El Paso and Midland Texas

We left the Encore Valley Vista RV Park in Benson, AZ on Monday November 9 at about 9am. Acey’s mileage 67,496.3, and Thor has 75,257 miles. As we headed to El Paso, it was raining lightly – we have not seen much rain in a long time – maybe since the Badlands! We drove through more mountains!

We crossed the state line into New Mexico – since the state is pretty well closed down due to Covid-19, we did not plan an overnight stay.

We stopped at a rest area to make lunch and took in the view!

This sculpture of a road runner was pretty cool! The state bird of New Mexico.

Soon we crossed into Texas!

We saw this sign from a distance and thought WOW – gas is cheap! Actually we only paid $1.52 at Costco when we filled up Thor!

It was actually the lottery jackpots!

We arrived at the Mission RV Park in El Paso about 3pm added 2 more states to our map! This small RV park was close to the interstate. We will only be here 2 nights.

Tuesday was our only full day at El Paso. Being a COVID “hot spot” most everything is closed down. We went for a short bike ride.

We rode very close to the Wall – so we checked that out!

On a friend’s recommendation, we ordered from the L & J Café – couldn’t resist since its kind of like “Linda and Jim’s Café” We had to order curbside pickup as the virus has dine-in closed down. We enjoyed our dinner and prepared to leave for Midland in the morning.

On Wednesday, November 11 – Veteran’s Day – we left about 8am for Midland TX. Acey’s mileage 67,784.7 and Thor’s 75,330. It was a beautiful clear day and Linda drove again today only for about an hour. We encountered more mountains; we didn’t know there were so many mountains in this area!

We arrived at Midland Basin RV Park at about 3pm. Another small RV park that was a bit quieter than the one in El Paso – away from the interstate. They had free Wifi and free laundry. We washed a couple of rugs that wouldn’t fit in the small washer/dryer unit in Acey. We went to the grocery store and made dinner in Acey.

On Thursday, Jim found a place to hike around a lake – it was an easy, short and flat hike.

The trail was kept up well and we saw a few other folks out enjoying this beautiful day.

Many of the trees looked dead, but we did see some pretty fall colors!

There were 2 areas where they had bird feeders out. It reminded us of our deck outside our kitchen window where we fed the birds and squirrels. There was also a butterfly garden, but all the flowers and foliage were dead – not a butterfly in sight.

The lake was pretty much dried up!

We spotted a very small body of water – not what we had expected to see!

A rather elaborate structure had been built as an overlook to enjoy a view of the lake.

Had there been water, this would be a lovely setting to see the ducks or geese swimming along…. just imagine!

We then went to see the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum. We were surprised the museum was open – the FIRST museum we have been able to go to since we left Nashville!! They had a lot of equipment outside – showing the history of how oil was drilled for and pumped from the ground.

The Santa Rita No. 2, originally a drilling rig, but converted for pumping

Inside there were a few movies to see and lots of displays about the history of oil production. They have a great mineral gallery, paintings and some Chapparal race cars on display as well. Sorry – no photos….

We failed to get many photos. You can go to their website to find out more! https://petroleummuseum.org/

We headed back to Acey to make dinner and get ready to move again in the morning.

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2 thoughts on “El Paso and Midland Texas”

  1. Thanks for your posts. So much fun to see how things are going. Wonderful things to see ans you’re getting your exercise too.

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