TEXAS OR BUST 😊

Our 28th State

DAY ONE
We left early Saturday morning as there was a snow storm looming for northern IL. We knew it would be a long haul, especially since we changed our route from IA to IL We stopped at the rest area north of Madison only to discover our front tires on the pickup were seriously pitted.  Turns out "someone" took the keys out of the ignition that locked up the steering wheel on our tow vehicle.  As the tires needed to be replaced we spent an hour or more driving around Madison on a Saturday trying to locate a garage for tires and installation.We finally found tires at Southside Tire in DeForest.

Despite the two-hour delay in Madison, we missed the snowstorm in northern IL. As the sun was beginning to set our GPS went rogue by taking us down the wrong highway, telling us to make a u-turn with no exit in sight, and giving wrong exits and highways, We were down to a quarter tank of fuel, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere on an unknown road just 30 miles from our campground. We got turned around and listened to GPS directions only to find ourselves on a dark narrow two-lane road instead of a major highway.  It was like a day that would not end.  Thankfully we arrived at Whittington Woods around 6:30 long after dark and having travelled almost 600 miles. It was a day from hell.

DAY TWO
After a restful night's sleep, we were ready for another day of adventure with a GPS that was on the fritz. It was a dreary day and starting to rain with the wind picking up.  After a few hours we pulled off the road in West Memphis into a KOA to hunker down for the night.with the wind blowing and the rain coming down throughout the night. I don't think we realized how exhausted we were from the day before. I pulled an oops when I took doggie out before bed and opened the door to what I thought was our RV.  When I realized it was a Dutch Star parked alongside us, I yelled "sorry" and shut the door.   Well, the Dutch Star was the same color as our RV.😩

DAY THREE
Stopped in Texarkana, AR for a night.  The weather girl kept referring to the ARK-LA-TX (the three states contiguous to one another).  Lots of traffic noise along the highway. I did get the GPS to work again. Seems there was an error with the last map update. We spotted light bars atop two cars at a trailer behind the campground office. Hmmmm. We later heard on the late news that Texarkana, TX (about 10 miles from the campground) is one of the top 10 cities in TX with a high crime rate.

DAY FOUR
The closer we got to Dallas the heavier the traffic got and the faster they went. It was a white knuckle ride on I-35E with lots of road construction and three lanes of mostly semi traffic screaming by at 70 mph. After a harrowing drive in the RV with a tow vehicle, we arrived in Corinth,TX at Destiny RV Campground.  Again right off I-35E. We were assigned a site near the highway but we couldn't maneuver our RV into a site around a tight corner without hitting a car parked on the site at the turn or scratching the paint on our RV.  We requested another site and were directed to a double pull thru behind the office.  Seems to be a much better site. This campground appears to have lots of fifth wheels here, possibly for all the highway construction workers.  Even a school bus goes past our site to the back of the campground.

DAY FIVE
We ventured out to Lowes for a hot water heater element and a windshield wiper.  Stopped at Whataburger for lunch. The manager told us the FM highway designation means "farm to market" to indicate the old routes farmers took to market. He said I-35 has been under construction since he moved here 25 years ago.