Heading West on I-10 through West Texas we see mostly desert and some hills. Short day today on the road, as our stopping point is only a few hours away at Caverns of Sonora. We enjoy visiting show caves, and this one pretty unique from the brochure. Located about 10 miles off the route we arrive at the caverns in the late afternoon in time to settle in at their RV Park for the night with plans to tour the cave in the morning. The RV Park is small, but every spot is filled with campers planning to tour the cave. Looking out the front window we watch dozens of deer come in the camp and wander amidst the peacocks and ducks resident at the desert park. We have experienced some dark and clear night skies traveling through the desert, but tonight's sky show is abundantly filled with stars.
The morning tour of the caverns starts at 10:00AM, so we take time to get the RV ready for take off once the tour is over. We got a chance to chat with two of the couples that were workamping at the caverns; one couple is from Canada and primarily sign on with show caves when spending their winters south in the US. This park is very isolated, located in the desert about 10 miles away from anything. Not sure I would really want to spend a season in such a remote area with only a couple of other workampers for companions. As for the tour, it was phenomenal; this is a beautiful jewel cave, and our tour guide (workamper from Canada) was extremely knowledgeable. The tour lasted almost 2 hours and included a lot of steps in it's mile plus distance. Probably the most spectacular show cave I've visited .
Back on I-10 we continue West, and with our late afternoon start, we stop after only a couple of hours in Balmorhea, TX at the Saddleback RV Park. Located just off the interstate, this park is simply a sand lot with RV spots separated by cacti and rows of rocks. Nothing else in the area but an old convenience store and a deserted building that used to be restaurant. Just an overnite stop.
Continuing our trek, we get away early for a change and drive most of the morning to finally get through Texas. Our goal is to get through El Paso and into New Mexico before late afternoon. El Paso is probably a wonderful place to visit, but we really want to get through the area and on toward our destination, Benson, AZ.Traveling through New Mexico, we see desert and not much else, as we are just
traveling I-10 and making our way onward to Arizona. Having traveled through this area once before, we bypass the the exit which would have taken us up to Las Cruces and Silver City; both places we enjoyed visiting many years back. This time, however, we have other plans in other places.
Stopping in Benson, AZ, our plan was to stay at the Red Barn RV Park, which is a park we stayed in 17 years ago. The managers were a couple, he from Hawaii, and she from Taiwan. We stayed there a few days and really enjoyed them and their hospitality made the stay very memorable. This time, however, we did find that the park was still there, but the ownership had changed and this owner had the personality of a rock, so after a night we will find another place in the area to call home for a few days.
Wandering down the main drag of Benson we see a sign for RV Repair, and one of our goals in stopping here was to see if we could find a place to check out our motorhome. We think we may have another exhaust manifold problem on the opposite side from the previous fix done in Florida. We have been on a lot of rough roads, and the noise sounds sorely familiar. Stopping in at the RV Repair shop we meet Ken, who we immediately like, and tell him our situation. He is familiar with our chassis (workhorse) and can look at it tomorrow first thing.
After dropping off the motorhome at the RV Shop, we spend the wait time looking for some geocaches in the area. We can't believe how many are located in the area, which just shows the amount of interest there is here in the hobby. It's always a good way to explore parts of an area that you would never see otherwise.
A couple of our finds took some real thought by the owners to place. A couple were placed pretty far out into the desert, and we also found two in a historic cemetery in town. Then we get the much anticipated phone call from the mechanic telling us to come back to the shop to receive the diagnoses. First of all, we were right about the noise we were hearing; there is a broken bolt on the right side where the exhaust manifold attaches. We need to replace the seal, and that has to be ordered. Of course it's Friday, so nothing is going to happen until at least Monday. Since he has the MH there we decide to have him change the oil and do some other maintenance that needs done like plugs and wires, etc. Not cheap, but much more reasonable than if we had waited until we got to Phoenix. Now to find another RV Park. Ken mentioned that he thought the Escapee Park down the way had a deal where you could stay a week for $50 if you were not a member but would consider becoming one. We call, and yep that is the deal....and they have a spot for us, so off we go to check in at Saguaro SKP RV Park.
The bee-gals,
Kathy and Kathy(Red)
