The next day, we drove 177 miles to stay overnight at the Clear Springs Campground on Wright Patman Lake, a Corps of Engineers campground near Texarkana, Texas ($8 per night with the Golden Age Passport). We stopped at the Cookery (Flying J) to have lunch, and did grocery shopping before arriving at the campground.
Friday night saw us at the Elks Club in Tyler, Texas. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch.
On Saturday, October 4, we arrived at our home Coast to Coast park in Whitney, Texas, Suncountry RV Resort (which has now been renamed Lake Whitney Resort & Golf), where we spent nine nights.
While in Whitney, we did laundry and grocery shopping, and ate dinner a couple of nights at Tres Hermanos, a very good Mexican food restaurant in town. We also took a couple of trips into Waco to shop at Sam's Club and PetsMart, and went by the Verizon store to get my phone fixed. They ended up giving me a new phone of the same type; however, that one quickly stopped working, too, so, since my two-year contract was just about up, I ordered a brand new phone from Verizon. Earl golfed at Lake Whitney Golf Club (the course that is part of our home park) a couple of times.
We left Whitney on Monday, October 13, and drove 140 miles to Camp Bowie Memorial City Park in Brownwood, Texas (free). This was a difficult place to find, mainly because the directions in Don Wright's Guide to Free Campgrounds were wrong.
The next day, we drove 114 miles to Twin Buttes City Park in San Angelo, Texas (another free park). We stopped in Brownwood, Texas, to fill up with diesel.
On Wednesday, we spent the night at Parkview RV Park in Fort Stockton, Texas. This was one of our Good Neighbor parks (associated with Coast to Coast), and costs $11 per night. We had dinner that night at the Steakhouse Restaurant.
The next day, we drove 121 miles to the El Campo RV Park in Van Horn, Texas. We stay at this RV park every time we stop for the night in Van Horn. The woman always recognizes us, even though the last time we were here was in 2001, when we were on our way to Alaska -- she even remembered we were going to Alaska the last time she saw us! We had lunch at Papa's Pantry, and picked up our mail.
On Friday, we had breakfast across the street from the RV park at LaCasita, and then got diesel at Love's. We drove 66 miles to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The "campground" for RV's is nothing more than a paved parking lot, but it's convenient to the sites in the park. We walked down to the Visitor's Center in the evening to hear the Ranger talk about McKittrick Canyon, one of the popular hikes in the park. The following evening, another Ranger talked about lizards and snakes, particularly those found in the park.
View from our rig of the Guadalupe Mountains:
We left Guadalupe Mountains National Park on Sunday, October 19, and drove 209 miles to the Dreamcatcher RV Park (one of our Escapees parks) in Deming, New Mexico, where we spent eight nights. Along the way, we stopped in Anthony, Texas to have lunch at the Cookery, and then had dinner at the LaFonda in Deming. While in Deming, we did laundry and grocery shopping, and Earl golfed a couple of times at the Rio Mimbres golf course. We also took a trip down to Palomas, Mexico, where we had lunch at The Pink Store.
On Monday, October 27, we left Deming and drove 140 miles to the Elks Club in Willcox, Arizona. The lodge had just finished putting in about 20 more RV sites -- all pull throughs with water and electric. We went inside to have drinks in the evening.
The next day, we drove 105 miles to the Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson Mountain Park near Tucson, Arizona. The last time we were at this park (when we still had our truck camper), this park cost about $12 per night. However, the price is now $20 per night. It's a beautiful park, but with only electrical hookups, at $20 per night, we probably won't stay here again.
On Wednesday, when we left the Gilbert Ray Campground, we stopped at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast, and then Costco to do shopping. We then continued on to the Jim Korsten West Pinal County Park west of Casa Grande, Arizona, off I-8 (free). We spent two nights at this park, going into Casa Grande on Thursday to do grocery shopping and laundry.
On the last day of the month, we reached HOME! After unpacking the fifth wheel (well, at least partially), we had dinner out at the Palo Verde Cafe.
