We’ve made it halfway on our journey west as we stop in Sonora, Texas. We traveled some 1400 miles so far averaging about 250 miles a day after our longer trip on Day 1 to Panama City.
We had a relaxing visit with Dave and Lisa and enjoyed burgers on the back deck with their wonderful view of Lisa’s butterfly heaven and the bijou. Our journey on Day 2 took us through Mobil Alabama and the dreaded I-10 tunnel. Of course, someone honked their horn endlessly and revved their engine to make sure we noticed them π€‘.
We stayed that evening at a convenient campground near Biloxi Mississippi. Nothing to write home about but it was easy in and out with good hookups. We got our first taste of local color here, as noted on one of the resident’s pickup truck π.
Day 3 took us to Louisiana. Between Mississippi and Louisiana, you would have thought you were in some southern version of Las Vegas. I figure if your city didn’t have a casino you were shit out of luck. Other than that driving through the bijou areas was particularly scenic. We stopped that night in a nicer campground again located conveniently near I-10. A step up from the last place!
Day 4 started with a harrowing journey across roads that looked like they had been bombed. They were in such disrepair. About 10 miles east of the Louisiana – Texas state line the road turned to shit as they worked to repair the damage. It kept up for another 40 miles or so in Texas before getting dumped into bad traffic in Houston.
It was raining just to make life interesting. We made it to our campground in Schulenburg, Texas. The nicest place so far, although it rained hard all night into the morning.
On Day 5, we headed into the Hill Country of Texas as we drove through more crap roadways around San Antonio. The rest of the drive, however, was pleasant as the rain stopped and we finally had some scenery again (after the oil refineries around Houston!). It finally started to feel like we were in the west with good-sized hills (or are they small mountains?) with equally small trees. The temperatures started rising, and it was 90 degrees by the time we got to our campground for the evening in Sonora, Texas.
The campgrounds looked basically abandoned except for two trailers. On closer look, I noticed all the utilities looked new. WTF? Turned out the place was built by pipeline workers in service to the people of Sonora. Their town flooded several years ago, and a new set of campsites were set up for temporary housing as the residents rebuilt. Shortly after that, during the pandemic, the oil industry in this area got clobbered economically. Everyone left, leaving a nice but deserted campground. As noted, the hookups were new. The person who runs the place works during the day but was super responsive to my text messagesβworked for us!
