Christmas in an RV

After we secured a campsite in Van Horn and ate dinner, the kids opened up some of the presents we had brought with us. This was the first time we had been away from home on Christmas Eve. The wind blew pretty hard that night; we were worried that Santa wouldn't be able to find us.

Luckily, Santa was able to find us, even with all the wind, and leave gifts for us in the motor home, without any of us hearing him. My suspicion is that he timed his entry to coincide with a passing train. So we spent the morning opening his gifts and having a relaxing breakfast. Susan and I used our small coffee maker to make mochas. We forgot to pack a frothing pitcher, so we had to use a large saucepan. Of course, we didn't realize we hadn't packed one until after we had passed all those Starbucks in Arizona. 

I proposed heading south to Big Bend park, but that plan was voted down 3 to 1, so we spent the day hanging out and doing laundry at the Van Horn KOA. The picture above is the view from our RV, looking north to I-10 and downtown Van Horn.

We headed southeast out of Van Horn to Fort Davis NHS. Fort Davis was established in 1854 to guard travelers on the trail between El Paso and San Antonio from Indian attacks. It was abandoned during the Civil War, but reoccupied afterward, with a large contingent of Buffalo Soldiers. National Historic Sites usually have better Junior Ranger programs than National Parks and Monuments, and Fort Davis was no exception. The program made the kids explore the ruins and reconstructed buildings of the site, answering questions along the way. It took about two hours to complete the program and watch the video.

We drove almost 450 miles today, most of it on I-10. The speed limit is 80 mph in western Texas, but my RV won't go much over 75. I don't remember the dealer telling me, but it must have a speed regulator. Still, the cab is pretty noisy at 75, so I'm okay with not going any faster. There wasn't a lot to see for most of it, although I did see the stereotypical armadillo on the shoulder at one point. I had originally planned on stopping for the night at a state park near Junction, but our water pump started acting up, so we decided to push on and get closer to San Antonio so that we would have internet access and usable cell phones if we needed to call someone in the morning to set up a repair. We ended up in Kerrville, about an hour west of San Antonio. The landscape did get a little nicer as we moved east, with large juniper bushes on rolling hills replacing brown grass and cacti on flat land surrounded by rocky bluffs.