Around the US in a Campervan

To top off Christmas day, we headed out to Christmas on the Pecos. Every year, all the residents along the Pecos River get together and decorate all the riverfronts with tons and tons of Christmas lights. Then the Chamber of Commerce runs pontoon boats down the river every night from Thanksgiving to New Years. They’re usually sold out was in advance, but Jay and I managed to get tickets for 9:30pm on Christmas night. Continue reading →

Some of the views of our campsites at Brantley Lake State Park.

Since it was Christmas and nothing was going to be open anyway, we decided to take it easy and spend a day not doing much of anything. We continued to camp in Brantley Lake SP since it was a nice campsite with pretty views of the lake.

Christmas dinner in the van turned out to be a roaring success. Yesterday, we had gotten a roasted chicken from the deli at Albertsons and I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and sautéed zucchini with onions. We also had cranberry sauce and apple pie with whipped cream for dessert.

Cooking dinner wasn’t actually too difficult. I have two small pots and a toaster oven (usable since we have shore power at the campsite). Since the stuffing and mashed potatoes were “instant,” they were very easy. The zucchini took a bit longer, but you can just set it and let it go. The green beans were just canned, so no time sink there. All in all, I’d estimate it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish to have Christmas dinner on the table. Can’t beat that. And Jay only had two pots and a tiny roasting sheet to clean up.

Today we toured Carlsbad Caverns. On the way through Carlsbad we stopped at Albertsons and picked up fixings for tomorrows Christmas dinner. We used our national parks pass to save the $12 entrance fee and headed down the Natural Entrance trail. The Natural Entrance descends 800 feet over the 1 mile walk with plenty of switchbacks on the paved path. The scale of the caverns is really staggering, and it’s “highly decorated” (meaning lots of rock formations). At the bottom of the natural entrance, the path connects up with the Big Room tour circuit. We ate lunch 720 feet below ground at the underground cafeteria because the roadside signs told us to and we’re sheep, “Baaaa.” We also managed to score (steal) mayonnaise, relish and mustard packets from the concessioner contracted to provide lunches. (We would NEVER steal from the National Parks service directly.) Now I’ll be able to make a tuna salad! (1 pre-drained tuna packet, 2 packets each of mayo & relish, yum!) Continue reading →

Quanah, TX (Copper Breaks SP) to Carlsbad, NM (Brantley Lakes SP)

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It was extremely cold last night. The temperature dropped below freezing at sundown, at it was 19 at sunrise. Jay was sleeping upstairs in the penthouse and I was downstairs on the sofa bed. We had the heaters running all night since we knew it was going to be cold, but the temperature differential between the upstairs (52) and the downstairs (72) was pretty amazing. The upper berth has canvas sides all around it and the bed blocks a lot of the heat from the heaters from ever making it upstairs. I think I had the better bed last night, for sure. Continue reading →

Atoka, OK (Boggy Depot SP) to Quanah, TX (Copper Breaks SP)

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Pretty cool day. Literally. We woke up this morning and it was gorgeous. The sun was shining, and it was cool but not cold (maybe 55-60 degrees). It was so nice, we even ate breakfast outside at the picnic table by our site. We were pretty happy just that it wasn’t raining and damp like our last two mornings. When I checked the weather forecast yesterday, it said that there would be a front coming through overnight that would bring rain and drastically drop the temperatures. So we assumed it had passed north. Ha! Continue reading →

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Hot Springs, AR (Lake Catherine SP) to Atoka, OK (Boggy Depot SP)

We set off relatively early this morning. We didn’t have any rain (I think…) but the dew, mist, and fog were so heavy that we might as well have had light sprinkles all night. The inside canvas of the penthouse top and windows of the van had tons of condensation on them. We got to see the campsite we had driven into last night and were pretty pleased. That particular state park had tons of construction going on and when I stopped to chat with the women working the visitor’s center, they told me that they were installing 50 amp and sewer connections on the other two loops. Continue reading →