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The end of November, I left Montana in my car, driving down to Denver to spend Thanksgiving with my parents there. It felt a bit weird, heading south just behind a snowstorm.
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After Thanksgiving, I hopped on "George", a 22 foot Lazy Daze motor home. George belonged to my friends Bill Cone and Carol Kulish, and was a new purchase for them. He was supposed to be parked at their place in Montana, sort of as a guest house. But then this trip to Belize came up...
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Wow. It's a long way. 4,000 miles or so. I camped out, usually sleeping on a tarp, although if it rained or the bugs got bad I put up a tent. We took most of our meals in the RV, with Carol as chief cook. That was fortunate for Bill -- she's a much better and more creative cook than I.
In New Mexico, we stopped to see our friend Melanie Loma, who has a cool off-the-grid house up on the top of a Mesa. We rode up a winding, bumpy canyon country road to get there. Melanie was driving a borrowed truck, since her car had a dead battery. Unfortunately, it was dark when we went up there, dark when we came down, and I forgot to bring my camera with me. So if you know Melanie, just imagine a picture of her, all smiles, and a wonderful southwestern style straw bale house up on the top of a mesa covered with Juniper.
We spent the night at Villaneuva State Park. Carol and I took a morning hike up the cliffs and had a good view.
We spent next night at Elephant Butte State Park, where we met up with Craig and Sharon Tuttle, sailing friends Bill and Carol had met in the San Juan Islands. They were driving down also, using a truck mounted cab over camper. Originally they were going to trailer their boat, a Ranger 25, down to Chetumal, Mexico, and launch there. In the end, they decided not to bring the boat, but to come down with us and check out whether or not they wanted to trailer the boat at some future date.
As with most places in the west this year, the effects of a prolonged drought were evident everywhere. The effects were particularly noticeable on any body of water, whether natural or man-modified. They had nice shelters at Elephant Butte State Park, ostensibly for picnicing, but they made a fine place to take refuge when it decided to rain at night...
We camped our way south through the hills of Texas, never far from the sight of a burning oil well, and then out into the flats. Here we are taking a lunch break, hiding from the wind.
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Our last stop in the US was Laredo, where we did some last minute provisioning before crossing into Mexico.