Cottonwood Creek RV Park, Dripping Springs, TX

Well we made it to Cottonwood Creek RV Park outside of Dripping Springs, TX on March 16.  Our travel day from Ozona Tx. was cloudy with some spotty precipitation. We only had about 200 miles to travel that day because we had done the bulk of the miles the day before. So, it was a comfortable ride through the Hill County.

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This is our 3rd stay here at Cottonwood Creek RV Park and we just love the park and the location. We paid $325 for a month plus electric. We will probably only stay for about 3 weeks. This puts us about halfway on our trip to Florida.

Since we no longer own a home, coming here every year kinda feels like home. The owners, Les and Sheri are very hospitable and they always spend time with us catching up.

Front sites 1-7

Laundry and back patio building

Paul and Paula got set up in site 16 and we took site 17. There's only about 32 sites in the park. Our sites back up to the woods which contain some beautiful walking trails. The park was full on our arrival due to the weekend.

Sites 17 and 16

We quickly got caught up with several of our friends and guests that we had met last year or even three years ago. The park doesn't have permanent residents, but it does have may guests that return every year during the winter and spring months. One cool thing about this park is that because it is small and so many folks return, we almost always have a happy hour (snack time) gathering at someone's site in the late afternoon.

The weather had been overcast and last night, March 19, we had some good rain. Cottonwood Creek began flowing from all the rain!

Lower end of Cottonwood Creek

We really like taking advantage of the walking trails in the back and get an opportunity to stretch Maggie and Rico's legs a bit!

Maggie on the walking trail looking for Rico!

This afternoon Les and Sheri are smoking brisket for the entire park. Everyone is invited and asked to bring a side dish or dessert. Les and Sheri frequently have these little BBQ gatherings and it's always tasty and fun! Les smokes the brisket for about 12-14 hours!

Les's brisket smoker doing it's thing!

It should be a good Blue Bonnet season this year as we noticed lots of the flowers on the sides of the roads ready to bloom.  We look forward to re-visiting the Hill Country and perhaps seeing some things we didn't see on the previous visits. 

Stop over in Ozona TX

We enjoyed our week in Las Cruces and Hacienda RV Park. We re-visited La Mesilla and the two weekend markets.  However, mostly we just relaxed yet stayed busy. 

A funny thing happened yesterday. In preparation for our travel, I decided to put some more water in the rig's 80 gallon water tank. I usually keep it at about 30 gallons. As you may recall we boon docked in a parking lot overnight last week because of a dust storm. So, I needed to replenish the water in the tank. So as the tank is filling, I'm doing some other things and eventually get distracted and end up over at Paul and Paula's RV. Not long after Joyce comes running over yelling water is pouring out of the rig. Sure enough, I overfilled the tank. Thankfully nothing was damaged or got wet. I drained the tank to the level I wanted and all was fine. 

Today we hit the road about 8:30 headed for Fort Stockton 300 miles away. We made good time and the weather was cooperating with a cool overcast (temps 70-80's). So after reaching Fort Stockton, I filled up at $4.05 a gallon for diesel and Joyce filled the Jeep. 

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Paul and Paula were willing to keep going so we pushed on for another 100 plus miles to the Circle Bar RV Park in Ozona Tx.

I don't believe there is a website for the park but, it's at exit 372 in Texas. It's not much more than a dirt parking lot. Cost was $27 for the night including cable TV, 50 amp and Sewer. It's first come first serve and it seems to be common practice to park your tow vehicle in the adjacent site if it doesn't fit in the site with your rig. We were told to pick our own site and the office didn't care to know which ones we took. Very relaxed. 

We made a quick meal watched American Idol and are now preparing for some shut eye after driving 400 miles today. Tomorrow we should make it to Cottonwood Creek RV Park in Dripping Springs, Tx.

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Dust Storms, Generators and Dirt Lots on our way to Las Cruces

March 7 and 8th 2012, Travel Day to Las Cruces.


Well, we finally made it to Las Cruces today, staying at Hacienda RV Park. We’ve stayed here in the past.
The journey was interesting. When we left Usery Mountain Regional Park, our goal was to travel 200 plus miles to Willcox, Az. The night before had been very windy and I didn’t get much sleep as I was worrying about the weather. However the next day it was calm in the morning and we made good time after departing around 8:30 pushed by a tailwind. We made it to a fuel stop at 12:30 about 30 miles from Willcox with Paul and Paula. It was cold and windy. We collectively decided that since we were making very good time, we should push on to Las Cruces which would put another 200 miles behind us for a total of approximately 400 miles. We usually don't tow much over 300 miles in one day!

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Some Flowers in bloom under the foreboding skies.

So, off we went, again making good time but beginning to notice that the wind was becoming more of a crosswind instead of just pushing us and the dust was picking up as we passed into New Mexico. As we continued we saw the usual signs warning of potential dust storms. However, we soon passed two electronic signs that read “I-10 closed at Lordsburg to Las Cruces take alternate route”. Now come on...what alternate route is there for this portion of I-10 when in fact, as we later found out, the few highways in the area were being closed due to a dust storm! Paul and I discussed the matter on our walkies but with no alternatives, decided to press on noting that the NM D.O.T. radio channel was not reporting a closure. Unfortunately as we were leaving Lordsburg, we were routed off the interstate near a Pilot Truck Stop about 116 miles from our destination. Probably 50 or more 18 wheelers were crowded into the truck stop. We drove past and Paul lead us into a dirt lot with several RVs.

Our overnight parking lot among fellow RVers

We huddled for awhile and I turned on my handheld CB radio and for the first time since buying it a year ago, used it to try and get some information from the chatty foul mouthed truckers. But all they had to share was vulgar entertainment and misinformation.
As you can imagine, it was still windy and getting cooler. We had already opened up two of our slides and by 5:30 with no word on when the interstate would re-open, Paul and I both took out our Honda generators and fired them up, confident that we would be spending the night. Of course after getting situated around 6 p.m. we noticed that the interstate was again open. Well too late for us, we had already cancelled our reservation and were resigned to staying the night in the dirt lot.
We shut the generators off before going to bed. I only have one battery for my rig and thus decided not to run my furnace overnight without the generator running. I woke up around 5:30 comfortable under the covers but astonished that it was 46 degrees inside the rig and 32 outside! Maggie and Rico must have been freezing! I got up and turned on both generators, ours and Paul and Paula’s. After turning on the furnace we warmed up and after an hour or so were able to get ready to move on.

Rico bundled up for the night!

We got back on the road by 8:30 with temps still in the low 40’s. Two hours later we were pulling into Las Cruces. Too early to check in at Hacienda RV Park, we decided to get a late breakfast at the big rig friendly, Cracker Barrel. We got checked in around 11 a.m. and spent the rest of the chilly afternoon setting up and then turning in early! It only warmed to 56 degrees but it should be in the mid 70’s later in the week.
We each paid the $267 weekly rate which includes cable, WiFi and full hook-ups. Joyce and I really like Las Cruces and Paul and Paula had only spent a day or so in the area last year and wanted to spend more time.

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