We said a reluctant goodbye to Mike Steffen and left his place in Salt Flat, Texas a little after 9 a.m. yesterday morning, headed west on U.S. Highway 180. It’s always good to see our friends, and always hard to leave. But, the good thing about the RV lifestyle is that we can always go back and see them again. 

We made a brief stop at Cornudas, a wide spot in the road that has an interesting history. Cornudas started life as a stagecoach station, and today the “town” is owned by May Carson, a feisty lady who is the mayor, heads the water department, and owns the entire town.

May will serve you a great hamburger, and a piece of pecan pie to  die for, but if you give her any grief, she’ll show you the baseball bat she keeps behind the counter and let you know she means business. May is a character, as are most of her customers.

A while back May sold the town on eBay, but the deal went sour and she had to take it back, which made her many fans very happy. Cornudas is one of those places you have to stop at, just to say you’ve been there.

An hour after leaving Salt Flat, we got on the Loop 375, which took us through Fort Bliss and across the Franklin Mountains, past the National Border Patrol Museum. We did a story on the museum years ago, and I recommend it to anyone traveling through El Paso.

Loop 375, also called Transmountain Road, is a divided four lane road up an 8% grade over the mountains, and the Winnebago did fine. We were not setting any speed records, but we went up as fast as I wanted to, and I left our Allison transmission in fourth gear and let the exhaust brake carry us down to the other side safely.

Well, almost safely. As we were approaching Interstate 10, a jerk in an eighteen wheeler pulled out of a business on the left side and across the highway directly in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and managed to stop before we hit him, but it was darned close! I got on the CB radio and told him what a jerk he was, and that I hoped that when he got home, his mother ran out from under the porch and bit him, but he ignored me. He was a typical OPOP, which is a term I stole from one of our readers a few years back. It stands for Only Person On Planet, because idiots like that seem to think that nobody exists except them, and they’ll kill you to prove it.

After our blood pressure dropped back down to a reasonable level, we got on Interstate 10 only six miles from the New Mexico state line. The loop was a steep climb and descent, but a good road, and it sure beats the heck out of driving through El Paso on the interstate. There was about a mile long stretch where it was on surface streets after we left the military reservation, but it was an easy drive.

Except for slowing down for the Border Patrol checkpoint west of Las Cruces, we made good time, and arrived at the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming about 12:45. This is a regular stop for us when we travel west, because it’s right off the interstate, with easy access in and out.

We got parked and hooked up, and then ran to the post office to send out some orders that had come in over the weekend. Our good friend Deb Peters lives in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, about 90 miles away, and we had not seen her in a couple of years. Deb drove down to Deming and we had a nice dinner together, catching up on our lives since the last time we were together. It was a real treat to see her again.

We had thought about staying here a couple of nights, but for some reason we only have the slower National Access signal on our Verizon air card, even though our cell phones both show high speed EVDO signals. I took the air card out of our Cradlepoint router and put it in my computer and updated it, but it did not help our speed at all. We have a lot of online work to get done, and it’s frustrating to keep getting knocked offline, so we’ll see how the day goes. We may hang around, or we may get fed up and say the heck with it and hit the road. Tune in tomorrow to see what we decide.

Thought For The Day – Laughter is the medicine of life.

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Terry and I have been dry camping at Mike and Pam Steffen’s place in Salt Flat, Texas for a couple of days, swapping lies, playing with their herd of dogs, target shooting, and admiring the star filled sky above us at night. In another life, that would be called goofing off, but in the laid back RV lifestyle, it’s called….. okay, I guess it’s still goofing off. But what’s wrong with that?

Mike is a well known and respected RV columnist for Trailblazer magazine, and his work is also familiar to readers of MotorHome magazine, Trailer Life, Woodall’s, and most other RV publications. Mike has been presenting seminars at RV rallies for longer than Terry and I have even been RVers, and I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.

Salt Flat is located on U.S. Highway 180, about 60 miles east of El Paso, and seventeen miles from nowhere. To get to Mike and Pam’s place, you turn north at the cattle guard, drive eleventeen miles down a dirt road, cross a couple of dry washes, take a right at the scorpion crossing, bear left at the pile of cow flop, and then drive for six days and nights. Eventually a wild menagerie of friendly dogs will run out to greet you, and you’re there. Do you get the picture?

This is rustic dry camping. Our Verizon cell phones and air card don’t work way out here, but we arrived with a full tank of fresh water, a full propane tank, empty waste tanks, and our Onan QuietDiesel generator gives us all the power we need. Mike and Pam are so far off the grid that they’re not even in the same galaxy. But, that doesn’t mean that they’re roughing it. When the sun hides behind the clouds and his large array of solar panels doesn’t work, Mike ties a key onto a kite string and pulls power right out of the sky, and if that doesn’t work, all he has to do is harness a couple dozen of his dogs and put them on a treadmill and they’ll crank out some power!

Okay, so it’s not a four star RV resort, but how many of them have a private shooting range where I can play with my toys? Not many! Yesterday I hauled a couple that I had not tried out yet across the yard to Mike’s range and put them through their paces, and after I got a bit familiar with them, I even managed to impress myself.

I love dogs, and this is a great place to get a puppy fix. Mike and Pam have a bunch of lovable mutts, and not a poodle in the lot! I have been licked, nuzzled, and snuggled enough to hold me over for a couple of months, and I’ve scratched behind enough canine ears to send a battalion of fleas across the border into Mexico.

As you can see, we’ve had a great time here, but today we’ll get back on the road and head for the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico. Coming across west Texas on Interstate 10, I fell in love with the big 350 Cummins engine in our Winnebago all over again. It just eats up hills and doesn’t even seem to notice. Today will be its first real test. We’ll avoid all of the traffic in El Paso by taking the 375 Loop through Fort Bliss and over the Franklin Mountains to Interstate 10, just south of the New Mexico state line. Called Transmountain Drive as it crosses through Franklin Mountains State Park, the road has some pretty steep climbs and descents. We came over it in a gas powered motorhome years ago, but we never attempted it in our old bus conversion. I don’t think it’ll be a problem with this rig.

On another note, we have received e-mails from several Gypsy Journal subscribers complaining that pages 7 and 30 of the new issue are unreadable due to a problem with the printing process. If you get a bad paper, please e-mail me, and we’ll send you a replacement.

Thought For The Day – Each of us has our own individual Heaven and Hell.

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What better way to start the New Year than spending it with good friends? Yesterday Greg and Jan White drove over from Friendswood, Texas, south of Houston, to spend the day with us. What a treat!

We last saw this fun couple exactly two months ago, when we left Elkhart Campground on November 1^st. Greg and Jan are fulltimers who are spending a few weeks in their old hometown for some family time, but Jan admitted yesterday that hitch itch is really setting in, and they’re really looking forward to getting back on the road. We know that feeling all too well.

Greg is one of those techie guys who can fix anything, from a stubborn generator to a cantankerous computer, so once the greeting hugs were out of the way, and we had some of Miss Terry’s delicious homemade cinnamon rolls, I put him to work hooking my new netbook computer to the Silverleaf engine monitoring system. I was just getting hooked on this great addition to our Winnebago motorhome when the burglar(s) who broke into our rig stole it, and I missed it in our most recent trips.

Jan loves animals, and she was looking forward to seeing some of the deer who live here at the Thousand Trails campground that I had written about. Though there is a huge herd of deer on the grounds, when Greg and Jan first arrived, they were off hiding somewhere, maybe sleeping off deer hangovers from whatever deer do on New Years Eve.

But, a couple of hours later a lone deer stepped out of the trees across the field from us, followed soon after by a second, and then a third. Before long we had a dozen or more grazing their way toward our campsite. I guarantee you that by the time the afternoon was over, Jan saw plenty of deer! They were munching away right outside our windows, and we enjoyed watching them from such a close vantage point.  

About 6 pm. We drove into Columbus for dinner at Nancy’s Seafood Grill, and the restaurant changed my mind about there being no place decent to eat in this little town. Everything was delicious, and the service was very good. About the time we finished our meal, we had some excitement when one of the portable buffet tables collapsed with a huge clatter. We all looked to see what had happened, and saw flames as several of the little Sterno cans used to keep the food hot rolled around on the floor. Greg and I hurried over to see what we could do to prevent the fire from spreading, but a couple of restaurant employees poured water on them and quenched the fire before it could get out of hand. Once everything was under control, I couldn’t help but quip to the other diners “The good news is, the buffet is now half off!”

It was great to see our friends, and we said our goodbyes with promises to see them again in Arizona in a few weeks. Thanks for driving so far to visit with us, Greg and Jan. We had a great time!

We have hitch itch too, and today we plan to hit the road, headed west. We’ll stop for a night or two along the way to visit our friends Mike and Pam Steffen at their place in Salt Flat, Texas, but we won’t tarry long. We’re eager to get to Arizona to see our family, and there are some grandkids that need spoiling! Depending on where we’re at, we may or may not have internet access the next couple of nights. West Texas is one of the few places in the country where we have had problems getting online with our Verizon air card. So if I miss a blog entry or two, don’t worry, as soon as we get a signal I’ll be back.

Thought For The Day – Life is a grindstone…it can polish you up or wear you down…what’s it gonna’ be?

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We spent two nights at Mike and Pam Steffen’s place in Salt Flat, Texas, enjoying their hospitality, scratching their dogs’ ears, and telling lies. It was a nice visit.

We’ve known Mike and Pam ever since we started fulltiming almost ten years ago. In our first month on the road we attended Life on Wheels in Moscow, Idaho, and Mike was an instructor who we really clicked with. By the time the conference had ended, Mike was encouraging me to become an instructor. At the time, I told him there was no way I could ever get up in front of a classroom full of people and talk, and Mike assured me that I could do it. Who knew a few short years later I would be asked to join the Life on Wheels staff?

I actually was sort of drafted into presenting my first RV seminar at an Escapees Club rally in Lancaster, California just a few months later, and I was absolutely terrified. Mike was there, and told me “Just remember, Nick, these people don’t know you, and they don’t know anything about you. To them, you are the expert. They came to learn what you can teach them. Just get up there and be yourself. Hell, I like you, and they will too.” Well, that really helped. I got up on stage and did my thing, and by the time it was over I realized that I was having a great time. The rest, as they say, is history. Thanks for your friendship and support over the years, Mike.

We had a lot of fun with Mike and Pam, but poor Miss Terry didn’t fare as well as the rest of us. Their place is out in the middle of nowhere, about 70 miles east of El Paso, and they have a good sized chunk of land. Mike has a little shooting range on his property made of a dirt berm reinforced with tires as a bullet stop.

Sunday afternoon we were target shooting, and Terry was trying out one of Mike’s .40 semi-automatic pistols. On one of her shots, the bullet nicked the target, richocheted off one of the tires, and came back and hit her in the upper thigh. It had lost most of its velocity by then, and didn’t go through her blue jeans or penetrate the skin, but it did leave an ugly welt that split and a big bruise.

She’s fine, it just left her with a sore leg. It was just one of those freak accidents that happen, and we’re very thankful it was not worse. Mke picked up the bullet,which landed at Terry’s feet, and gave it to her as a souvenier.  

I told Terry that in the last couple of months, she was bitten by a tarpon in the Florida Keys, got dunked in the water in Aransas Pass, Texas, and now shot in the leg. And I’m supposed to be the clumsy one! Her Mom may not let her play with me any more.  

Yesterday we left Salt Flat and drove to El Paso on U.S. Highway 180/62, which is a nice two lane road that had several climbs that left me watching the temperature gauge carefully, but we made it fine. Coming into the El Paso area, we passed several miles of junk yards and run down industrial buildings, then cut across the edge of Fort Bliss (which is undergoing a massive building project) on State Route 375, picked up U.S, Highway 54 and eventually ended up on Interstate 10.

I have never liked El Paso, even when I lived there for a while as a kid, and every time we drive through it I am nervous until we get out of the heavy traffic and cross into New Mexico. There are some cities where the drivers just seem extra aggressive, and El Paso is one of them.

There is a State Welcome Center and rest area just across the state line, and we pulled in to have a sandwich and a short break. A sign at the rest area reminded us that we’re back in the Wild West.

Back on the road, in less than two hours we pulled into the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming. It was only about 1:30 p.m., and we had driven less than four hours. We could have pushed on further, but our next stop will be the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, where we will start getting things together for our Gypsy Gathering rally February 9-13. We will have water and electric hookups, and a dump station, but no sewer. Terry had some laundry she wanted to get caught up on before we get there, so Dreamcatcher makes a good stop. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be in Casa Grande tomorrow.

Thought For The Day – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?

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We’ve been in a lot of RV parks over the years, from upscale resorts with every amenity you could imagine, to mom and pop places where they call you by name and tell you about their grandkids as you check in. But I don’t think we have ever been to one as nasty as Parkview RV Park in Fort Stockton, Texas. If we had taken the time to look the place over Friday evening when we checked in, we would have kept on driving and found a rest area or a truck stop to spend the night in. But we didn’t, so we have nobody but ourselves to blame.

There were a few nice RVs there, mostly overnighters, I’m sure, but the majority looked to be parked there long term. Run down trailers with trash piled up outside the doors, beer cans and dog crap laying all around, and a general air of neglect.

Yesterday morning when I went outside to unhook our water and electric and get ready to leave, two pit bulls ran up at me snarling and baring their teeth. I yelled at them and they stopped a few feet short of me and stood there, growling. About that time a fellow came out of one of the long term trailers and said “Just ignore them. They’re just challenging you. They won’t bite. They do that to everybody.” I told him I’d appreciate him calling the dogs inside, but he told me to ignore them again.

I’ve seen what a pit bull can do to a human being, and before I continued unhooking, I went back into the bus and stuck a Glock in my back pocket. The dogs stood their ground, but never came any closer, which I’m glad for. 

Now, before anybody goes off on me about how pit bulls have an undeserved reputation, or saying that I should have called the manager or the police, don’t waste your breath. I love good dogs, but I will not tolerate a dangerous animal. I’ve written enough newspaper stories about pit bull attacks first hand to want to listen. The manager of this place obviously doesn’t care or he wouldn’t allow people to have those kinds of dogs running loose. And I wasn’t about to sit there for a couple of hours waiting for the cops to show up on a non-emergency call.  Since the owner would not corral his animals, I would have defended myself if they had come at me. End of story.

We drove 120 miles west on Interstate 10, and the bus performed well, cruising right along and climbing the hills without getting hot. Of course, it was a much cooler day than Friday was. When we left Fort Stockton, it was 45 degrees.

At Van Horn we topped off our fuel tank, then followed State Route 54 north for 55 miles. This nice two lane road follows a couple of mountain ranges with awesome views, and except for an occasional dip, it’s a flat route.

At the junction with U.S. Highway 180/62 we turned west and passed through Salt Flat, which is nothing but a couple of old buildings and a historical marker telling the story of the El Paso Salt War.

It seems that for centuries, Mexicans and Apache Indians came here to collect salt from an ancient lake bed. In the 1870s, a couple of white businessmen from El Paso claimed the land and then demanded that the Mexican salt collectors pay them for harvesting what they had collected for generations for free. Hostilities broke out, and by the time the matter was resolved several men had been killed and the United States and Mexico were on the brink of war.

Twenty or so miles past Salt Flat we rached our destination, the home of our friends Mike and Pam Steffen. Mike taught classes with us at Life on Wheels and is a well known RV columinist. You’ve probably read his articles and columns in Thousand Trails magazine, Trailer Life and such. Mike and Pam have a big spread here, with a bunch of friendly dogs for me to get my puppy fix with, including yes, a very gentle pit bull. I spent the evening getting licked and tussled by my puppy pals, and loved every minute of it.

This is one of the small handful of places where we have not been able to get online with our Verizon aircard. But Mike was kind enough to leave his WiFi connection open for us. We’ll be here a couple of days before we continue our trek west.

Thought For The Day –  ”The duty of the press is to print the truth and raise hell” Mark Twain

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