Dangerous Gas Station and Found some Quiet Desert Relaxation!

After I posted yesterday's blog, we were driving down the road, getting ready to fuel up in the next town...  We pulled into Brownfield, TX and scoped out a gas station to find the best way to the diesel pump.  Hmmmm a white pickup truck was in the spot we needed to get into, so we were stopped on the side road, patiently waiting.

Suddenly Steve said "Hey.. look, that guy has gas pouring out the side of his truck and he isn't even looking!"  Sure enough, the gas was pouring out the fill nozzle down the side of his truck, and the guy was standing with one leg out and one leg inside of his pickup truck, talking on a cell phone and looking at some paper on his dash!  He had NO IDEA what was happening...

Steve laid on our air horns, and the guy didn't even look!!!! (I wonder if he thought we were beeping at him to move, so he was ignoring us on purpose???)

I could just imagine the whole place going up in one big ball of flames!!!!  There was already at least 3 or 4 gallons on the ground, and it was pouring out full stream from the hose at the side of his truck! I slid open the slider window of our motorhome and with 2 fingers whistled sharply and screamed at the top of my lungs "HEY!!!!!"     The guy still didn't even LOOK at us!!!!  Another man at a pump further down looked, saw what I was frantically pointing at, and ran over to the hose.  There had to now be at least 10 gallons on the driveway!

And what do you think that idiot did then???? When the other man alerted him to what was going on???  He waved to us all friendly like... as if saying "Ya... I got this..."  

I told Steve to drive away .. FAST .... and get out of there before anything blew up!  and we did....  We sure didn't want to be pulling into that drive with all the spilled gas.  Wonder who had to pay to clean it all up?

We fueled up in the next town....  $2.99 a gallon.... by the way, that was the most expensive diesel so far on this trip, in the land of Texas oil, surrounded by refineries and pumps???

As I posted in yesterday's blog, I KNEW Steveio would set himself to the task of putting that tv on the arm and suspend it from the upper cabinets. We were settled into Hobbs, New Mexico for the evening, and he got out his tools.  (he carries just about everything on board)   Our rig has a lot of windows and very little wall space, which suits us just fine. But where to put this tv was a challenge. We didn't want it on a table anymore. This was small enough to suspend from a bracket. We decided to sacrifice a bit of the windows to put up this very lightweight tv on the arm hanging down from the cabinets.

He held it up while I marked the holes to be pre-drilled into the hardwood cabinets.  Then I held it up while he screwed it into place. Teamwork!   It really came out kinda nice, and doesn't block too much of the windows.

(love love love Andy Griffith on Mayberry) 

I tucked the wires behind the lambrequin (side pieces of fabric covered window treatment) and will hide them even better tomorrow.   See? It didn't block much of our view, and the tv didn't rattle or move while we drove today.

We drove northwest of Hobbs New Mexico and headed across to Bottomless Lake State Park.  We were driving along the flat open desert... so foreign to our "up north" eyes. We are used to seeing snow banks, rolling farmlands and forests. I filmed a short shot of the terrain... here is a link:

As we got closer to Roswell, we could see the big mountains in the background and the land started to dip down to lower elevations as we neared the park.  Built around a cluster of tiny lakes, the road wound into the park along ledges and rock formations.

It wasn't a lake by our midwestern "Great Lakes" standards,
but nevertheless, it was a lake, in the middle of the desert!

The road was narrowing as we drove along the cliffs,
and one car coming towards us shied away and just about scraped the cliff wall
to avoid us in the big motorhome.

Finally we found our way into the campground.  Only one or two campers were here in the whole place. We chatted with a few friendly rangers and picked out our campsite. $14 a night buys you all this!   (palapa, picnic table, water, 50 amp, FREE WIFI and a great view)   

I think we will hunker down here a few days and relax and soak up the sunshine.  It was up to 70 today and though it gets cold at night in the 30's the daytime temps will be up in the mid to high 70's the next few days.  Fine with us! 

The dogs are finding the little goatshead spurs in the grassy areas and we have been picking them out between their paw pads and from our shoes.  Keeping the dogs on the gravel and pavement areas helps.  But each time we go back in the motorhome, we are picking out a few burrs to make sure they don't get stuck in our carpeting.  Stepping on one in your barefeet is OUCH!!!!

A few more rigs pulled in before nightfall. I think about 10 total are here?  Now... what are the odds of this:

We took a little walk after dinner... 

and what did see walking up ahead of us??? 

Two more shelties!!!

Well, turns out they are also 2 rescue shelties from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the couple adopted them about 5 or 6 years ago.  (our Finnegan and Binney are rescues from Michigan too)  They were littermate females and had been together all their lives. So sweet to see them now as elderly dogs in loving care and traveling all over in their motorhome too.  This is Angel and Lassie....awwwww Binney was happy to sniff, but Finnegan was more shy!  Our cautious little shy Binney was even happy to give a sniff to the strange man who must have smelled like sheltie, because she was not scared of him in the least! 

We walked the rest of the campground loop as the darkness was descending.  We know from past experience that when the sun goes down, it gets dark very very fast in the desert. So wonderfully quiet and peaceful here. 

Only a few minutes after snapping this, we were in complete darkness.

The skies are full of stars like bright diamonds and we are going to look at them again when we take the dogs out for one last potty break before bedtime.