model DCS P-51.  After we left Best Buy, we went back to Charlie’s place and wanted to try it out.  We opened it up and took a couple of pictures, but the batteries needed to be charged up before we could do much with it.  The initial charge took 13 hours, so we agreed that I would leave it with him, and I left and drove up to Carrollton and got about 5 hours sleep before going to the Chevrolet dealer to get my brakes fixed. 

 

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

 

I left the campground at 6:20 this morning and got to Huffines Chevrolet at 6:30, so I waited the half hour for them to open.  When they did open, I was greeted by several very nice people who helped me park the RV and put the blocks under my wheels.  By 7:15 they had it up on the lift; by 8:00 they told me that I had burned up the brake pads on my emergency brake, but I had done no more damage than that.  It still cost me about $300, but I was very pleased with the service and I was actually back on the road shortly after 10:00.  Three hours total.  I have never had that kind of service at any new car dealership in my life.  I was very pleased.  Now the brakes hold tight on the steepest of hills.  I was heading back down toward Dallas, when Charlie called me and wanted to meet for lunch at TGI Fridays in Arlington.  I met him there, and he had the camera with him.  He took several pictures of me in the RV as I approached, and together we took several more pictures before going in the restaurant for lunch.  Charlie had to go back to work after lunch, so he gave the camera to me and we agreed to meet later that night.  I drove over to Six Flags over Texas, a huge theme park in Arlington.  I took several photos of some of the best roller coasters there.  I didn’t go into the park, because it was around 2:00 and we were going to meet later, so I couldn’t justify the admission.  So I found several good vantage points all around the perimeter and got some great shots, probably better that I would have gotten if I had gone in.  Then I went to the Ballpark in Arlington, where the Texas Rangers play baseball.  This is a beautiful stadium and I took a lot of pictures inside and outside of it.  After that, I drove back to Cedar Hill State Park to look around a little more.  It is a beautiful park, so I took lots of photos there as well.  Charlie called around 5:30 and suggested that we go to the races at Lone Star Park.  This is the prettiest race track that I have ever seen, and I’ve been to a lot of them.  We got our wires crossed.  I told him that I would call when I got to his place.  I called about an hour later and said I was about 3 blocks from his apartment.  He was shocked!  He meant for me to meet him at work since both his work and Lone Star Park were both in Arlington.  No big deal.  We agreed that we would meet at the track.  We were probably both about the same distance, maybe 10 miles away from the track, because we both arrived within minutes of each other.  We met, went inside and had a fabulous buffet dinner in the clubhouse.  We both took lots of pictures and walked all over the facility.  Neither of us did too well at handicapping the horses, but we did have a very nice time.  We left the track around 10:00 and went back to Charlie’s apartment to download the pictures on my computer and to discuss some of the refinements that he would like me to make when I send this diary to him.  Charlie also showed me an exciting new venture that he has become very interested in, called SMART TRAVEL.  This is an organization similar to Sam's Club where members receive significant vacation package discounts.  Read more about Charlie’s SMART TRAVEL by clicking on the KWAZE.COM logo on my web-page.  Like I said, he is very excited about it and would like for nothing more than to tell you about it, so if you are interested write him at chuck@kwaze.com.  I said my good-byes to Charlie and left for Cedar Hill.  He is leaving tomorrow to fly back to Maryland for the Preakness.

Thursday, May 16, 2002

After an action packed 3 days in Dallas, I was pretty tired today.  I left the campground around 11:00 and headed West for Abilene, Texas.  I stopped only one time at a rest area and fixed a sandwich and had a coke, and then continued on for the KOA campground in Abilene.  This campground was pretty nice.  They had internet connection at the laundry room and a nice swimming pool and miniature golf course.  But the really unusual thing was a small Airstream trailer that was actually a restaurant.  It was called 50s Diner and I learned that I was to select from the menu and they would deliver dinner to my campsite.  I ordered the chicken fried steak, and 10 minutes later a little golf cart pulled up with my piping hot dinner for $7.00.  Now every campground should have a setup like this.  After dinner, I took a short walk and turned in for the night.

 

Friday, May 17, 2002

I left Abilene this morning without really seeing the town.  There wasn’t anything there that I really wanted to see anyway.  I headed West on I-20 for my next stop at Monahans Sandhills State Park near Odessa, Texas.  This was really a treat.  It was my first exposure to dessert.  When I arrived at the park, the office was closed, but I used the night registration and drove back into the campground.  There was hardly anyone there, so I debated whether I should stay or not.  I figured if a few other people were there with tents and pop up trailers, I could certainly do it in my motorhome.  I set up at the base of a large sand dune, hooked up my water and electricity and I was set for the night.  Fixed myself a bowl of stew, took a walk on the sand dunes, watched for the sunset and turned in early.

 

Saturday, May 18, 2002

A few other people arrived after dark last night, so the place wasn’t deserted as it was the night before.  I went to the visitor’s center and looked at all the displays.  Very interesting stuff all about life in the dessert and the Indians that lived there for centuries before white man arrived.  I drove all over the park and was fascinated at all the huge sand dunes, and the occasional oil well in between.  I left the park around noon, and headed for Pecos, TX.  From there, I left the interstate and headed up US385 toward the New Mexico border.  Just before I got to the border, I saw a sign indicating that an historical marker was 1 mile ahead.  I figured I would stop and rest for a few minutes.  I was at the town of Orla, TX, population 4.  There was a little grocery store there operated by a little old lady who must have been in her 80s.  I got an ice cream cone from her and chatted for a while.  She told me her life story and I told her mine.  It was quite an experience.  I left there and crossed into New Mexico on some of the loneliest road I ever traveled.  Nothing but dessert as far as the eye could see.  I eventually made my way to White City, NM, which is the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  I realized that I was low on propane fuel, so I asked at the office where I might get some.  I was told that I would have to drive to the city of Carlsbad which was 20 miles to the North.  I drove the 40 mile round trip only to find out that I would not be able to get fuel until Monday morning.  “The man who does it don’t work on the weekends.”

I returned to White City and went into the park.  I drove the 7 miles from the entrance to the visitor’s center and got there just in time for the nightly exodus of 200,000 bats.  This was unbelievable!  Every night these bats fly out of this cave exactly at 8:00 and eat insects all over Southern New Mexico and return to the cave by morning.  There must have been 1000 people there in the amphitheater to witness this event. 

Sunday, May 19, 2002                                                                                    

I actually got up on time this morning.  Some of the tours of Carlsbad Caverns required that you be there at 9:00 AM.  I got up at 7:00, left the campground at 8:10 and arrived at the visitor’s center at 8:30.  I was a little miffed at the information desk when I found that they only had brochures in Spanish and German.  “We’re sorry, we’re out of English”.  Looks like us English speaking people are left out of the National Park Service.  At any rate, I was able to use my National Park Pass and got into the caverns for free.  The tour was fantastic.  First I took the Natural Entrance tour which entered the cave at the same spot that the bats came out of last night.  The walkway was a mile and a half long and descended 750 feet below the surface.  At the end of that tour is a large room with restrooms, food and of course the obligatory gift shop.  There is also an elevator to take you back up to the surface.  It ascends the 750 feet in one minute.  However, I decided to also take the optional Big Room tour which was another mile and a half of pathway and returned to this same room.  This Carlsbad Caverns was the most spectacular caverns I have ever seen.  I always thought that Luray Caverns in Virginia was pretty nice, but there is no comparison.  It would be like comparing the White House to a one room apartment.  The Big room itself is 1400 yards long and 210 yards wide and height as much as 255 feet.  It covers 57 acres.  The stalagmites and Stalactites, columns, and drapery (this translucent rock that looks like drapes) were spectacular.  By the time I had finished this second tour, I was pretty tired.  I took my new camera with me, but I could not get the flash to work in the caves, so I guess I need to read the instructions a little more.  I did, however, buy a CD with scenes from the caverns.  I ate dinner at the visitor’s center and then drove the 9 miles back to the campground for another night in White City.  Tomorrow I return to Texas, just the Southwest corner of the state.  I plan to spend the night in El Paso, and then Tuesday morning return to Southern New Mexico.