C-c-c-c-cold

Whoa. We woke up to 23 degrees two days ago in Van Horn, TX. It was a one night stop, and adding to Cathy's pics and comments below, we were/are en route to Benson, AZ. Benson will be the first of three stops in southern Arizona that will take us through the winter as we “snowbird” for the first time in our lives. But meanwhile, we’ve just experienced what we hope to avoid. 23 is cold in a moderately insulated, metal RV. We do have a propane fueled furnace which does a nice job but it is tough to sleep with as it roars a bit like a fire breathing dragon. So we layered ourselves in bed including a down comforter. We were fine through the night but it was tough getting out of bed in the morning. It made me appreciate the 106 degrees we had one day while in Las Vegas a few months back. Like most all units like this, we have a fresh water tank and a pump system to use if and when we might “dry camp”, i.e. camp without hookups. After seeing the overnight temp forecast for the cold front moving through Van Horn, I knew I did not want to stay connected to the water and leave the hose out in those temperatures. I put enough fresh water in our tank and we were self contained for the night. The pump makes a sound that made me comment that it sounded like our Vilia had serious indigestion, but worked fine, even for showering. Leaving that morning, I was glad for my decision as we passed by a rig that was dripping a steady stream for where the hose connected to the rig. That was a sign that ice had done some damage and created a repair headache…

From Van Horn we overnighted in El Paso. While it is a major Texas city, it is not a wine town and it’s the only Big T town I had never been to in my wine work travels. I’m so glad. We could not wait to leave this AM. El Paso is an oil refining, cattle feedlot and warehouse town. At least, that’s about all we saw in addition to a lot of shaky, falling apart residential areas. I imagine, given its sister city status with Juarez, Mexico, that it serves as a distribution and import/export center. Anyhow, it is not an RV destination. It too, was a one nighter. We’re now in Silver City, NM.  As the name implies, it is another of our West’s old mining towns. We are here for two nights then to Benson. The old town part of Silver City has charm, history and lots of tourist shops. We took a quick look around today but the main reason we are here is Cathy’s desire to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings, a smaller version of our tour of the same at Mesa Verde, CO.   She will do that tomorrow. It is a hard drive to get there. 43 miles but takes 2 hours due to a narrow road and multiple 5 mph switchbacks. I will take the day off from behind the wheel as we have been on somewhat of a driving frenzy since leaving Big Bend National Park. We both are looking forward to our days. Cathy will put another notch in her National Park/Monument visit pistol grip and I’ve got a few household items to attend to and I bet there is an afternoon nap in my future.