Visiting in Arizona, On to New Mexico and Texas

After leaving California, we stayed at an RV park in Tonopah. It was a good location to drive into Phoenix to visit with Bill's aunt, Kaye Leach. She was in a rehabilitation center after surgery to removed external hardware on her leg after a serious fall last New Year's Eve. Above is a picture of Kaye and Bill. Kaye was doing very well and has a great attitude. She was going home about 5 days after we visited.

Her brother, Reedy Speer (Bill's uncle) came by to visit with us, too. Reedy has been very helpful to Kaye during her recovery.

We had a great visit and know Kaye will do well when she returns home.

We had a fun surprise. Teri's sister, Kay, and husband, Lee, from Puyallup, WA, were traveling to Peoria, AZ, to watch some baseball spring training games. They were able to stop by and have lunch with us. We really enjoyed their visit and they had a great time in Peoria.

We also went to Salome, AZ, to see Ron and Linda Stephenson and their neighbors, Steve and Mimi Gratzer. We also got to see Dennis Nielsen, a classmate of Bill's, and his sister, Greta and her husband, Jack. Don't know why I didn't take a picture.

We love the mountains of Arizona. They just seem to spring up from flat ground.

We saw quite a few cacti with supports on them. It appears they are trying to save them from deteriorating.

We are sometimes surprised by the arms on the cactus. They point in all directions.

There are areas where both the sagauro and cholla cacti are plentiful.

When you are going east past Benson, AZ, there are some fascinating rock formations. They look like a giant was playing with them like building blocks.

We took this picture as we entered New Mexico and stopped at a very nice welcome center. They had Wi-Fi, clean restrooms, lots of parking and information.

Roadrunners are fun birds to watch. Of course, this one is a huge replica. We found this at a rest area near Las Cruces, NM. This picture was taken just before a huge windstorm hit us. We stayed at the rest area all night since we had stopped traveling during the storm. Teri white-knuckles it when the wind is blowing and we are towing the trailer.

We made it to Texas and saw many of the things we expected - cattle and oil rigs.

We were surprised, however, to see snow along the road. Guess we don't think that desert states also have spring storms.

We spent our first few nights in Texas at Monahans Sandhills State Park. The sand dunes were awesome. Kids were sliding down them on saucers.

Bill got to go fishing in Texas. We stayed at a Corp of Engineers park on Proctor Lake near Comanche, TX. We met some really nice people who come to that park just to fish. We were lucky to happen to pick it for a place to stay.

Here's Bill with the first sand bass he caught.

The hightlight of this fishing spot was catching hybrid striped bass. We had heard about them for a long time so it was exciting for Bill to catch some. There was a nice fisherman, Bill Lormis, who was so helpful to show Bill how to fish for them. The biggest striper was caught by Mr. Sherwood. Yeah!!!!!!