The steady rain and cold temperatures crushed any secret last hopes I had of making it to Guadalupe Mountains National Park; that would not be a fun visit on a day like today. The weather map on my computer also settled the matter of our primary route; we'd get out of the rain much quicker on I-10 than I-20.
It took a while to get out of the rain but finally we did. And with dry skies we began to see some strange clouds. I think they were dust clouds. That suspicion was bolstered later at Fort Stockton.
We began to see some signs to historic sites along I10 in west Texas, but most seemed a bit too far off the highway. A homing instinct was beginning to hurry our eastward drift. But Fort Stockton was right there so why not have a break and see it.
We pulled into the small historic site where only one other car was about. It was a dry and beige sort of place. What we later learned was an old hospital building lay dilapidated along the opposite side of -- I hesitate to call it -- the street. As we walked up the path to the museum building we noticed a young woman walking across the yard from further along "the street". It turned out she was the curator, Nan (pronounced "Naan"). She is a very nice young woman who gave us her full attention to tell us the story of Fort Stockton and the Buffalo soldiers and answered our questions.
We walked across the grounds to the stockade building, the only build largely unchanged from its days as the jail for the fort.
What a grim place.
It was horrifying to think of being chained in that cell with not heat or AC and ony tiny high ventilation holes. No way to see through the huge stone walls.
After touring the other building we went back to see the museum again with a little better idea of what we were seeing and to ask Nan a question or two. While there we snapped her picture...
... and she graciously took ours.
We drove around the little town a bit and saw the larger museum that gets a better review, the towns old depot/now visiters center, which was closed but very nice. Then consulted Siri to see if we could find nourishment before hitting the interstate again. We settled on "Bienvenito" a Mexican restaurant.
We enjoyed our meal and headed to the car. I reached for the keys on my belt.
They weren't there.
I walked back into the restaurant and searched the floor around the table, in the restroom, around the checkout counter. Nothing. Back to the car and searched it. Nothing. Oh no! Sheila has hers and so we can drive but WHERE are my keys! Could I have left them in the museum? NO! I am sure -- well kinda sure -- that I had them when we pulled up to the visitors center. So back there. Nothing on the ground, the drive, or the sidewalk. We tried some experiments. we tried locking the car, but it wouldn't lock except with Sheila's electronic key. The key HAD to be IN the car, even though we had searched. We ended up COMPLETELY emptying the trunk. In the cold! Not there. Then the front and back seat areas -- we had taken everything with us but the kitchen sink. We literally emptied the car of everything larger than a box of Kleenex. And I rolled the driver seat all the way back and looked under it from the front with my phone as flashlight. Nothing. Then I rolled it all the way froward and got down on my 74 year-old knees in the frigid cold of New Year's Eve in West Texas.
There they were.
It the first place I had looked: between the driver seat and the console.
They were invisible from above. They were invisible looking under the seat from the front. But there they were looking from the back floor with the seat all the way forward. Hallelujah!
Finally back on I-10 we drove on. Sheila in consultation with Mr. Google found us a Comfort Inn in Junction, Texas. That is where we would see the New Year in.
Well not exactly. Sheila was asleep around ten. I sat in bed with this computer in my lap trying to catch up on my journaling while things were fresh in my mind, but well before midnight -- though likely it was 2022 in Georgia before my snores began.
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From Facebook this day:
Well… It’s a rainy day in West Texas so it looks like we’ll skip Guadalupe Mountains National Park and just get ourselves from soggy El Paso to San Antonio and see what’s happening there.
Comments
Angela Greear
Safe travels
Howard Smith
San Antonio River Walk!
Terrell Shaw
definitely.
Martin Penland Teem
Godspeed.
Ann Perkins Niemeier
It’s foggy here! Stay safe!
Ann Gore
When we came through El Paso I wanted some “real Mexican” food so we stopped in town and we got some. It was different than what I had always eaten but I liked it. Do not remember what I ate though.
Diane Conti
Enjoy and be safe
George Barton
I just remember that the Alamo is not on a lonely hill, it’s downtown!
Lizabeth Jolly
Safe travels
Luis Schnitzer Da Silva
Was El Paso worth it? Did you get to see any of it?
Terrell Shaw
We got there late, and it was very rainy the next morning, so we just drove on.
