Del Rio, TX

Tuesday, Nov. 24th, 2020

Today we were leaving the Big Bend area and heading 276 miles east to the border town of Del Rio, TX. It was a gorgeous ride back through part of Big Bend NP on 385 North before connecting with 90 East. Our views were mountains, hills, and ranches. The highway appeared cut out from limestone walls in places. Hardly a car or truck in sight. We passed a sign: “Land for Sale 34,894 +/- acres.” Wow. We also saw a couple of Border Patrol check points but they weren’t operating (i.e. manned with personnel) when we passed by. For a while 90 East bordered a train track, and we saw double decker cargo cars on the track. That was a first.

We arrived at Broke Mill RV Park where the owner met me outside the front office to complete the reservation. We have a nice private Pull Thru site. We are here for a week, and this is where we will be celebrating Thanksgiving in just a couple of days. 

We are looking forward to having a quiet week and getting caught up on some things while we are here and taking a little breather from all the sightseeing. We’ve seen some amazing sites these past few weeks. But as Gary put it, we need to cleanse the palate a bit to be able to enjoy seeing new sites. Otherwise you can get jaded and thing today’s amazing site isn’t as wonderful as yesterday’s amazing site. It’s just how us humans tend to be. 

The rest of the day was quiet… settling in and sitting outside and walking around the campground. 

Wednesday, Nov. 25th, 2020

Today is the day before Thanksgiving! We had placed a food order at Walmart earlier in the week and Gary had placed a Home Depot order so we ran around and picked all that up. Didn’t really want to head into a store the day before Thanksgiving! The rest of the day was working on a blog post, paying bills, emailing friends, and looking to see what there was to do in the area. I know, I know I said we wanted to cleanse our palate. But we’re only here for a week, and we want to see a few things. It becomes addictive being able to see new places all the time! 

It was also the day to get in touch with the drone company and check on the insurance for a replacement drone for the one we lost in the Rio Grande at Big Bend Ranch State Park. Sooooo we pulled up the contract to take a look. Gary reads it first and then passes it over to me. Ut oh…. it clearly states you have to return the drone, or part of it, to get a replacement. Gary was thinking that there was a serial number on the drone that they could cancel so that you couldn’t fly the old one and could just fly the new one. Thereby the company would be assured that you weren’t cheating and just trying to get a second drone. But, nope, that doesn’t appear to be the case. We’re calling anyway. When in doubt, play dumb… or, you know, be ourselves. 

I ended up doing an online “chat” with “Larry” from the drone company. Since English was not Larry’s first language, I think we can safely assume that Larry wasn’t his real name. He was very nice and understood that I was “sad” about losing the drone. And asked if there was anyway that we could recover even a piece of it. Nope, that’s not possible. Then he said…. well, we can’t replace the drone without getting part of it back but if you have any of the data, you could send that to us and we can tell you what happened. We know what happened, it crash landed in a river and floated away… or so we think. (He didn’t need to know that we were in a state park and shouldn’t have been flying it anyway, and that the river was the Rio Grande.) It also seemed like a really crappy rule that you have to send a piece of the broken drone back. The whole point of having a drone is that you fly it places that you can’t be. So, if there’s a problem, and it goes down, it stands to reason you won’t be able to have easy access to it… or any access to it. I think it’s a not-so-nice-way for them to get out of honoring the insurance claim. 

Upshot of all that was that no, we could not collect on the insurance. Bummer! We’ll have to think on if we’re going to replace this or not. It wasn’t a cheap purchase!!!  IF we buy another one, we’ll have to be more careful on where we fly it…. not too low near trees where it can get tangled etc. 

After our disappointing online chat with Larry, we drowned our sorrows in a pre-dinner adult beverage. 

In an aside… Ellen & Wayne had some fun with this. They have a clear memory of Gary being about 12 years old (before my time) and getting a brand new yo-yo on the New Jersey boardwalk. He unfurls it and it crashes onto the boardwalk and breaks! They sent him a yo-yo in the mail recently. 😂 As luck would have it, the package literally was delivered to us as we were video chatting with them. What are the odds? 

Thursday, November 26th, 2020

Thanksgiving! One of my favorite holidays. No expectations except eating and connecting with friends and family. What could be better!! We connected with various family members via text, emailing and phone calls… highlighted by a 2-hour Skype call with Ellen & Wayne. Dinner was a roast chicken, cornbread stuffing (mom’s recipe) and carrots. Gary made a pumpkin pie for dessert. A relaxing day! 

Friday, November 27th, 2020

Today we visited Lake Amistad National Rec Area in Del Rio. Absolutely beautiful with water in varying shades of blue depending how the sunlight hits it and limestone hills in the distance. Lake Amistad is the #1 bass fishing lake in the world. Not that we fish! There’s over 500 miles of shoreline on the U.S. side and over 300 miles of shoreline on the Mexico side. It’s home to the Amistad Reservoir, hiking trails and a dam that is located both on the U.S. and Mexico side. We did a few short hikes via the Diablo East entrance and enjoyed the amazing views of the lake. 

We also played corn hole in the afternoon, which I lost miserably. The other activity was starting to organize the spread sheet for our Fall 2021 travels. We’re always planning. ☺️

Saturday, November 28th

Today was a chore day. We did laundry, booked a few campgrounds for our fall 2021 travels, and “reviewed” a few campgrounds that we had stayed at recently. We always write a review of where we’ve stayed recording our favorite sites so that if and when we go back, we’ll know which site we’d like to have and/or IF we want to stay there again. I also was able to catch up with a friend via a nice long phone conversation. 

Sunday, November 29th

I made a reservation for a guided ranger tour for us at Seminole Canyon State Historic Park in Del Rio today to see pictographs dating back over 7,000 years in a rock shelter called Fate Bell Shelter located about a mile from the visitor’s center. Remarkable! Of course, there’s been damage over the years… from cowboys using the area as a shelter and building campfires to tourists doing damage before they roped the area off and required a ranger to take you down. But incredible to see remnants of art in the form of pictographs that old. There was even “graffiti” dating back to the 1800’s (photos below). 

Afterwards we did a 4 mile Canyon Rim Trail. As the name implies, the trail hugged the rim of a canyon, although fairly wide so not terribly scary, but lots of rocks so important to watch where you’re going! A fun day. We walked about 5.5 miles total. Hubby was complaining a teensy weensy bit at the end… and maybe the middle! But he was a good sport!

As he said… “I knew I was doomed when the park attendant was explaining about the Canyon Rim Trail… that had your name written all over it.”

After that we relaxed back at our tiny home and watched Hillbilly Elegy that evening on Netflix recommended by Andy & Linda. It was based on a bestselling memoir of the same name. A young man from Appalachia trying to become an attorney and the family that raised him. Sad but inspiring at the same time. 

Monday, November 30th, 2020

Today we hung out at the campground except for heading out to fill up on fuel. For the record, diesel was $1.71 a gallon here vs. $3.50 in the Big Bend area. A steal! We worked further on next fall’s camping schedule, emailed some friends, and I worked on a blog post. We also prepped for hitting the road tomorrow to arrive in Mission, TX in the Rio Grande Valley.