Ed Greenberg

“Or maybe all the way to S.A. Who knows?”

[Note: Photos pending.]

Well, we know. We left Fort Stockton at 7 AM this morning, after breakfast at Burger King. I never eat breakfast at Burger King, but the McDonalds had two busloads waiting in a long line, and not wanting to wait, we visited the King. What a mistake. Rubbery eggs inside microwaved tortillas. Oh well.

We chose to shunpike today, and to take US 90. This is what we came up with in trip planning:

So we figured we’d stop at Del Rio (“B”) where there is a very welcoming Elks Lodge. Leaving at 7, we were able to make good time, and arrived at Del Rio at about 12:00.

On our way, we traveled via US Hwy 285 down to Sanderson, and then US 90 to the east. The lady at the Elks Lodge said, “it’s a pretty drive” and indeed it was. The road travels through the rolling hills of the Big Bend Country region of Texas. As we’d top the ridges, we’d see huge valley vistas spread out before us. Vegetation is sparse and suited to dry country. This area is a desert region. After passing Sanderson, there’s little civilization until Langtry, wher e the state has built a Travel Information Center around Judge Roy Bean’s Opera House. Here Judge Bean dealt out high and low justice, establishing himself, and his 1876 “Revised Statues of Texas” lawbook as “The Law West of the Pecos.” The area also boasts a fine cactus garden.  Shortly after leaving Langtry, we crossed the Pecos traveling from West to East.

As we grew closer to Del Rio, we also grew closer to the Rio Grande and the border. US 90 has an interesting feature. The Border Patrol has graded a path, about eight feet wide, along both sides of the highway, and they regularly drag old tires along the path to groom the sand, so that tracks will stand out. Border Crossers leave sign behind that the Patrolmen are adept in reading. I had bought a few books at the Border Patrol Museum in El Paso, (see earlier blog entry) and I was seeing what I had read in action. We passed inspection checkpoints in both directions, both east and west of Del Rio, complete with dogs.

As we approached Del Rio, we started seeing the Amistad National Recreation area, which culminated at the Amistad Reservoir. This is the largest body of water we’ve seen since some time before leaving Los Angeles. It’s not as big as the Pacific Ocean, but we saw nothing bigger all the way along I-10. There is a community of motels, restaurants, boat/RV storage yards, and now McMansions, growing up along US-90, all supporting water-sport recreation. Entering Del Rio, we saw all the usual trappings of civilization. Every kind of chain store you could want.

Del Rio brought us Bar-b-cue lunch, fuel, and the possibility of an overnight stop, but we chose to push on. Now we found ourselves entering the “Hill Country.” (There are some really good maps of the various Texas regions to be found here. ) I noticed that things were a bit greener, then a lot greener. I saw land in cultivation, a thing almost unheard of to the west of Del Rio. I saw larger herds of cattle, as the land became able to support more head per section. We stopped in Brackettville, parked the trailer in a (closed) high-school parking lot and took a short nap. We passed Uvalde, which was a pretty bustling community, then Hondo, which was another active place. On arriving at Castroville, we decided we’d had enough. This is a good jumping off point for day trips to San Antonio, and we are camped for three nights at a city-run RV park in the Regional Park. Very nice.

So, did we make San Antonio? Well, not 100%, but we covered over 300 miles today, our longest yet, and we’re close enough to S.A. to consider ourselves “there.”

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