Thursday, February 23, 2012

Big Bend National Park

After 1600 miles of driving over a week's time, we have arrived in Big Bend National Park.  We drove 550 miles yesterday from Tucson to Alpine, Texas, the last 2 hours in the dark.

Windmill at Apline RV park
Awaking this morning, we leisurely departed around 0930 and drove the 150 miles to Rio Grande Village campground on the Rio Grande River in Big Bend.  During the drive to the campground through the west texas wild country, we were doubting our decision, however, when we finally arrived at campground with cottonwoods all around, we thought this might be ok after all.

The original campground reservation we made found us in a spot with which we weren't comfortable.  It all worked out because just then the campground hosts walked by, and when we explained our situation, they whipped out a campground map and showed us all the unreservable spaces from which we could choose so we drove around and found a much nicer one.

Chisos Mountain Range in Big Bend
We moved over and proceeded to set up camp and just after I put down the levelers and slide-outs,  Sraddha thought that we should move about 4 feet over to give us a little more level room for outside chairs.  Ok.  In go the slides and up goes the levelers....Up go the levelers part way...oops.  now what?  They are stuck part way up.  Can't move them.  can't move the motorhome.  Stuck.  Now could we be further from a RV service person?  150 miles from Alpine which might be the closest but we don't even know if there is anyone there who can fix it.  No cell service to call.  I start to lose it and S reminds me that we have been in worse jams.  I envision crawling under the motorhome and hand cranking up the level stands (4 of them).  Seems the microprocessor is confused as to whether the lever stands are all the way retracted.  but the auto level buttons are not working.  Turn engine off. turn on.  Still blinking at me.  Sigh.

View from my outdoor chair at Big Bend
After 20 minutes of fits and starts and fiddling and turning off and on the engine and trying to move the motorhome the level stands finally retract all the way.  Whew.  Disaster averted and we move the beast 4 feet north,  Put down the levelers, out come the slides and peace and tranquililty reigns.  We meet our neighbors who inform us the wifi at the village store works well so I head over and fight off the bees while checking email, uploading photos and typing this blog.

We are here for 7 nights and I hope to get some good sunsets and sunrise photos, do some hiking, and experience some wide open spaces and deep peaceful meditations.

Stay tuned.

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