Jan 7 - Johnson City to Hondo

Miller Creek RV Park offers a weekly deal... pay for 6 days and get the 7th for free. We took advantage of that deal and were "paid-up" through Tues morning. But, alas, the weather is moving us along a day early. Rain and heavy storms are predicted for most of central and eastern Texas on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, we made the 120 mile drive to Hondo today.

The route was US-290 to Fredericksburg where we picked up TX-16 to Kerrville. There's a loop road TX-534 that avoids Kerrville's downtown district and hooks up with TX-173 on the west bank of the Guadalupe River for the drive south through Bandera (the cowboy capital of the world... according to them) and to Hondo.

We're planning to stay a week or two at the Lone Star Corral SKP Park just west of Hondo in order to be in one spot long enough to get mail and a few packages. It's also a good spot to catch our breath and get caught up on other chores that I've been putting off for a while.

From here we'll continue the trek westward but things get a bit more complicated. Between here and Tucson Arizona we've got what you can call "high country"... Alpine
TX... 4,500 feet; El Paso... 4,000 feet; Deming NM... 4,300 feet; Wilcox AZ... 4300 feet.  While 4,000 to 5,000 feet isn't really high by most western standards, it's high enough to make a difference in the winter weather. The 500 miles from West Texas to Tucson can be as cold and wintery as Wisconsin at times. The coldest night we've ever spent in the bus-house was in Marathon Texas when it got down to 6 degrees one January night.  So we'll be watching the weather closely... and the run from here to there might go rather quickly.

Yesterday morning we met up with John and Judy for breakfast. We first crossed paths with this duo a couple years ago in Portland Oregon, so when we found out they were staying just a few miles from our camp at Miller Creek, we arranged the second "meet-up". A quick breakfast turned into a three hour morning that didn't seem half that. It was an enjoyable and entertaining time.