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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Boondocking night #10...the plan didn't come together

Before we left Perryton, Texas yesterday morning, we stopped in at a nice new little laundromat and did a couple of loads. Then at the gas station for some cheap fuel. Almost all of the stations in town were charging $2.19 USD a gallon, but two of them were at $1.89 USD a gallon. Pretty easy choice for us!

At $1.89 USD a gallon, that's $0.66 CAD per litre. That's some pretty cheap gas! Sherman is a happy camper with a full tank of that stuff!

That'll almost get us to the Mexican border but we'll fill up again before we cross because fuel will be more expensive in Mexico.

And then, we hit the road heading south again.

We stopped at the town of Canadian. Yep, Canadian, Texas...on the Canadian River. Funny huh? Anyhow, they have a historical bridge here that was renovated in 2000. At one point it was the longest bridge west of the Mississippi.


The Canadian River wagon bridge.

We stopped at the library in Shamrock, Texas to use the internet. 

Shamrock library has a teddy bear bush. :-)

While on the internet from the motorhome, I checked a little further into our planned destination at Matador Wildlife Management Area and saw that while camping is free, you need an annual permit which costs $12. Hm. Well that wouldn't work for us then. So using google voice from the laptop, I called them and asked about that. Sure enough, you need the permit, but it turns out that even if you had one the place is restricted right now for a "private hunt".

So...plan B.

Well, we didn't have a plan B. 

So we just kept driving until we came across somewhere.

Fields of cotton, we think.

The road was fairly quiet except for these oversize loads that passed us every now and then. 

Even these guys go faster than 55 mph!

It was around 4:00pm when we came through the little town of Guthrie. We saw a community center and rodeo arena and drove to the only official looking building in town which happened to be the courthouse. I asked a lady there if she thought we'd be okay to park at the arena overnight and she said you could park pretty much anywhere in Guthrie and nobody would bother you.

Nice.

It was baking hot...over 90F (32C), so we chose to park in the shade of the Volunteer Fire Department building.

GPS 33.6235791,-100.3228392

Not the nicest, but it was quite far from the highway and actually the view out of our front and left side windows were not bad. Plus, we were in the shade! Oh, and we had an open wi-fi signal. It was simply labelled "Guest", but it had some kind of blocking software on it that wouldn't allow us to use facebook. Still, better than none at all.

This morning, we're headed for the outskirts of the city of Abilene to a big RV dealership to pick up some RV supplies for our Mexican friends Paco and Oti.

Yesterday's drive, 213 miles (341 kms).

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24 comments:

  1. Love the map of your travel yesterday. Safe travels.

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    1. We try to put them in each day we travel but sometimes we are rushed a bit and then forget and other times google doesn't always cooperate.

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  2. The price is right for an overnight stay, at you are getting to your destination.

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    1. The price is always right when it is free! ;-)

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  3. Glad you guys found a place to park for the night. If it's not too much trouble, could you post gps coordinates for the places you stay at? Especially once you cross the border.

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    1. It's kinda fun dropping the waypoints into Garmin Basecamp. I set the proximity attribute to 150 miles which draws a circle with a radius of 150 miles around the waypoint to guess where you might stop for the next night.

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    2. We usually try to put the coordinates into the post but sometimes we forget or if the place is one that we wouldn't recommend then we won't put them in either.

      Lol, you sound like a geeky kind of guy, in a good way of course! ;-)

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  4. Tioga George all over again! Good job!

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    1. He was one of the best, mind you he stayed at some places that we wouldn't have done.

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  5. When I was truckin', spent 6 days at the Abilene Freightliner dealership getting the turbo replaced. Just a lovely spot for six very long days. Then it was to Laredo for a couple of nights (second prize....4 nights in Laredo....the armpit of Texas...and THAT'S saying something!!)

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    1. Once you get away from the I-35 corridor in Laredo it is actually a modern, thriving city with beautiful parks, a wonderful lake and state park, sprawling neighborhoods of middle and upper class homes, schools and shopping areas. It's undergone quite a transformation over the last 20 years.

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    2. Never made it right into Abilene so we can't really give you our opinion of it. We found Laredo to be very busy and congested with truck traffic but yes Casa Blanca SP was very nice and very quiet.

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  6. We're in San Angelo TX, don't know of any boondocking places here, but too busy working to look!! Gas is $1.99 most places.

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    1. Too bad we aren't quite going in that direction or that we didn't have a bit more time or we could have made the slight detour to try and met up with you even if it was only for a very short while. Don't work too hard! ;-)

      We got gas in Winters for $1.929 today.

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  7. Even if Guthrie wasn't your first choice, it still seemed to work out pretty well. Glad you found a decent place for the night. Can't wait until you cross into Mexico!

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    1. It worked out great and was a nice quiet spot for the night. We can't wait to cross over either. :-)

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  8. Well done. You do always manage to find someplace. I salute your creativity.

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    1. Thanks Sherry! From all our nights boondocking through the years, we have always found somewhere to park, some are just better than others.

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  9. If there's a Canadian River in Texas, there should be a Mexican River near Cabri, I reckon...

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  10. that was some cheap gas...it's $1.20 a liter here in Osoyoos!
    safe travels as you continue onwards to Mexico!

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    1. Ouch that is still high! You need to head south to the lower gas prices and the warmer weather. Mind you everything else but gas and booze would be expensive with the Canadian exchange rate added on. :-(

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  11. Nice to see the map, reminds me of parts of Texas we drove through, especially the big loads flying by. Not so enamored with this kind of Texas, I must say. Glad you found a place to be.

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    1. We like including the maps, it is always helpful to us as well because we can look back and reference our route so we can try to plan a different route. We like switching the routes up rather than taking the same one all the time. We haven't been very partial to this area either but there are certainly lots of other areas that are quite pretty. One day we want to head through Big Bend NP.

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