Friday, January 20th - Day 50 - Tucson to Anthony, TX

 It did get below freezing in Tucson last night but we did not get a hard freeze. I knew I would worry about it during the night so I disconnected our water line and we used onboard water during the night.

We left the Pima County Fairgrounds a little after 10, 300 miles later we pulled into the Road Host RV Park in Anthony, TX a little before 5. No problems with traffic eastbound. I actually did half the driving today, a first. 

We were getting a little concerned. I had not made reservations at a campground. I didn't think there would be a lot of camping going on with overnight lows in the high 20's & low 30's. We started calling when we were about 40 miles from Anthony. The first 3 places were full up. It turned out OK, I probably would not have found Road Host otherwise. It isn't fancy but they have large pull thru full hookup spaces for $36/night, incl taxes. One of the places that was full charges $48/night. It has a heated pool and hot tub but I bet not many are using them at these temperatures. 

We were at elevation 3,000 when we left the fairgrounds. We climbed to 4,200 in the first 30 miles. During the next 6 miles we dropped down to 3500 then climbed to 5,000 during the next 16 miles. The huge flat plains (mesas?) at elevations around 4,000 are quiet interesting. The scenery was beautiful, again. 

We say many acres of pecan and pistachio trees along I10. There are over 4,000 acres of pistachios trees in the area. There are 26,000 acres of pecan trees in AZ with 14,000 acres of them in bearing production. We also saw a vineyard and winery along side some of these trees, at elevation 4,350'.

We stopped for lunch and topped off our fuel. Fuel was $4.09/gal. Yesterday I paid $3.02/gal to fill up the Flex. Note the trailer in front of the white semi trailer.

It was quite colorful. I didn't notice the overloaded truck until I looked at the photo.

We had filled up before heading into CA, on Dec 19th. Today we filled up in San Simon, AZ, about 380 miles from the CA/AZ line. We had driven 635 miles in hilly, windy conditions, and got 7.8 mpg. Even topping off the tank costs a lot but it is nice to have this kind of range. It took 81.8 gallons to fill up our 150 gallon tank.

We stopped at a rest area about 30 miles from the Texas line. Note the roadrunner sculpture. It was WINDY, all day.

Parked at Road Host.

I took a walk around the campground to get a little exercise. Below is the view from the back of the campground.
 

It is obvious that a fair amount of the people here are long term residents (monthly?). This is the first time I've seen a mini split unit hooked up for an RV.

I wonder what this hauls. It is a flat bed.

I wasn't watching the scenery as I was walking and I just missed the sunset. The sky was still pretty.

I took this photo of one of the coach front tires when I was working on the steps. I've never seen this on a tire before. I think the angled slots may be tread wear indicators.

We have decided that there is nothing here than we want to see bad enough to fight all the people in El Paso. There are nearly 900,000 people in the El Paso metro area, on this side of the border. When you add in the Ciudad Juarez metro area on the other side of the Rio Grande the population is well over 2 million, probably a little larger than the St. Louis metro area. The current plan is that we will stay overnight somewhere between here and San Antonio tomorrow night and then spend the next 2-3 nights in San Antonio before heading south to Donna. San Antonio is 575 miles from here. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

PS. January 17th was our 8th month anniversary of living in the coach.