But our real reason for being here was for the solar eclipse on April 8. It was an ABSOLUTE STUNNING SUCCESS! We had an eagle eye on the weather reports for the 2, 3 and 4 days beforehand, and EVERYTHING pointed to it being VERY unlikely to have it be clear. As it turned out, nearly perfect! There was some cloud cover, and while the moon started to come across the sun right on schedule at a couple minutes after noon, it was clear enough that we could see the progress towards totality probably close to 3/4 of the time. Then during totality, the clouds from our point of view were virtually totally broken, and we saw the corona of totality for the full four minutes and 21 seconds! It was phenomenal! The RV park only has about 30 spaces in it, but it has a huge grassy area on the side where dogs are encouraged to be walked and that is where everyone gathered for the event. One resident had a huge barbecue/smoker, and the manager of the place bought enough bratwurst and chicken to feed at least 30. There was probably at least a dozen folks gathered around for the whole event, and we had an absolute blast! Just like the one that I and friends went down to see in 2017, EVERYONE was in a totally festive, friendly, engaging mood throughout the whole two hours as the moon moved across the sun. Or the sun behind the moon, depending on your point of view! Nearly everyone stayed to chat and eat and visit for at least an additional two or three hours after totality. It was largely clouded over for the second half of the moons passing, but by then the major event was over, and no one really cared about the cloud cover. There were two fellows who had what appeared to me to be very sophisticated photographic and recording equipment to record the entire event. I put a link to their captures on the Videos page. One fellow got a spectacular series of the entire sequence up to totality, and a number of shots of the corona during totality. All in all it was a phenomenal day, and we both reflected afterward that it was tremendous fun and a complete success!

I took a few more pictures and some short videos near our campsite just to the west of Burnet by about 8 to 10 miles. Nothing of great importance, but we enjoyed the rest of our time. Fairly uneventful. The last night we were there, April 10, 2024, there were some VERY serious thunderstorms that went through the area, and continued Eastward as most storms do in the northern hemisphere… Areas 100 to 200 miles east of us were under threat of very serious thunderstorms, even tornadoes in the coming 24 hours. We didn't see anything too serious. It rained like crazy for a couple of hours, and a little wind, but nothing above around 20 mph.

We left Burnet on Thursday morning, April 14, 2024. We got away right on target at about 8:30 in the morning, and it was a beautiful, beautiful drive all the way to Fort Stockton, Texas, our next stop for a week and a day. I'm typing these Keystrokes on Monday afternoon April 15 (hope you all got your tax returns or extensions in by today!) and there isn't a lot to report around Fort Stockton. It's a nice little town, population a little under 10,000, VERY flat, right beside Interstate 10, as is our RV park, Hilltop RV Resort. It's about a 2-mile ride into town, and there is almost always virtually no traffic on the road. The main drag through town is called Dickinson Avenue, and every time I enter it from any stop, I can see at least a half a mile left and right, and there's nearly never more than one car that I can see coming in either direction. But they do have a post office, and a Walmart, one additional grocery outlet, and a couple restaurants that we expect to visit around once. Also, our franchised favorites, Subway and Taco Bell, are here so that's pretty tasty-good! Please see some pictures I took around town, and several out on highway 285 south of the city. Uneventful drive there, but very indicative of the western Texas landscape. Flat, and seemingly goes on forever…!

From Fort Stockton, we headed further west on April 19, eventually landing in Las Cruces, New Mexico, about 290 miles further west on Interstate 10. With a population of a little over 100,000, and New Mexico State University in town, there's a certain amount of local itineraries to attend to. I took several trips out, and brought Gloria along for one, to the Organ mountains, a little under 20 miles to the East-Northeast. Please see pictures and videos I took out here, as this was a spectacular ride. Our weather the entire week we were in Las Cruces was mostly 80 to 85, a couple of days got to near 90, but it was still perfect for riding out to the mountains. I went as far as I could on what they call Dripping Springs Road, which really is just a 15-mile extension of University Avenue that goes right by New Mexico State University. through the heart of Las Cruces. Once one has cleared about seven or eight traffic lights to leave the downtown area behind, it's a wonderful ride out to the mountains. Please see pictures and videos -- I took a lot!

The other highlight of Las Cruces that's worth mentioning is that we spent the better part of our first Saturday there, April 20, at the local farmers and vendors' market. Much like a typical street fair, but we found the vendors' offerings quite unique. We scored a few T-shirts, souvenirs, and jewelry offerings. Then headed out to brunch at the Village Inn restaurant, which was spectacular! Our RV spot at Hacienda RV resort was very nice, and we chatted lots with neighbors. The dog park however was just a gravel-floored dog walk, only about 10 or 12 feet wide, and several hundred yards long. We met several folks with puppies, but all of them seem to think their dogs weren't friendly enough to interact with ours and stayed behind gates that sequestered various divisions of the walk. Darn, too, because ours have become nearly 100% acceptable with new humans and full-on 100% great with new puppies!

We got sequestered in nearly all day on the second to the last day we were in Las Cruces, April 25. There was no surprise to the increase in wind the last nearly all day, as our weather app, and the weather channel that we regularly watch, predicted 30 to 40 mph sustained winds, and maybe gusts of 50 or 60. Our weather station is pretty accurate if I can get it set up out in the open, which it was this time. Temperatures ranged pretty much in the low 80s, but we saw windspeeds over 30 and there was one gust that lasted probably only 20 or 30 seconds, that had the entire RV park ENGULFED in blowing sand that was probably at least 100 feet high. Would not have wanted to be walking, riding, or driving in that! The weather station that we have only samples every 15 seconds for windspeeds to report back to the indoor electronic station, so I have no idea what the wind speed was on that short dust storm. But my guess it was WELL over 30 MPH!

Like most last days of our stays now, we pretty much lay low, catch up on indoor activities, tie up the scooters around four or five in the afternoon, and hit the sack fairly early. We did the same on our last day in Las Cruces, Friday, April 26th, in prep for a reasonably early departure on Saturday morning the 27th. We got away right on schedule, at around 8:30 in the morning, and had a gorgeous drive further westbound, landing in Tucson, Arizona at about three in the afternoon at Tucson Lazydays KOA Resort. They have many covered spots here, and we requested and got one of them. I probably won't do that again, as the high overhead cover created access problems for our Starlink satellite access. But after a little moving and testing, it eventually came in just fine. It is now Sunday morning, April 28, 2024 as I compose these keystrokes, and we will be here through next Sunday, May 5. Weather prediction is for 90°, plus or minus two, for our entire stay, and ZERO chance of rain. LITTLE more humidity here, maybe 30% or 40% overnight, but 15% to 20% during the days. Surprising to us, but maybe the norm down here, the last 4 to 6 weeks across Texas and into New Mexico and now Arizona, humidity has been very, very low. Daytime readings well under 10% are common, if not nearly every day.