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Thank You Texas!!Mar 2, 2007
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For wide highways with wide paved shoulders!! Just after we left Alpine today, we came around a curve and started down a hill and right there in our lane was a pickup with a trailer coming toward us! He was passing another pickup with an RV. He had plenty of time (and we thought he would) to drop back and wait until we had gone by. But he didn't! So now, we are hugging the outside of the shoulder and putting on our brakes and the other guy is doing the same thing in the other lane. All so the idiot driver in the middle of the highway can get by and not kill any of us!! If there hadn't been wide paved shoulders on this stretch of highway, at least two of us would have been off in the ditch. Thankfully everyone made it okay, but my heart was pounding and there are foot prints on the dash. When it was over, Wes said "where was your camera"?
Later on that morning, just out of Marathon, we came up on a fifth wheel which had a blowout. They had already had one blowout, but thought they could make it to Del Rio before replacing the tire, so were already on their spare. They thought their spare from their pickup would fit, but it didn't. They put the original blown tire back on, which would still hold some air. Turns out it had only lost the tread and they were able to stop before it blew out. They drove very slowly to Langtry where they dropped their fifth wheel and drove on into Del Rio to get replacement tires. We followed them into Langtry to make sure they didn't have any more problems. This is the second time we have stopped to help someone with blown out tires. All the tires have been Goodyears. I know, I know, that doesn't make Goodyears bad tires, but we will certainly not be putting those tires on our RV!
We had been remarking that we were going to have plenty of time left when we got to Amistad NRA and maybe we could just put on a few more miles before dark. However, these two events took up some time, so we spent an enjoyable evening and a pleasant night at Amistad. We watched a couple of movies and watched the full moon over the lake. When we got up on Saturday morning, the moon was just setting in the west and it looked like a sunset - only it was a moonset! There were clouds in the sky reflecting the colors and the moon had that "path" across the water... Absolutely a beautiful sight!!
We were on our way by 8am and made great time, found plenty of gas, discovered some new highways. Eagles Pass, TX looks like a nice clean small town. Great trip until we got to Robstown and points NE. We missed the right exit on I-37 and ended up at a deadend where we had to go under the freeway. The height was only 12'6". We are 12'9". UH OH!!
After much measuring, we decided to try it. With Wes riding on the top of the fifth wheel (kids, don't do this) and me just creeping along in the pickup, and using our two way radios, we made it with 2 inches to spare! When we were through, Wes said again "where was your camera"? So, if you are coming through Corpus headed north, do not take exit 16, wait until exit 17.
On top of all of this, our u-joint is making funny noises. We are so glad we finally made it here safe and sound and can stay for awhile. I don't know if this means we will have bad luck for a while or that we just got it all out of the way at once. Time will tell. And next time I'll have my camera ready!! :0)
