We continue to friend our way across Texas sharing great meals and good times as often as we can. We leave Matt and Sherry in a chilly Livingston as we make our way to Austin. Monte meets us in Austin for dinner at Sway, the first Thai restaurant we have ever visited. We devour the tasty family style dishes he selects for us. Once again, we park at McKinney Falls State Park where bluebonnets dance merrily among a myriad of spring blossoms. Disappointingly, a lack of winter rain diminishes the falls to a narrow, feeble flow.
“Free” can be costly in Littlefield, Texas
Our next stop in Littlefield, Texas includes a potentially free stay at the Waylon Jennings RV Park. This tidy city park in Waylon Jennings’ hometown has free full hookups and room for 2 big rigs. When we arrive, one of the sites is already occupied by what appears to be a permanent resident. That camper is parked backward in the site and is hooked to the utilities for the only other big rig site. We are able to hook up to water and 30 amp service though which is plenty fine for one night.
Our free site becomes costly in the morning when we snag our spare trailer tire on one of the steel pipe soldiers guarding the site perimeter. These silver sentinels form an obstacle course we almost successfully maneuver departing our site. Unfortunately, our tire rim is destroyed when it is abruptly halted by the end post. As a result of this incident, we spend $120 (cost of new tire and rim) for this “free” site. The upside is that we now have a new replacement for our aging 11 year old former spare tire.
A Tour of Route 4
Lonely US highways paralleled by many trains lead us to Albuquerque. Because high winds are predicted here and along our route for the next 2 days, we choose the block wall protected KOA campground in Bernallilo for our stay here. To prevent any wind related mis-haps, we plan to hunker down behind the windbreaks and avoid driving the RV against the fuel guzzling, rig toppling 30-50 mph winds.
While here, we take the Jeep for an enjoyable day trip to Sante Fe via NM Route 4. This road calls to me every time we pass its warning sign on Hwy 550 traveling to or from Albuquerque each year. Route 4 from San Ysidro to Sante Fe winds by the Jemez Historic Site, Valles Caldera National Perserve and through the town of Los Alamos. In Sante Fe, we meet up with Storm’s high school buddy Chip who escorts us on a lively walk through town to Santa Fe Bite for a world Famous Green Chile Cheeseburger.
A Train Video
Photos from Texas to New Mexico
Thanks for sharing, I finally got into a train engine in Illinois, short ride but I did get in the front of the engine, they will not let you ride up there but when they stop you can go visit and they are extremely friendly, nothing in the engine cabin but a throttle push it forward to go that way and pull it back to go backwards. then there is the break and a couple of instruments indicating gas engine temp and speed, that is it. Nice ride. Sorry about the tire, that hurts but glad you could get it fixed quickly while you were there. Have a safe trip and keep the notes comin. GOD BLESSJD jim
That is so cool that you got to do that!
Did you marvel at the soda dam on route 4? We rode that route on bikes a few years ago and it was one of our more memorable scenic rides.
We did see the Soda Dam from the overlook. Storm was anxious to get to Sante Fe and see his classmate so he would not let me hike down closer 🙁