As a memory refresher from part 1 of this adventure, here is a map of our first trip around North America. We left from Woodstock, Ontario and went around the whole itinerary illustrated on the map, and again, all the way back to Edmonton, Alberta, where we arrived before the end of June.
We put over 15,000 KM in the motorhome and, of course, 3 maintenance service appointments. First one was in Edmonton, one in El Paso, Texas and the other in Woodstock, Ontario.
So, after one month stay in Nevada as I explained on part 1, we prepared the RV for another long stretch of travel and started our journey down to Orlando, Florida, driving south east on Interstate 93 and then Interstate 10, in Arizona. We loved the drive through the desert and seeing the stunning scenery, which some times resembled a different planet surface, full of huge red boulders on top of each other.
We camped in Burros State Park, in a campground with the same name. There are no amenities, besides a couple washroom stalls, so we had to dry camp (boondock) and, because it is so quite and serene there, we only used our generator when absolutely necessary.
On the second day of travel, our destination was Las Cruces, New Mexico so we just drove by Phoenix, Arizona but, I have to mention a freak incident that happened there. Because we were not going to stop, I asked Lisa if she would go to the fridge and grab me some water, after all, we had been driving through the desert and the wind had picked up a bit, so the air was a bit dusty. And we have a motorhome, so we have access to the kitchen while driving.
Anyway, we reached a point in the city that had lots of traffic lights and I was driving not more than 30 miles per hour, so Lisa thought it would be a good opportunity to go get the water. She walked to the fridge in the middle of the RV, took out the water pitcher and poured some water in a plastic bottle. When she was going to put the water pitcher back in the fridge, I had to brake a little harder because some guy cut me off just before the traffic light, and stopped in front of me. I heard a snap and a scream coming from the back, and then loud and fast stomping on the floor, coming towards me.
You probably guessed what happened. Lisa was grabbing the fridge handle, which she still had in her hand when she fell on the couch just behind me. I must admit I was upset for a bit at the time but after a while, it was actually pretty funny and, above all, she was okay. By the way, she was also still holding the pitcher up and did not spill one drop.
Too bad I don’t have a picture of that moment, lol.
We continued our drive east and this time we decided to stop in Tucson for something to eat and then drove around downtown for a bit before leaving the city.
Then we reached New Mexico. The drive through that part of the state took us about an hour and is mostly flat what causes the wind to be really strong and creates wind funnels, one of which, almost threw us off the highway, with a side swipe. We were tired when we arrived in Las Cruces and looked for the closest campground to the Ford service station we had the appointment with the next day. The campground was a KOA and looked really nice, located on top of a hill with beautiful views.
Turns out that the Las Cruces Ford could not take us because they had no service bay big enough to accommodate our RV, and advised us to book an appointment in El Paso, Texas, just a short hour or so away. So we did that and we have to give a shout out to the El Paso Ford dealership for the excellent and prompt service we received.
That night we stayed at the Road Runner RV park but once we settled in for the night, we noticed that the atmosphere in the park was somewhat eerie and the people in there were not very friendly and mostly construction workers. Lisa was one of the only two women in the whole park. We were offered a day trip to Mexico, just across the river, by a friend of the manager of the park but, we politely refused due to the area where he wanted us to go to, is on the list of cities with very high crime rate.
We actually loved El Paso, just from what we saw in the one day that we spent there. But my photographic equipment stayed locked in the RV while it was in for service. I can not believe I forgot to grab a camera. By the time we picked up the RV, we had to get back on the highway and find another RV park for the night. We hope that we can make it back there some day in the near future.
El Paso is a big city with lots of newer areas and wonderful roads. Interesting fact: when driving along highway I10, one can see Mexico on the other side of the river, with their old houses, old cars and buses, riding on dirt roads. You can tell that the standard of living is a lot lower than on the American side.
Texas is a very wide state, almost 1000 miles on the south end, and we had a lot of driving to do, still. The next morning came along and we took off early on our way to Fort Stockton, Texas, where we stayed for one night at another small KOA. We left the next day to drive the 300 or so miles to San Antonio, a place that we really wanted to visit. We loved it so much that we ended up staying for one week.
That story is coming in Part 3… Stay tuned!
