Texas – Stark Adventures

4/19/24 Big Bend National Park

April 19, 2024April 20, 2024karenstark

Friday, April 19, 2024:

Spending the 2nd night at: Big Bend Station in Terlingua Texas near Big Bend National Park

Weather: hot and dry: Hi 89, low 67, Humidity Hi 69%, low 39%
Thank goodness it isn’t as hot as yesterday. As I’m writing this, the power is out, so we don’t have air conditioning unless we run the generator. It’s about 80 degrees this evening and not uncomfortable. We had a one minute rain squall come through and it cooled things down a few degrees.

This is a map of the Big Bend National Park. The green border on the bottom is the Rio Grande River which separates the United States and Mexico. The yellow lines are the roads that I wanted to drive today to see the park. The pink highlights are places to stop and see.

4/18/24 Terlingua Texas

April 18, 2024April 19, 2024karenstark

Thursday, April 18, 2024:

Spending the night at: Big Bend Station in Terlingua Texas near Big Bend National Park
$49.00/night for pull-through site #19 including 50 amp power and water AND sewer. We’re here for two nights.
Weather: baking sheet hot and dry: Hi 103, low 65, Humidity Hi 99% and fog!, low 5% bone dry.

FOG?! Way weird. So much for being in the bone dry desert. When I got up around 7:30 and looked outside, I couldn’t even see across the street. FOG! Right? I know! 99% humidity in the desert? Way weird Wally.

4/17/24 No camels in this desert

April 17, 2024April 18, 2024karenstark

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!

4/14/24 Driving the herd in Texas

April 16, 2024April 19, 2024karenstark

Sunday, April 14, 2024:

Spending the night at: Cousin Steve & Carol’s lovely home in Springtown Texas, near Fort Worth
Weather- clear, warm & sunny, and not too humid today.

Free parking next to the house with 50 amp power! The only curvey driveway in the whole neighborhood, but my professional driver (remember that Paul James guy?) got this big rig in here.

April 1, 2023 – Our last night in Texas

April 1, 2023April 4, 2023karenstark

There were a couple of remarkable things that happened today that I am grateful for. We both woke up healthy, and we drove to our destination without incident. Usually we take those things for granted. But today we’re especially thankful for those remarkable things, because that’s about as good as it gets!

Last night was not as busy around the Offroad Park as I thought it would be. It stayed pretty quiet. I think today and tonight will provide a little more action. I told Kenny that the only good thing about being here on a Saturday would be the entertainment. We could go park at some of the big obstacles, chunky rocky hills, and just watch. But, we had about 340 miles to travel today, so we needed to get going. While we were loading up, our new neighbors’ dogs were woofing me. They had two female Rottweilers about two years old. I kept talking to the dogs and they kept woofing back, and finally I asked if I could come meet them. They were just doing their job…. but I really think they were telling me to come visit. They were sweet dogs. Not nearly as big as our male Rott granddog, but they were good girls and were wiggly-butts just like our Diesel dog.

March 30 & 31, 2023: Hidden Falls Adventure Park

March 31, 2023April 1, 2023karenstark

Thursday we got up and found the weather to be as if we were on the Oregon coast. The air was thick with fog and heavy mist that made everything dripping wet. But it wasn’t raining… just doing that wet misty thing like at the Pacific Ocean beaches. It was soggy-doggy outside. The forecast said it would be cloudy, but only a 20% chance of rain. Well technically, that was correct. It wasn’t raining. We were just smack dab inside the cloud! Well, we got up and moving anyway, loaded Kawi, stopped at the pooper dumper outer, and were on our way before 9:30. It was only a 30 minute drive or so to our next destination.

March 26-29 2023: Adventures in Texas

March 29, 2023March 30, 2023karenstark

Sunday we were up and gone by 9:30 to head west away from the nasty weather that was on it’s way to Louisiana. Our destination was Ratcliff Recreation Area in the Davey Crockett National Forest, just 140 miles away. That would leave 225 miles for Monday to get to Inks Lake State Park, west of Austin Texas. By 10:30 we were crossing the Toledo Bend Reservoir bridge. This is a huge body of water.

10/14 & 10/15/22: Cousin time and another brewery

October 15, 2022October 17, 2022karenstark

Friday we woke up while it was still dark outside at 7:00?. Hmm 🤔 OH! I know what happened. When we came into Texas, we changed to the Central Time Zone, so we are at the western edge of it, and THAT’s why it was still dark at 7:30am. Sunrise wasn’t until 8:00!! Well, we made coffee and got things ready to go, but tried to not make any noise outside until sunrise. 😉 And it was GORGEOUS!! That’s some big ol’ Texas sky!

10/13/22 – Big ol’ Texas

October 13, 2022October 15, 2022karenstark

We left our brewery camping spot at about 9:00, and we were next to the last rig to leave. Crazy early birds!! Our trip today was about 260 miles east to a winery in Canyon, Texas – just south of Amarillo. When we arrived in New Mexico, we were not welcomed. When we left, we were not thanked for visiting. Just a sign telling us we were leaving. And the road still sucked.

Day 6 – Cousin Time in Texas

March 7, 2022March 9, 2022karenstark

3/7/22 Monday: Woah! So, last night it was 78 degrees inside when we went to bed, so I had windows open and a fan running. Sometime in the darkness of night, we had a few wind gusts that woke me up and I was rolled up in a ball like a hedgehog trying to stay warm. I got up and closed the windows, and put on another blanket. I tried not to move so that I wouldn’t touch any of the cold spots in the bed. I was awake again as it was just starting to get light, and I realized that it was really chilly and I knew that I really hadn’t been sleeping much. Durrrrr! 🤦🏼‍♀️Get up and turn on the heat, you goofball! Yep – it was only 52 degrees inside, and 41 outside. And we were plugged into power, so just turn on the electric heat! I did, and snuggled back into the blankies until it warmed up a bit.