Wednesday, April 17, 2024:
Spending the night at: Willow Draw Campground at Monahans Sandhills State Park west of Odessa Texas
$23.00/night for pull-through site #3 including 50 amp power and water. We’re on a bit of an uphill. Sites 10,11,12 are big and level pull-throughs. One of those would be a good choice for next time.
Weather- hot, dry, clear now but was a lil hazy getting here through Midland and Odessa:
Hi 93, low 58, Humidity Hi 20%, low 5%. Yep – it be DRY like a biscuit here!
Backing up a couple hundred miles, the wild flowers were soooo beautiful! They were everywhere when we were around Springtown and as we traveled along for the first couple hundred miles. Then as we moved west of Abilene on I-20, we transitioned from green and flowers into desert and oil field scenery with hazy skies filled with dust.
Here was another attempt to get some more colors in the wild flower pictures. My personal challenge with wild flower pictures is to get three flower colors in the picture. That started last year when we were riding in the desert near Florence Arizona with our friends Rick and Rocky. The desert flowers were absolutely stunning, so Rocky and I had a challenge to find three colors together before making our drivers stop for photo ops.
Our journey today was about 350 miles and took us about six hours. We left Steve & Carol’s around 8:30 so that we could get out of the driveway before the irrigation crew showed up around 9:00. At 2:30, we arrived at Monahans Sandhills State Park. We had to stop at the visitors center to get our windshield tag, then we meandered 1.5 miles into the dunes (on a paved road) to get to our camping spot for the night.
There are “pull-through” sites and back-in sites. I reserved one of the pull-throughs, which is really just a wide spot in the road with utilities in an ‘island’ so that they’re on the correct (driver’s) side of the rig. Site #3 is on a bit of an uphill, and the passenger side was a little low. We put our drive-up-on boards on the passenger side, and then Nitro was happy to level himself out, even with Kawi inside. The ‘bow’ had to go down quite a bit, but it’s all good! There’s 50amp power here, so we can run both air conditioners which is nice, since it’s over 90 degrees outside.
I kept looking at the various tracks in the sand. There were all kinds of bird prints, but these were curious. They looked like teeny tiny miniature deer prints in some places.
The sign did say to watch for sand on the road. Yep.
Here was the current weather condition at 3:00. Wow it’s dry!! I don’t think the windows will be sweaty here! It was super duper humid at Steve’s this morning and everything was dripping with condensation. That won’t be a problem here!
There’s a neat windmill and water tank here. Maybe it sucks water out of the ground with the wind to provide the water for the park? I read the park guide, and it says “beneath the dunes hides caliche, [a sediment rock layer like cement] a mostly impermeable layer that traps water, forming a perched water table where seeps of water are available.” Archeologists found evidence that people have used the dunes for a loooong time (they say thousands of years….) as the water provides an environment for critters and the 2-3’ tall shin oak trees that produce acorns.
We could be in the Sahara, right? Pretty desolate. Where are the camels? HA! That reference comes from my bucket list which includes riding on a camel. But I don’t want to ride on a camel in a place that is un-natural for camels. For instance, there were camel rides on the beach in Cabo San Lucas when we were there on a cruise in January. I was tempted, but Cabo Mexico just ain’t natural for camels. This place looks right….but it’s Texas. Where cowboys and horses and cattle and white Ford trucks rule the land. Kenny laughs at me, but by golly, some day I’m gonna go to Egypt or Morocco or Jordan or Israel or find Lawrence of Arabia and ride a camel in an appropriate camel-y place. On a Wednesday (hump day).
I almost completely missed sunset! It was cooling down nicely out there and I walked around the campground loop. There weren’t any clouds to provide artistry to the vast canvas painting, but the colors were really pretty!
This is what I mean about the pull-through camping spots just being wide spots on the road. But it works. I looked all over the place within a reasonable distance from Steve’s for a place to stop for tonight, and this was just about right, especially for the $23 price including power & water.
Tomorrow we’ll have a shorter day (which is the purposeful plan of the navigator) to go to Big Bend National Park. Hopefully by having a short travel day, we’ll have some time to do a little bit of exploration in the big park.