Oak Glen RV park, near Chandler, OK was an older looking park. Gravel pads, lots of mature trees. There were other amenities, but since we got in at dusk and left at dawn, we really saw little of the park. We did see and hear however a dog running loose and barking in the middle of the night.
The next morning we headed out early for another long day. Longer than we had any idea. We were heading from Oklahoma through Texas in the general direction of Albuquerque.
For lunch we stopped at a great little family restaurant called Mi Familia in Seymore, TX. When we are on the road, we do everything we can to avoid the chain restaurants, especially the ones we visit back home. Most of the time, it works out just fine – as this one did.
There are great stretches of nothing in western Texas and it seems, they roll up the sidewalks and turn off the lights at 5pm. In much of the country, you can count on there being a gas station every 50 or so miles at the most. We knew this wouldn’t be the case out west, but it seems we forgot. We drove past a station with a bit over a ¼ tank left thinking we‘d hit the next station and that would get us the rest of the way to Lubbock. Lubbock wasn’t our original spot for the night but we had redirected a couple of times during this day because of storms. It wasn’t that we were avoiding rain – though that is always a good thing to do. It was the high front winds and the large hail that can follow we didn’t want to expose the trailers too.
Twenty or so miles later we started looking for a station and there wasn’t one to be found within 50 miles. Down to 1/8th of a tank and we are all searching our apps for the nearest station. It was getting late (9pm plus) My daughter’s van has a bigger tank, so they was probably going to make the next station. Our truck, which has a small tank was not going to make it to the next city we could verify would have a station open. We sent them on ahead with the hope they could at least fill up and come back with a can of gas if we needed it. . We slowed down to 40mph to make the most of the gas we had. That 20 mph or so takes us from 9ish mpg to around 15. We stopped in one dark town after finding no open station there to pour the 2.5 gallon generator gas can into the truck. That and crawling along got us into Crosbyton, TX after 10pm (the only station closed at 11). Our daughter arrived there ahead of us, shortly after her gas warning light came on. (I now carry extra gas in the truck.)
We both filled up (and I refilled the generator can). While we were making rounds to the bathrooms, my wife took up a conversation with a local peace officer who was taking a break inside. He asked us where we were headed and we said we hoped to boondock in Lubbock (still an hour away).
He offered that the town of Crosbyton had a city park with full hookups and we could stay for free. Thank god for that! He directed us back a few blocks, where we picked a spot, parked, plugged in – and wait….. their power plug didn’t work. We had installed a Progressive Industries Power Monitor device in both trailers. Theirs said the power was mis-wired. Fortunately, their pedestal had two connections and the other wasn’t being used (only one other RV in the whole lot). We tried it and all was well, and all went to bed quite tired.
The park was your basic gravel lot with full hookups, trash, a playground. No shade, but when you pull in after 10PM, litterally in the middle of nowhere, it’s was a wonderful find.
Continued next post.