Another wonderful WC travelogue from those "Happy Wanderers" the Fullers, Jerry and Becky

- a note from your editor ... this message came to me with a lot of internet transmission errors (NOT Becky Fuller errors). I have tried to "fix it up" as well as I can and hope that I haven't changed any of Becky's thoughts too much. If the spelling and grammar seem odd, blame me, not Becky. The message also had attached photographs which didn't transfer to the blog. I will try to extract a few and post them separately.
-ed.

-------Original Message-------

From: The Fullers
Date: 05/01/06 18:51:18
Subject: Road Trip

May 1, 2006

Hello to family and friends!

Well, I can't wait any longer or I'm afraid I'll forget half of what we want to tell you. Factoids of our trip: Since March we have been on the road 48 nights, have driven 2,679 miles, purchased 499 gallons of gas at a cost of $1,313 at an average of $2.63 per gallon. The per gal rate was lower than today's since the number include since 3/15. The past two weeks as we've gotten further west the gas has gotten higher. The lowest we've paid is $2.62 in San Antonio and the highest $2.95 in Ft. Stockton, Texas.

So, here goes .. I forgot to mention that during our stay in Lake Charles on Easter weekend we met a lot of nice folks. One was from San Antonio where we headed next. He gave us his sister, Dora's phone number and suggested we call when we arrived. We did call and ended up having a wonderful Mexican brunch with a San Antonio native, Dora and her wonderful mother. So glad you heard from Ronnie, Dora it was a pleasure to meet you and your mom.

The day after Easter we headed to San Antonio (population 1,194,222) stopping for one night in Columbus, Texas (pop. 3,869) on the road where we met a couple going from Pensacola to Arizona...what a small world. We arrived for a one week stay in San Anton and loved it! We just had to visit all of the missions (there are five including the Alamo) all of them are still active and have Sunday services. The ONLY problem with the first two days there was that we brought 100 degree weather and drought with us, it did cool down to the 90s after that. We visited River Walk and cruised the San Antonio River and had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack on River Walk. We got there in time for a fiesta and although we did not go downtown for the river parade we did watch it on PBS. We went to the Bull Horn Saloon which had plenty of heads of western animals (uug), got caught in a rainstorm (which they needed badly) while we were downtown. Went to Market Square where they had numerous children singing and dancing and they were really great to see. Got to see the Army Latin Band from Ft. Sam Houston they were also in the parade. And shopping, if there was something you wanted, they sure had it here! We also went to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, the Texas Ranger Museum and the San Antonio Zoo, which were all fabulous. They had a wonderful butterfly house, snow leopard, flamingos, bears and birds galore at the zoo. It was a very large and very well thought out with terrific habitats for the animals. We found the local VFW of course (the 1st day we were there) and went to Steak night there as well as going to VFW Post #76 downtown - the oldest post in Texas. Sunday night we went to the Majestic Theatre production of "The Lion King" and loved it. The Mexican food was wonderful Jerry even loved it as long as we laid off the spices! We can't say enough about the city and it's people, they were all friendly and outgoing and we LOVE SAN ANTONIO!

Next, we went about 65 miles west to Texas Hill Country and stayed in Kerrville, TX (population 25,000) at a campground on the Guadalupe River. Although we have stayed in some fine and not so fine, campgrounds, this was the best so far, it was beautiful. Jerry's Army football buddy (who he had not seen in 45 years) lives there and he and his wife Linda kindly invited us out to the ranch for pizza and beer. A lovely evening was had by all. Jerry is sports director on one of the radio stations in Kerrville so we got to listen to him the next morning, he even greeted us on the air! The next day we chilled, after of course, we found the local American Legion to visit.

Off we headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico with a one night stop at Ft. Stockton, Texas (population 8,500) was that an experience. there was a famous wind storm that night which rocked the 5th wheel until 4AM it did kind of feel like we were back in Kentucky in the floathouse! The drive to Ft. Stockton was lovely and the hill area of Texas is very nice. As we got closer to Ft. Stockton the landscape changed drastically since we were driving into the Chihuahuan Desert (pronounced just like the dog). We saw huge wind mills used as energy sources some places in the west and continued to see oil rigs - only about 25% were pumping, though. I had forgotten how dry and windy and dusty the west is..but we were enjoying the beautiful scenery as we headed into more mountainous terrain. As we left Ft. Stockton, we headed north through Pecos, Texas and into the Guadalupe Mountains.

We arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico (population 29,000) on Friday afternoon. This is the second fastest growing city in New Mexico mainly due to the Pecos River which is spring fed and never dries up; therefore they have no water restrictions like the rest of the state. It's amazing to see that beautiful water in the middle of the desert!!! While we were there we took a pontoon cruise down the Pecos River to where the springs feed it, absolutely amazing. We must admit, we were beginning to wonder if there was any water anywhere around here at all, but they have a wonderful park with swimming, fishing, boating, cruises for tourons (cross between tourist and moron -learned that one in Key West. The folks in western Texas and New Mexico are experiencing a bad drought, in fact, they are closing the Lincoln National Park today. We chose well with our campground – it was only 15 miles from Carlsbad Caverns and the folks were great had breakfast Saturday and Sunday and campfires Friday and Saturday nights. We are here to tell you, if you do nothing but visit Carlsbad Caverns it is worth the trip to New Mexico. They aren't as long as Mammoth Cave in Kentucky but they are the most awesome things we have ever seen! We bought a DVD which a number of you will be forced to watch when we get home. Be prepared! The cavern Visitor Center is on top of a mountain about 3800 ft high and the vista looking out on the plains was magnificent, the plains were about 3,000 ft looking down on it, we now understand what the Great Plains really means if you haven't seen it, you would not believe it. We traveled 750 feet down in an elevator to take our self-guided tour which was 1.5 miles and supposed to last an hour. We were so enthralled it took us three hours to get through, there was just so much to see. As I said it was truly an outstanding experience. Apparently, the Mescalero Apache and Commanche were early settlers of this area, while Pueblo were in other parts of New Mexico. We were told by the campground owners to be sure and visit Sitting Bull Falls they are a hidden wonder of the area. A 150 ft waterfall in the middle of the desert. Amazing! Driving back to Carlsbad we listened to beautiful Mexican music the first time I ever heard it in Spanish! We also visited the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens here in Carlsbad. It is really a gem. They had indoor exhibits and then a 1.3 mile path leading trough all the southwest plants and cactus of the desert very well marked. They had a great aviary which you could actually walk through and we saw and photographed a roadrunner. They also had bear, bob cat, mountain bison, bison, elk, and wolves. We are really impressed with Carlsbad it looks like just a little desert town until you see what they have done with their resources.).

Tomorrow we head to Roswell, New Mexico for a couple of days - yep, you heard right, the UFO capital of the world. You didn't actually think Jerry would miss that, do you? Will fill you in on more later.

We hope everyone is happy and healthy and send our prayers to Diane Noles who had a heart attack last week. We hope you are recovering quickly. We have been without cell phone service for five days and are still without cell phone service here in the mountains but I promise to call you, Diane, as soon as we get service back.

We love you all dearly, take care of yourselves - and communicate via web - no shortage of WIFI out here! See ya!

Jerry & Becky





















- posted by Mikey @ 1:32 PM