October 14, 2018

October 5, 2018

 We left the Elks Lodge in Colorado Springs got on I-25 south headed to Lamar, CO.  We turned off onto US 50 in Pueblo and made it to the Sundance High Plains RV Park in good time.  We had planned to stay at the Elk Lodge but we had some laundry to do and this PV park has a nice laundry facility.

 Yesterday morning we left Lamar about 10 AM, got on US 287 and arrived at the Elks Lodge here in Dalhart, CO.  This is a very small lodge that has four RV sites with 30 amp electric and water.  When we pulled in there were no other RV’s here.

 I went over to pay for our parking when the bartender’s got here at 4 PM and was told they have no set rate for RV’s and just for us to make an donation.  Given there is no sewer or dump station we gave them $20 for two days.

 All of the folks on the lodge that we met were really nice and gave us a lot of information about the town.  However, one thing we dislike is that they allow smoking and the smell was overpowering.

 While in Dalhart we visited the Dallam-Hartley XIT Museum which contains several rooms with exhibits on ranching, the wildlife in the Texas Panhandle and more.  It also has extensive exhibits telling the story of the XIT Ranch which in the 1880’s was the largest range in the world under fence.

 The ranch covered three million acres covering portions of ten counties leading to the misbelief that XIT meant “Ten In Texas”.  The XIT brand actually originated to thwart rustlers.  The ranch once ran 150,000 head of cattle.  The ranch ceased operation in 1912 and all of the land was sold off by 1963.

October 9, 2018

 We left  Dalhart on the 7th and headed south to Amarillo, TX.  We had planned to stay at a Passport America park on the east side of the city but we looked at the weather and decided to stay at the Oasis RV Resort west of the city.  That turned out to be a good decision since the other park had some flooding.

 After getting set up in our parking site we packed an overnight bag and went to visit Jim and Linda Hotz.  We met a number of years ago at Lockhart State Park in Lockhart, TX.  Linda had planned a Gumbo supper and had invited their daughter and her family over as well.

This set of spurs, used by Mr. Jim for a long time, we made out of a head light rim from a Model T Ford

 While we were there we all were paying close attention to the weather as severe thunderstorms were forecasted in the area.  In fact we were watching the radar and saw a very large thunderstorm move across the RV park.  The news was reporting some rotation in the cell with quarter-size hail.  That nasty stuff went on most of the night.

 On Sunday morning I got up early and drove out to the RV park to check on our rig and was very pleased to see everything was good.

 After having lunch with Jim and Linda we headed back to our RV.  Last night we did get some more rain and wind in the area but no thunderstorms thank goodness.

 After getting up this morning we checked the weather and radar returns for our route over to Altus AFB, OK.  What we saw was not good.  There was as lot of rain and some really big stuff over that way. The Weather Channel app I have indicated there was some flooding on US-287, the way we were headed.  After evaluating all of that we decided to hang in here in Amarillo for one more night.

 We had been wanting to go visit the Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum here for a long time so after having a delicious breakfast at Jacobo’s Cafe we headed there.  The museum is actually in the back of the RV dealership so you walk through their store to get to the entrance.

 The collection is really interesting with some very old trailers and RV’s as well as their collection of Harley Davidson motorcycles.  One of the trailers is the worlds oldest Airstream, a 1935 Torpedo.  The collection also includes the 1948 Flxible bus that was used in the Robin Williams movie “RV”.  There is even the Flexible Owners International for those RV’s.

October 11, 2018

 Yesterday we left Oasis RV Resort about 10:15 and immediately ran into a problem.  There is a Loves Truck Stop near the park and a CRST trucking had tried to make a u-turn in the road and got his tractor stuck in the mud.  That left his 53 foot trailer blocking the road.  So, after weighing our options we decided to unhook our car and back up into the RV park.  After parking Joyce drove down a gravel back road and thought we could go that way to get out to the interstate.  There was a section that had some soft mud but we made it thru with no problems and finally got out to I-40.  One would think that the manager of the RV park would have sent someone down that road to check it out for fols.

 After stopping for some propane and lunch in Claude, TX we finally made it to the Famcamp at Altus AFB, OK at 4 PM.

 More about our stay at Altus later.

Barry & Joyce