Off Our Rockers* - Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015

San Antonio didn't want to let go of us on Wednesday morning. The state vehicle inspection for Rigamarole (our 5th wheel's nickname) is due in November. Since Rigamarole was out of her site and on the road, we drove a couple of miles down the road to have her inspection done. She passed with flying colors, but (there's always a but, right) when the inspector entered the information in the computer, he couldn't find our records. What? We registered it one year ago.

Back to the drawing board. The inspector figured out he had used the manufacturing I.D. number rather than the 5th wheel's VIN number. Once he had the correct number in the computer, the printer spit out our approved inspection. Now we can renew our registration.

With that piece of business behind us, San Antonio was soon behind us as well. The weather cooperated beautifully...no rain, and the wind was not strong enough to push us around, except when we had a tail wind. Thank you, Mother Nature. That's always welcome.

Interstate 10 was our route until Junction, Texas, where we headed north on U.S. 83 to Eden, Texas. Then we drove northwest toward Big Spring. Part of the drive was through Hill Country but no spectacular scenery to note today. We drove through the Permian Basin oil fields and saw some huge oil rigs reaching to the sky, most waving American flags on top or at the base.

In the town of San Angelo, we stopped for diesel fuel and to change drivers. Bob's back was hurting and he needed a break. After we got to our destination Wednesday night, one of my blogging friends mentioned on Facebook that the Monarch butterflies are currently at San Angelo State Park. I think we'll stay in San Angelo on our way back to San Antonio and look for those beautiful Monarchs!

For a while, we drove through areas of oil fields, windmill farms and cotton fields. Some cotton is being harvested. We saw how it is baled, and the cotton picking machines. In areas where cotton is grown you will see Gin Association buildings; those are not drinking clubs, they mean cotton gins (those cotton pickin' machines).

Baled cotton with denuded cotton plants in foreground

Cotton compactor machine - gets cotton ready
to go to the cotton gin. (Thanks, Jerry, for the info!)

I had an oops when we were driving through Big Spring on U.S. 87. Yes, I was driving in a city during rush hour with no freeway. (I HATE that. It scares the $h*t out of me.) Anyway, I was doing fine, the lights were all green; until they weren't.

Going down a small hill at 40 mph I saw the light start to change. It was one of those moments when you have to decide to stop or go for it. Pulling a 17,000 pound 5th wheel is one of those times I should have gone for it. I tried to stop, and I thought I was going to make it. However, by the time I stopped I was in the middle of the intersection and the light was red, I had to run it. So I floored it and no one got hurt. Thankfully, the road I was crossing was a one-way street and everyone waited because they could see I wasn't going to make the stop in time. I was very fortunate and very shaken up. It could have been a much worse outcome.

We made it to Whip In RV Park in one piece. Just before we arrived at the RV park, Bob and I did a Chinese fire drill at a stop sign so he could drive into the RV park. Our site was a pull through with full hookups.

Unhitching was not necessary to go out for dinner as we had leftover spaghetti for dinner from Tuesday night. We settled in and had dinner. Bob watched "Mysteries of Laura" and baseball playoffs. I watched "Survivor."

Our site was near the dog park and the dumpsters. Around 10:00 p.m. Bowie started running around the 5th wheel snarling. He kept looking out the back window toward the dumpsters. He came and sat near me at the computer and snarled like he was trying to protect me from something outside. Both cats were very agitated. Don't know if it was stray cats, 'possums, raccoons, or coyotes out there, but something had them very upset. They finally settled down when I went to bed.

Our mileage today was 290 miles. We left San Antonio at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Big Spring, Texas at 5:00 p.m. That was enough miles for one day!! We heard thunder and saw lightning late into the evening and again in the morning. We did not get much rain.

*Off our rockers = out of our spot in San Antonio and on the road!