After my sisters’ departure, it was time to get back on the road. We were able to camp in Casa Grande for 4 days, so we felt well rested and ready to go. Our newest objective was to get to Larry Blossom in New Orleans, Louisiana. We planned on staying in the Big Easy about a month, so we had some heavy travel time ahead of us before we could make the next major stop.
 |
| More driving |
 |
| View of driving into New Mexico.. |
We headed east on the I-10 and towards New Mexico en route to see a skate park that Jeff’s friend Brent Kronmueller built in a town outside of Fort Worth, Texas.
If you ever look at a map (which this is the first time I had since middle school), you’ll notice that if you take the southern route to the east coast, you pass through a tiny portion of New Mexico on the way into Texas. It’s probably about a 2-3 hour drive from border to border.
When we entered New Mexico, there was frost on some parts of the interstate as it was near freezing outside. There were also huge rock formations all along the road. Since we only spent 3 hours in New Mexico (and most of it was spent in the coach), there isn’t really much to say about our New Mexico experience.
 |
| cool rocks |
 |
| No we did not stop to find out what the "Thing" was.... but I do know what is it :) ( I won't ruin the surprise for all of you) |
 |
| We have entered New Mexico! |
 |
| There was lots of snow where the shaded areas were... |
We did decide to stop in Deming, New Mexico to skate a park.
In the words of a certain red bearded fellow, “At least they have something…“.
 |
| This photo came out kinda cool because I accidentally half-covered the flash with my finger... |
 |
| The coach and the Festi in Deming NM |
 |
| Deming Skate park |
 |
| Jeff and Cedar dropping in |
We decided to set up camp in El Paso, Texas. As you approach El Paso, it was exciting because most of the drive through Arizona and New Mexico on the interstate is barren. Even though we came in at night, you could see the twinkling lights of the bordering country of Mexico. Just as you would see a sea of lights indicating signs of life on the San Diego/Mexico border, it was the same on the El Paso/Mexico Border.
 |
| City lights after a long drive through the desert (sorry for the crappy photo)ZA |
We were pretty hungry by the time we pulled into El Paso, so we looked up some Indian restaurants nearby. We found one called the India Palace.
 |
| Cedar and his papadams...mmm... my favorite! |
 |
| Cheeese! |
 |
| Veggie Samosas and Pakoras |
 |
| Yellow dal soup |
 |
| Jeff's veggie combo |
Jeff ordered the vegetarian special that came with a dal soup, two entrees and naan. His was pretty good! I have learned that I should just stick with what dishes I know, because I always end up not liking new items that I order of the menu. I ordered the paneer tikki masala and it was basically ordered a dish that was 2 whole onions sliced and cooked in a tandoor with tandoori seasoning and like 4 cubes of paneer. I like onions but not that much.
 |
| My onion dinner |
Our waiter was a blond haired blue eyed Texas young man which I found funny because the only people I’ve seen working at an Indian restaurant are the people of India.
After filling our bellies, we decided to find refuge for the night before another 5 hour drive to Odessa, Texas. We stayed at one of our discounted campgrounds just off the 10 in El Paso. The campground, Roadrunner RV park was one of the most crowded campgrounds I’ve seen so far! It was amazing how many rigs they were able to stuff in there!! Since we arrived late and left early, I didn’t manage to get photos of the campground, but I did get photos for the cool train they had displayed in the front of the park.
 |
| El Paso Train |
The next day,2 hours into our travel day, we decided to stop at a Love’s Gas Station (which is ABUNDANT in the Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas area…. Seriously like every other exit has a Love’s). We stopped at a pretty busy Love’s in Van Horn, Texas. As we were about to pull into a spot to pump some gas, we suddenly heard a loud bang from the underside of the coach. When we got out, we were disappointed to see that one of our under cabins had been completely smashed in!
What had happened was we had driven over a manhole (which the Love’s manager admitted he knew was loose) and the cover popped off and our back tire fell into the large hole!!
 |
| Dented coach :( |
 |
| The imfamous manhole |
We were pretty peeved since this would prove to be a bump in our road trip travels. The repair could put us in a hotel for a week!!!
Since the damage was mostly cosmetic, we took our pictures, documented any necessary information, and moved along.
We wanted to meet up with Jeff's fellow builder friend, Brent Kronmueller. Since he was traveling back to his home in San Diego, we were going to cross paths. We decided to meet up at a rest stop for some laughs.
 |
| Two bearded men |
 |
| Coach photo op |
By the time we got to Odessa, it was dark and we were tired. The campground, Midessa Oil Patch RV Park was another one of our discounted parks. It was clean and the sites were a lot more spacious than the nights before. This is one of the first places where we encountered the famous “Southern hospitality”. The woman at the front was a cute little older Southern lady and she was so nice! Before we left, we took advantage of the nice playground they had at the campground.
 |
| Weeeeee!!! |
 |
| Cedar loves swings.... |
 |
| and MAMA!!!! |
After another nights rest, we moved on. Texas is an interesting state that is full of roadside attractions. There are so many huge windmills and oil pumps!! It’s nice because it gives you something to look at rather than staring at the same vast open planes.
 |
| Firework stores like this are all up and down the 10 in AZ, NM, and TX. They even sold them at a grocery store that I went to! |
Texas is a huge state. We had already done two full travel days and we weren’t even in Fort Worth yet!!
We wanted to take a little break from driving, so we stopped at the Abilene Skate Park to stretch our legs.
 |
| Cedar and Jeff |
We were close to Fort Worth, but not close enough to where we would want to make the drive in the dark, so we stopped at a little campground called RL RV. It was sort of a dumpy campground, but like I have said before, we have come to appreciate these “primitive” campgrounds because they are perfect stop and go places.
 |
| The RL RV park |
 |
| Our set up |
 |
| Cedar and Jeff as we are about to leave the park... |
We were finally close to the skate park in Kennedale, which is a county of Forth Worth. Since Jeff’s friend Brent built the park, the park’s owner Jackie said that we could stay a couple nights in the back parking lot of the park.
 |
| Pretty Fort Worth sunset |
 |
| Cedar... the big boy! |
 |
| Cedar... the nerd :) |
Jackie also owned a cute little kids boutique which mainly catered to little girls. Their specialty was conducting tea parties and setting up a whole array of girlie activities for them to do.
 |
| The boy's skate section of the store.... |
 |
| ....was much smaller compared to the girls selection! ;) |
 |
| I'm sorry.. I can be so immature... |
On our departure day, we wanted get some footage of the park. But before we did this, we wanted to plant our “euro” Christmas tree. (remember from Eureka?) . So I went out to the grassy area they had and planted our little tree. Since we had no tools to dig a hole, we had to makeshift a shovel.
 |
| Christmas tree |
 |
| What we used to dig a hole to plant the tree... |
 |
| A view of the coach from the christmas tree :) |
Right in the middle of our planting it started to sprinkle snow!!!! This was so awesome because I have never seen real snow in my adult life. It was so cool how the snow was just little delicate flakes that you couldn’t even hold!
 |
| Some light snow.. |
This ended up literally being cool because our feet were FROZEN, by the time we were done. Not to mention, the snow had started to pick up. We went to check out the park thinking that it would be warmer than outside, but it seemed even colder! I should have known since it was a huge steel warehouse and it was covered in snow (hello… ice chest). Anyway, after a few tricks and photos (and almost frost-bitten toesies), we were ready to head out on our eastern adventure.
 |
| Cedar bundled up in warm clothes |
 |
| Kennedale Skate park |
An interesting landmark (if you could call it that) is the Target headquarters in Texas. I mean I knew that Target was a HUGE corporation, but this building was massive. There had to be at least 150 Target semi-trucks ready to deliver foreign-made goods to the people of America. I only managed to get a picture of a portion of the building. I wish I had use of panoramic photography to get the entire structure in the picture.
 |
This picture doesn't even do this EMPIRE justice... not only because you can't really tell what it is but multiply this photo by 5 and you've got the Target warehouse!!
|
As we drove east, the snow really started to dump!! We saw multiple cars that had slide off the road. Some were there for so long that they were covered in snow!!!
 |
| Just starting to snow.... |
 |
| Snow coming down a little more.... |
 |
| Snow covered cars... |
 |
| Iced windshield... |
 |
| This is when it really started to come down! |
 |
| Texas winter wonderland... |
 |
| Blankets of snow! |
|
Remember on the news, that gnarly snowstorm that was going on in South?? Yea… we were driving smack dab in the middle of it.
But we managed to make into Louisiana unscathed!! :)
 |
| Yea!!! we're in Louisiana!!!! :) |
