Leaving Nick is hazardous

Yup, we left Nick Terry and Jan and Greg in Tucson.  And as I said before in a previous blog everything seems to be OK.  We busied ourselves in Las Cruces, eating, shopping and getting haircuts. I failed to mention… we will NOT be needing haircuts for maybe 6 months.  Tom’s flattop is now less than 1/8” ALL OVER.  He wears a hat most of the time so that is no problem.  I asked for 3/4” inch taken off the length and I think the female barber thought I said 3/4” all over.     Well, I think I like it. Tom likes it. I’ll get used to it and it is so comfortable on the road. So if you spot someone that looks like me with a VERY short haircut – it’s me.

We had to move from the Coachlight RV park after 2 nights at PassPort America rates, $18 a night because the next night would have cost us $36 plus tax. NOT worth it.  We moved to the primo Wal-Mart spot to spend the night after having dinner with our friends, Jan and Greg White. 

Did I mention that leaving Nick is hazardous?  Remember back when we left Nick in Yuma?  We broke down less than 3 days after leaving Nick.  In addition to having our RV repaired, our outer duel tire started loosing pressure.  While in Avondale we had it looked at by the tire repair shop and they could not find anything wrong.  They aired it up and it held pressure for 2 nights.  We replaced the tiny insert in our Pressure Pro Tire Monitor and it seemed to be OK until we left Nick AGAIN in Tucson and now it is loosing pressure AGAIN.  What’s up with that?  Now, back to Las Cruces.  Greg and Jan left Nick in Tucson and were coming to Las Cruces. We had stayed over until Sunday so we could meet them for dinner.  We waited for Greg and Jan to call to tell us they had checked into Coachlight and were ready for dinner.  Now Greg and Jan had engine trouble. It died on I-10 and were having the tow truck come and get them to a Peterbuilt Repair shop.  Remember, they had just left Nick!  OK… the tow-guy said it would be a while so advised them to just go to dinner.  We met them at their favorite restaurant in Las Cruces, El Comidor.  We had eaten there a couple of days earlier and were looking forward to dining there again.  El Comidor is closed on Sunday.  While discussing where we should go, Tom tried to roll his window down, CLUCK, ZIP, CRUCH, the window stopped 3 inches from the top.  We drove over to a nearby Italian restaurant. Tom got out, Greg and Tom tried to raise the window, SLOOP, down into the bowels of the door went the window.

We went inside to eat and because of the worrier that I am, I asked Tom to move the Jeep where I could see it out the restaurant window.  Good dinner, great company, but 2 nervous wives (Jan worried about their rig and cats – me worried about the contents of the Jeep being stolen) shortened our after dinner conversation.  So back to Wal-mart for us, parking the Jeep with the open window as close to the front of the RV as possible.  Even so both Tom and I got up in the middle of the night to take a valuable or two from the Jeep to the RV.  Needless to say we did not get a lot of sleep on Monday night.  The next morning Tom pulled the panel from the passenger door, disengaged the window from the motor apparatus, and we taped the window up. At least the dust and dirt from the road will not be a problem as we travel to our next destination.

We left Las Cruces and drove to Balmorhea, TX to a little, absolutely beautiful PassPort America park.  The cacti, rock separators, small and appropriately trimmed trees at the back of each space (so they do not block satellite) reflect the considerate planning in this nice park.  We decided that for $10 a night we would stay 2 nights. 

The first night we saw lightning in the distance and got a little wind.  Last night we got a lot of wind, gusts of about 35 MPH and then a weather alert – flood warning.  This is a flat valley with mountains under the thunder storm.  The weather alert said the slow moving storm would produce a lot of rainfall.  I called the office at the park and was assured this was not in the flood plain. 

This was a very nice place to rest: full hookups, quiet, cheap, what more could you ask for?  Beautiful sunsets?

Recap on leaving Nick:

1) Westerfield engine trouble, 2) Westerfield tire trouble, 3) White engine trouble, 4) Westerfield Jeep window trouble, 5) Westerfield bad weather trouble.

Solution: Do not leave Nick.

Tom filled the tire and we are On The Road Again.