Yesterday, Wednesday the 18th, we continued our travels across I-20. We stopped in Abilene for fuel and then thought we would grab a bite to eat for lunch. Across the street from the gas station was a shopping area that set back from the road but a Wendy’s was along the road and appeared to have a connecting parking lot from Wendy’s to the shopping area. Tom turned into the Wendy’s and sure enough the parking lots did not connect so around Wendy’s we drove and luckily Tom was able to manipulate the motorhome around and back out to the main road once more. We then spied an empty parking lot next to a Chili’s restaurant where we were able to park and then we had lunch at Chili’s. By the way we got diesel fuel at a Fina station for $3.69, the best price around as other stations were about $.20 a gallon higher. We stopped for the night at Whip In RV Park in Big Spring, Texas, a distance of 338 miles. The weather was sunny and temperatures were in the upper 60’s dropping into the 30’s during the night.
We had planned to continue west on I-20 but when we looked at the next leg of the trip we realized that campgrounds are few until El Paso. El Paso was well over 350 miles, a distance greater than we like to travel in a day. So we decided to leave I-20 and go to Carlsbad, New Mexico. This morning we left Big Spring, Texas on I-20 and shortly we got on route 87 to La Mesa, Texas and then route 180 to Carlsbad, New Mexico-195 miles. Traveling through Texas and into New Mexico we passed by fields that were being prepared for cotton planting, saw several cotton gins, a large peanut processing plant as well as oil wells and natural gas pumping stations-and a few small towns. When we got to Carlsbad RV Park we realized that we had crossed into mountain time so we gained an hour. The weather here is wonderful with temperatures reaching 80 or above. After setting up and eating some lunch we went to the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens which is located outside Carlsbad on a hill that overlooks the city. The 1.3 mile pathway goes through different types of desert vegetation and passes by native animals as Mexican wolves, javelinas, bison, mountain lions, bobcat, elk, pronghorn as well as birds and reptiles. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon in this wonderful weather. Before returning back to the motorhome we stopped at Lowe’s (Tom always needs something from Lowe’s) and the Walmart to get a few groceries and some medicine for the nasal congestion that Tom has been suffering with since Alabama. We plan to stay here for 2 nights before moving on west.
