RV Fun Trips

A Trip to the Southwest and the Plains
November 2007
The Southwest — Page 9

The Road to Dalhart
Our plan was to try to get to Liberal, Kansas for our next stop for the night; however, we made it only to Dalhart, Texas.

I began my day with a walk around the campground we found in the dark the night before. The windmill dominates the scene from where we stayed. I walked up to the pond and found an idyllic scene with the branches of willow trees, on one side of the pond, bowing down and dipping in the water. Nearby chairs seemed as if they would provide a restful place to read or just watch the critters around the pond. Near the pond is a large solar panel array that is used to run a pump to keep the pond filled.

It is easy to find this campground — just look for the above

A place that looks as if might be a nice place to relax

The older section of the campground has mature shade trees between sites with full hook-ups.
I talked to the owner, John Davis, and he says that running an RV campground is "His fun;" he truly seems to enjoy his endeavor.

After a quick breakfast, we were back on northbound US-54 driving through this part of New Mexico for the first time. Our route took us through quaint little towns many of which looked as if they had seen better days. After awhile it occurred to me that what we were seeing from town to town was a series of broken dreams in the form of abandoned homes and businesses. A few of these small communities looked as if they were well on their way to becoming ghost towns.

Out in the open country there were the ever present trains; long trains with multiple engines. Shortly after leaving the town limits, of one of the many small towns in Eastern New Mexico, I set the cruise-control on 60 miles per hour. As we rode through the desert with railroad tracks next to the highway, a train with three engines in front slowly caught up with us and moved ahead of us; it was traveling a few miles-per-hour faster than our motorhome.

One of many trains seen on this trip as it pulls away from our motorhome

The engines were well past us when I heard them increase revs as the train began moving ahead of us faster. The train was very long and made up of railcars that were carrying double stacked shipping-containers. After a short time we saw nothing but shipping-container cars in front and behind our motorhome. Then suddenly the train began slowing down until we reached and passed the location of the engine. Looking in my side mirror I could see the train veer off as the train followed curved tracks that took it out of sight never to be seen again by us.

The train of shipping-containers left us behind

This is the first time I've seen anything like this

Most of the day was spent going through little run-down towns and watching trains come and go throughout eastern New Mexico. We reached Tucumcari, New Mexico where we headed for Texas following the US-54 directional signs.

Along the way we passed the coin-operated car wash where we cleaned the mud off our motorhome along with two other motorhomes of our friends. There was a sign like I've not seen before. Somebody really wanted to get out the vote; the sign said in big block letters: VOTE DEMOCRAT.

An example of the dashed dreams seen in a few small towns

It wasn't very long until the sun went down and it became clear that we would not get to Liberal, Kansas at a reasonable time. Kay began checking for RV parks closer to us and came up with one in Dalhart, Texas. As I drove into the night, it became very clear that we were approaching livestock feedlots that are located southwest of Dalhart. It was clear that the cattle fattening pens had grown on both sides of the highway since we last came this way. YUCK!

In a short time I could see the lights of Dalhart ahead and I was thinking that I was really glad that we had left the feedlots so far behind us. We were looking for the Corral RV Park when a brightly lighted sign glowed in the darkness ahead of us. It was good to see a sign that was so easy to see at night after so many poorly lighted signs experienced early in our trek.

Our arrival was 30 minutes before the office would close, making it easier to get a campsite for our rig. As I drove our motorhome toward our site for the night I noticed something I was seeing for the first time. The electrical and cable TV hookups were strung on poles above the campsites. As I moved our motorhome into our site I had to park next to a utility pole where the TV cable was coiled and hanging on the pole as well as the electric power outlet. Even though a bit unusual, the strange configuration seemed to work well.

This place was easy to find in the dark — Sign was visible from a long distance

It felt good to be off the road and settled into our little cabin-on-wheels. It actually was later than I expected because as we crossed over into Texas, we entered the Central Time zone and lost an hour. We ended the day watching TV for a short time before calling it a day.

This would end this leg of our trip. Tomorrow we would leave the Great American Southwest and continue our journey into the Great Plains.