Back in Roswell Again

Spring break started on Mustang Island on Saturday, March 12th, and things were heating up down on the beach literally.  There were hundreds of people camping out down there, mostly teenager/college kids, driving up and down in their vehicles, playing volleyball, guys in gorilla suits, large pickup trucks with equally large smoker BBQs in tow, and more than a smattering of large Confederate flags being flown on the back of pickups and on the dunes.

 
We left Mustang Island on Saturday, March 12th, and headed for Ingram, Texas, which is about 12 miles NW of Kerrville, where we stayed about a month before.  The RV park in Ingram was actually a working pecan orchard with large mature trees, and they had made a smaller RV park at the back of the property by the river, so it was very quiet and serene, with birds singing and deer romping around in the trees.  It's a little early for the leaves to be on the trees yet, though, and the temperatures were definitely lower than we have been used to on the island!

We then drove about 4 hours NW and stayed at Fort Stockton overnight at the same RV park we had stayed in on the way down.  This is the first time we have stayed in a place we knew, and it was far less stressful getting there because we knew where it was and what to expect.

When we arrived at Trailer Village in Roswell the next afternoon, it was like returning home.  We stayed about a week here in January on the way down to Texas, checking out the old stomping grounds of Billy the Kid in Lincoln and Fort Sumner, and we had made friends with the family who owns the RV park we stayed in called Trailer Village.  When we pulled up at the office, one of the owners came out and said, "Didn't you see the sign?  It said 'No Suntanned Gypsies,'"  Ha, ha. 

It has been great staying here and visiting with them again.  The weather has been nice and hot during the day (80 to 90 degrees F.) but, being the desert, it tends to cool down at night to around 5 degrees C., something that we are adjusting to after the steady and humid temperatures of Mustang Island.  Spring has arrived here, though, and the trees are all leafing out and the blackbirds are singing in the trees. 

We will be heading out of here on Saturday to head up north to Albuquerque and over to Gallup, New Mexico for a few days to check things out up there. 

Fort Stockton, Texas



Four hours southeast of Roswell, New Mexico, we stopped for the night before going on to Kerrville, Texas.  The oil wells started about two hours south of Roswell, and the ground kicks up a fine white powder that coats the workboots and jeans of the guys working the rigs. 

I immediately noticed that most motorcycle riders are wearing helmets in this state, but some aren't, so not sure if there is no helmet law (like New Mexico and Arizona) or if they are just doing their own thing.  I also noticed a lot of cowboy hats and boots, and men who held the door open for the fairer sex, even if they were more than 10 feet away from entering the building.  And "y'all" is officially used here in every type of verbal exchange possible, with "y'all come back now," being the standard goodbye phrase used in eating establishments.

The area itself is at the tail end of the Pecos Plains, which I found to be getting really redundant after the first hour of travel.  It does have a lot of plateaus all around, and the lady at the RV park told me it's the only place around there that does.  The RV park also had that nice white dusty ground, which makes it impossible not to track white footprints on any smooth surface.  It was a good thing we were only staying overnight because it wasn't really a very attractive place to us.