Alley Oop!

Does this state ever END?  i see boarders on the map, and we keep driving, for hours, 200-300 miles a day... and we're still in Texas.
but WHAT DO WE CARE?!   we're not on a schedule.  we don't have to be anywhere.  there is no reason to rush through.  there is reason to arrive in the Pheonix area sooner than later tho... we are looking for warmer weather. it has been chilly down here in the evenings.  very chilly.  like, running-the-space-heater-to-not-burn-through-all-our-propane-fast kind of chilly.  we have a couple space heaters, but they suck too much juice from our solar power set up.  so we've been landing at places with eletricity we can hook up to.  sometimes even for free!

Like the lovely Robert:  he lives on several acres of land in Wimberly with his family, two longhorn cattle, a black lab, and some chickens.  Robert is one of many ppl that offer to host campers on their land at no cost.  We rolled into his place just before sunset on the day we left Escapees RV park.  SUPER friendly and VERY hospitable-  he was kind enough to share some extension cord and electricity to help keep us warm thru our 2nd nite.  we tried winging it the first night with heating our home on our own, but in the morning it was really, really cold inside.  we realized eventually that our water pump drained the battery, and we need the battery to regulate the thermostat, so the heat stopped coming on.  We had very cold noses in the morning!!  (at one point we both got up to put on our stocking hats!)  so we figured out the issue that afternoon, happened to mention it to our host, and then he insisted we hook up to his juice so we could run our space heater all night.  that was very nice of him 😄

So we spent the day hiking around and later drinking some rum.
First we walked up a tall foothill called Baldy's mountain to catch a view of the whole town.  Didn't
look too interesting in photographs, but it was fun to go up there and see for ourselves.  We then went on to Jacob's Well.  the water was SO CLEAR, yet blue-ish.  there is a cement wall that was built way back in the day that still stands, and a bit of a boardwalk added by the park that maintains it.  we could see bluegills, and the very bottom of a giant round hole that went pretty far down.  the water actually made me think about how we were getting low on drinking water back in the camper.  Joel and I much prefer to drink spring water- tap water tastes gross to me sometimes.  so i brought this up with Joel and we agreed we should look into if there was a place to go and fill our jugs that were in the truck.  there were trails we hiked around this area as well.  we enjoyed the trees, yucca plants, seeing many deer, and tranquility of the area.

After that, we swung in to Crystal Creek rum distillery on a whim.  the gal behind the bar was Autumn.  she immediately whipped out samples and started explaining what they were and how they make them.  "The water makes ALL the difference.  we have amazing water from our well here.  I'm kind of a water snob", she says.
Well, ya don't say??  i thought.  then Joel asked if we could perhaps fill our jugs with some of this lovely water.  and yes, of course we could!  👍  Joel was also gifted a pair of overalls to work in by a guy named Bob who comes by every day, for Autumn to serve him up his (daily??) rum and coke.  Bob was super chatty.  After the samples i had, i picked a mixed drink from the several listed on the menu.  i went with a mojito.  and it was the best i've ever had.  Seriously.  i had tasted quite a few when i lived in Peru.  they LOVE their rum in peru, and they know how to make a great mojoito.  but Autumn had her own technique, much in the syrup+mint combo, to their drink.  and it was SUPER YUM.  WoW.  the mind of my tongue is still blown.

We stayed cozy-warm sleeping that night, woke up around 8am, made breakfast then started packing everything in.  We walked up to the house to say goodbye to Robert and ended up meeting his wife as well.  They are from Michigan!  they still have a cabin up there and other family that lives in the area.  they spend winters down here and summers up there.  it took us about a half hour to say our thank you's, gab a bit, and eventually squeeze in the goodbye.  HAHA.  then we drove, drove, drove (well, i was riding.  i'll drive the RV for my first time eventually!) for a long time that day.  we encountered some rough roads and a couple detours.  we had planned to go farther than we did that day, but i got this gut feeling to find a different place for us for the night.  Joel was a bit skeptical, but went with it.  (After we arrived and got hooked up, he thanked me :)  I navigated us to a cheap, run-down RV park next
to"fantasy land"- the theme park that was home to Alley Oop- the comic book characters!  There was a giant Dinny the dinosaur, but that was about it.  it's abandoned and run-down now.

we biked into town after the dino picture, and ended up having THE BEST BBQ brisket we've ever tasted!  a heaping helping, too- we split a "plate" instead of a sandwhich, and the container must have weighed 5 lbs!  it was more than enough for the two of us, and it was cheap as well.
Gotta love small towns and their home-cookin' meals.  Mmm, mmm!!

we got up the next morning and TODAY WAS THE DAY!  we were gonna break through Texas into New Mexico.  as we ate breakfast we could see out our window that rain was coming our way!  the first rain we'd encountered so far.  and in the desert?!   We started packing everything in for take off.  joel and i marveled a bit at how quickly and fully we wrapped everything up and were ready to go (about 15 minutes).  we're getting better and better at this 😁  We drove through rain for about an hour, it started to clear as we swung north, and just before we left Texas, off to the west we could see our first mountain/foothills.  it was so pretty.  i just love mountains.  we drove about 270 miles total that day, to a place 20 minutes north of Carlsbad, another Escapees park, known as The Ranch.
We had no idea the warm welcome that awaited us here!