Lauren Returns to Australia

We ended up staying an extra night at Big Bend but a plane beckons for Lauren. We gave ourselves time to have a few nights at various places on the way back to Dallas. As always we chose a point on the map approximately 200 miles in the direction we wanted to go, so either Midland or Odessa fitted that criteria. Bob and Sherry a lovely couple that we met at Big Bend recommended an alternative destination - the Great Sandy State Park. As its name implies it is a place of sand dunes, rather unusual in that the sand hills constantly shift. We pulled up and spoke to the well armed park policeman and at his suggestion we took a drive in to the park to check it out. It was nice (if you like rolling sand dunes! ) but given that they were predicting 40 mile an hour winds that night and we didn't relish the thought of our new trailer being sand blasted we moved on.

Fields of wind turbines on interstate 25


It was a big days drive



Unbeknown to us Midland is in the middle of the Texas oil fields. The roads were full of semi trailers and all you could smell was oil. The RV parks which are always advertised as 'a home away from home' were filled to capacity with oil workers. So after a really horrible MacDonalds experience we all agreed that Midland was not for us. So another 283 kilometres on we finally stopped at a town called Abilene which was basically three quarters of the way back to Dallas. We drove a total of 670 Kilometres (nine hours) that day - the longest day of driving yet! We settled for a park just off I20 and booked in for 2 nights. Once again the write up sounded wonderful, we were tired and needed rest. We booked in and it's then that we realised that we may as well have been parked "ON" the Interstate, it was so bloody noisy. I swear we could feel the trailer move as trucks went by. The first night was ok as we were all so tired but the second night we counted each truck as it drove by! The township of Abilene doesn't have a great deal to offer, it is predominantly a stop over place for travellers but we did do a couple of tourist type things ie the Abilene Zoo and a tour of the 12th Armoured Division Museum (yes the girls were thrilled! ) The Zoo was great value at $5 entry fee each. The reptile display was one of the best we have ever seen with the majority of the snakes extremely active. It was either feed time or they had the had the heating just reptile right! The 12th Armoured Division museum is self funded and has many great displays and plenty of reading on its formation through to the end of the war.

Yes it was beanie weather


One of the displays


Lauren feeding the giraffes



Just loved the colour of the flamingos


On check out day we packed up early - there was no point in lying in bed listening to the trucks going by. We will certainly be checking future RV Parks proximity to the Interstate more carefully!

We arrived back in Dallas and booked into the same park we stayed at previously. I dropped Rose and Lauren off at the shops while I went to get an oil change done on the truck. We had covered over 6700 miles since we began our Texan roadtrip. I pulled into a Jiffy Lube at 4 pm on a Sunday and had the oil changed including transmission and the differential. There is no way you could do that in Australia on a Sunday. They were the most helpful people ever, one bloke even invited us to dinner, said his wife would love to meet some Australians.

On her last day, Lauren wanted to do some last minute shopping and spend the rest of her US dollars so we ventured out to another Outlet centre about 30 miles away. We asked Lauren what she wanted for dinner on her last night in the US and she said Taco Bell! Any thoughts of a home cooked meal went out the window so off to Taco Bell we went. A box of 12 freshly made Tacos for $13 can't beat that for price.

All that was left was for Lauren to start packing and for us to get her to the airport on time. I would drop someone off at Dallas airport anytime, 5 terminals big and it's easy to drive to and park. As usual we were early so we went up to the Hyatt bar for a farewell drink until it was time for Lauren to go.

We arrived back to a very quiet trailer. After a full month it would take a bit of adjustment to it being just the two of us again! No time for sentiment however as the journey will continue with an early start in the morning to get some minor warranty issues fixed before we hit the highway again.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Dallas Texas