After not quite 7 months of being a full time RVer, I am showing definite signs of acclimation. For example, when we first retired and headed west I was crazy nervous about not having a reservation and a definite place to park our large behemoth each night. Years of living on the crowded East coast had honed my advance trip planning skills. I was convinced that without reservations we would wind up in some desperately frightening situation along a dark and lonely road with the faint sound of approaching footsteps warning of unknown (and possibly unwelcome) visitors. But as we left Albuquerque last Tuesday headed back east, we had no idea when or where we would stop that evening and I was OK with that. After all we are retired and we have all the time in the world. We can sleep at a truck stop if necessary – well Storm can, I still have a lingering fear of diesel fume asphyxiation so I keep waking up to be sure I am still breathing when we are parked between big rigs – but at least Storm and the RV get some rest there.
As we work our way eastward, I check for free campsites in front of us. In just a few minutes on the cellphone, I have lined up a fairground site in OK city (the lady tells me to just tell the guard we were with the Morgan event and no problem – OK!), a lovely site at the Elm City Lake Park and I am pretty sure we can stay in the visitor center on the interstate in Amarillo. Lots of choices so no worries and as daylight melts away with an hour lost in the transition to central time, the closest stop at the Amarillo visitor center wins out.
The lovely visitor center greeter assures me that we were welcome to overnight there and that we can park in the separate RV lot in order to avoid the groaning, rattling diesel engines in the truck parking area. Unfortunately with our trailer in tow, we are just too long to fit in any of the RV spaces so we quickly secure an end space in the truck lot that has room to extend our slides and make ourselves at home. At dusk, we go hunting Munzee in the Rest Area parking lot for some exercise and that is when we find the sign shown below. Not wanting to stir up any trouble, we immediately obey it by turning in for the night so that we could leave at 5:00am in the morning before the tentacles of the morning rush Amarillo traffic snare us and delay our escape.
Never saw a sign like that on our trip, if we had we would have moved on as well. :>) We felt the same way when we started our 3 month trip in 2010, but soon learned that there are GREAT FOLKS all over this country and we were lucky enough to meet a lot of them. Have a great time, and TAKE your TIME. :>) GOD BLESS
JD/SD
Jim & SAndy
Jim, you are so right. We love the scenery, but the wonderful people that we meet everywhere are what makes life so fantastic! Hope to see you and Sandy soon as you right at the top of the great folks list!
S
Yell at me when you hit OKC again, y’all.
Hi Larry – I am behind in posting due to a data outage so we are back on the East coast now. We missed stopping in OKC this time, will have to catch on the way back out in the spring. Hope everyone there is doing well!