Heading East - New Mexico and Texas

John arranged with a friend of his, who had a property on the outskirts of Tucson for us to camp in his yard for a few days.  Though he wasn't there his property provided us with water, power and a BBQ.  John enjoyed being able to grill our dinners.  He is a very good cook and I am enjoying the meals he produces.  We spent 3 nights in the yard.  This allowed us to play a couple more rounds at the Tucson City courses.  We played Randolph the day we arrived,  Silverbell with John's friend George the following day, and Fred Enke the last day.  We also visited with one of John's sister.

Upon further discussion, John had never been to Louisianan and had an interest in visiting, and I was not really looking forward to the several continuous travel days ahead of me, mostly through the state of Texas, to get to my next reserved site in Lafayette, Louisiana for Mardi Gras, so it was decided that John would continue on the journey with me. 

He is quickly learning how to set up and take down the trailer, which is very helpful. He has a great way with people and a good sense of humor.

Our first night was at Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino, in Sunland Park, New Mexico. I selected it because I had some nice casino stays on the way down and it was close to our route.  It turned out to be a rather poor choice, because they are building a new hotel, close to the RV parking area and they had a generator, that should have had a muffler on it, running a pump 24/7, even though there wasn't much water in the excavation to remove.  Additionally the casino allowed smoking everywhere, but no drinking in the gaming area and their new players program requires you to play quite a bit before you get any rewards.  The only positive was that the beautiful horses are exercised from the early morning hours and we had a nice view of that from our windows. 

Our second night was at a campground east of Fort Stockton Texas.  When we arrived there were quite a few others also trying to check in, so they directed us to our site and told us to go to the office at our leisure, which we did.  We also took advantage of their nice laundry facilities to get that chore done.  The campground, though busy was much quieter than the previous night and there was a nice sunset. 

Our third and forth nights were outside San Antonio, Texas.  We stayed two nights here in order to be able to visit downtown San Antonio, site of The Alamo and the River Walk.  John had been here previously so was able to play tour guide, though things had changed a bit in the ensuing 35 or so years.  Our first stop was The Alamo,

which has free admission. Some of the original sight has been lost to development, but the rest has been nicely restored and the buildings and displays explain the story well.  Following that we took a cruise down the in city river.  

The guide provided great commentary along the way, making it an enjoyable 45 minute voyage.  

On the way out of town we stopped at a historic bar and tried a local beer.  

Neither of us liked it. 

On our way out of the San Antonio area, we had time to play an early round of golf at the nearby River Bend Golf Course at Floresville, Texas. This course is part of a relatively new planned community. The two 9's are different, the front links and the back forest.  The course was not busy, the greens were in good shape, but the course had not been over-seeded. 

Our 5th night was in Baytown, Texas.  For this stop I utilized my Boondocker's Welcome membership and stayed in some people's front yard, about 3 miles off Interstate 10.  Their yard was a nice quite place to stay, not far off our route.  They kind of complained that not many people have requested to stay at their place since they joined the club.  I suggested some modifications to their posting based on my experience with other similar locations, which may help attract more visitors.