California or Bust!

We're headed to California to see a few friends and family, and we're pacing ourselves. Nothing like several long days of driving to wear out your enthusiasm, and the dogs don't think much of it either, so we have several stops along the way. These first two days will be focused on getting to the night's destination, all places we've been several times before, so not much in the way of photographic evidence. 

Friday, Feb. 10, we left after breakfast and had a leisurly drive to one of our favorite stops, South Llano River State Park. It's a really nice, clean park, and one of the few places we've ever seen an armadillo. This time we saw a really cute little armadillo on the way into the park, but none after that. They are so tame here that they just look calmy at you with their little tiny eyes if you approach. We like to make the first day's drive short, to sort of shake-down the rig and be sure there are no issues we have to deal with. 

Saturday night we stopped in Van Horn at the Van Horn RV Park (clever name!) It's not bad, though for the money we might expect more. The best feature is that it's not right by the railroad tracks or the freeway. For those with pets, beware! The area has sharp burrs everywhere and it's impossible to walk a dog without having to stop multiple times to remove the painful burrs from their paws. 

Van Horn is a tiny little town in west Texas, not too many people have heard of it, but it has risen to fame recently as the Texas home for Jeff Besos's Blue Origin headquarters. The test site is about 25 miles from town, and several employees of the company have established themselves as members of the community.

I wasn't feeling very creative these first two days, just focused on enjoying the scenery, so sorry, no photos!, except for this one of sunrise in Van Horn. It typifies the wide open spaces of the west Texas plains. It remeinds me of scenes from one of the old John Wayne cowboy movies. 

It really does take  two days to get out of Texas from where we live, no matter which direction you are going. This is our last stop in the state on this leg of the trip.