Letter 1 Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico

Wednesday, March 16, we left town about noonand headed straight through Dallas to Denton, then turned west to Decatur where we turned north and found us on the Texas Million Dollar Highway. When this road was originally paved, the sand used had gold flecks in it and was later found to be worth a Million dollars a mile. This road took us into Oklahoma and Waurika Lake. Our camp spot was in Kiowa I corps of engineer’s park overlooking this sandy red lake.

Thursday, March 17 we scouted out the oil fields near Ringling where Olivia’s great-great uncle had settled in 1915. We found his deeds in Waurika and many oil leases for his parcels of land. This land has never given up an ounce of oil, but we have retained the mineral rights with high hopes of “someday!” We drove all around the land, but no roads went through it or sometime even close to it.
Uncle Lon did have some productive land in Stephen’s county five miles from the Jefferson Co land so we drove over to see our pump jacks. This land is pooled with other land and we found all four were working. We are grateful for the minor percentage we get each month and hope they keep going.

Friday, March 18 we drove across West Texas all the way to Brownfield, where we found their nice county park that offered free overnight camping. We met and had a nice visit with a couple from Schwim, Washington. We exchanged locations of nice camping and sites to see.

Saturday, March 19 we drove west through eastern New Mexico and the Loco oil fields of NM. We found a home near Mayhill and after setting up drove over to see

Susan and Jack Shirey. Susan & Olivia attended school from first grade through high school. The Shirey's moved here after retiring and are enjoying the mountain living. We enjoyed visiting with them covering topics from first grade until current time.

Sunday, March 20 we drove into

Cloudcroft United Methodist Church and enjoyed their service with the Shirey’s. After a church dinner of pulled pork and a lesson on how to make the cross and flame sweatshirts, we rode with Susan and Jack around the area. Sacramento UMC Assembly is not far from Cloudcroft and we enjoyed seeing what they have to offer. Among cabins, dorms, fellowship halls and camp grounds they also have a low and high ropes course. We also saw many camping possibilities and views of the valley to the west. Susan and Jack were wonderful hosts and great guides of the area. We caught them

sitting on the steps of our trailer when they dropped us off.

Monday, March 21, we departed Mayhill and drove west and down the BIG hill and through the

ONLY tunnel in New Mexico. We stopped in Alamogordo for a Wal-Mart Stop and again in Las Cruses for a veggie stop at Albertson’s. When we hit I-10 the wind

wind had picked up and before we reached Deming

we were glad we had planned to stop there. Later we found the winds had gusted to 70 mph in part of New Mexico and gusts over forty mph were common . The dust was blowing and our eyes were hurting. We had picked out a LoW Hi (Loners on Wheels) campground and were pleased to find it belonged to a group of single campers. Olivia had read about this group started by two single ladies who wanted to camp and started a club. This campground offered happy hour and a pot luck supper, but again the wind was so high we decided to stay put. For those interested in finding out more about this group go to www.lonersonwheels.com

Tuesday March 22, since the LoW HI campground was planning a rally, they were full and we had to move on, in spite of the windy conditions. So we headed west to the edge of New Mexico, then south toward Douglas, Arizona. About half way to Douglas we stopped for a pit stop in the minute town of Rodeo, NM. Across the street from our stop was a little store advertising turquoise jewelry. The store was small, but their quality was high and Olivia was sunk. She came away with two beautiful new pieces.

Arriving in Douglas we started looking for Belle Star Silverado Ranch. Olivia had found this on the internet of unusual RV places. Well this is certainly unusual. We pulled into a broken down headquarters and followed the signs to the

boondocking campsites. A new neighbor came out to help and we became instant friends. We parked, and then they attempted to help us with the computer. At our idea they and another couple joined us in Bisbee for Mexican food. One couple is from Minnesota, the other from Campobello Island off Maine.

Now we will try to post this blog with all the new ways of this computer.
We love hearing from our travel friends at home, so contact us at
olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com