The straight and narrow
I do not usually drive the RV. I would in a pinch, but I prefer navigating, or enjoying the scenery, to wrestling against the buffeting forces of semi’s passing you at top speed, or the stress of anticipating who is going to try and squeeze past you on the right as the passing lanes merge into one. There is one place I don’t mind getting behind the wheel, West Texas. Long, straight highways, little traffic, no crossing lanes with people pulling out and cutting you off. My kind of roads. After several days of enjoying the sights of San Antonio we were facing several days of travel. When you live and tour in an RV you have these kinds of days, getting from point A to Point B, no sightseeing, just driving. The scenery is always different depending on where you are. Miles of farmland, fields, barns and silos, the undulating grasses of the prairie, majestic mountain passes. It is a big, beautiful country. West Texas is no different.
On the road to Ft. Stockton
Leaving San Antonio it was is still cold, but the rain had finally stopped and the sun was out. It is 600 miles to Las Cruces, our next major stop. That is two days driving for us and the choices for stopping are few and far between: Ft. Stockton or Van Horn. Van Horn is 311 miles, which is longer than we like so we call the Ft. Stockton KOA and make sure the are not full (highly unlikely, but we like to check) and settle in for the drive.
Lone Ranger country
Heading west the rolling, populated hills of the suburbs turn into flat desert, high mesas, cactus and scrub brush. Although the scenery is pretty, there’s not much to actually see. We are running parallel to the rail tracks, so occasionally we overtake a miles long freight train and try and guess how many cars there are. Just before Fort Stockton we see hundreds of windmills spinning atop a mesa, which made for a pretty impressive sight.
A look to the future
We pulled into the the Ft. Stockton campground around two thirty and got settled because Hubby wanted to watch the football playoffs. I thought about driving into town just to take a look at their statue of the world’s largest roadrunner. That meant unhitching the car, which I decided not to do, and instead wandered around the campground taking some photos of the very western scenery. Even the dog walk screamed Texas. The fellow in the camper next to us noticed we had satellite and offered to supply the beer if he could join us in watching the game. So the travel day ended with football, Coronas, and a new friend. Life can be good on the red roads, even on a travel day.
The dog walk
Red Road Diaries 
We are enjoying your travels. Recall driving across Texas through miles and miles of miles and miles when our radio anounced breathlessly “Tornado! Tornado! Take cover now!” Yikes. Where does one take cover on these desolate, flat roads? Lucky for us, the tornado was not in our area. Ah, the little problems of life on the road.
Enjoy your travels. Be well and safe travels, Ann and Jerry
There’s not much cover, but lots of room to run. Don’t think I want to be there and try and outrun a tornado. Have fun. Judith
Living in Texas is one of the joys of life as long as the temperature stays below 90. Those West Texas drives in the summer can go forever!
yes, west Texas went on forever, but it is a big country and it takes time to get across it, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas are similar long drives, but still beautiful to see up close instead of flying over them
Hey, your ‘Dog Walk’ looks just like some of the roads we have recently come back from 🙂
Yes, but we didn’t have to drive on it….Hubby likes college ball better than pro, University South Carolina is his favorite. However, he will watch just about any sporting event that is on.
PS Who does hubby support?