January 19, 2015. On to West Texas!

CAMPGROUND:  Lake Casa Blanca International  State Park.  5 stars. $18/night.  Beautiful bathrooms.  Electricity and water.  Shelters at each site.  Quiet.  Our site overlooks the lake. Beautiful night views of city

LOCATION:  Laredo, Texas in southwestern side of state. On the Mexican border.

WEATHER:  Beautiful. Highs in mid-70s.  Cool at night for sleeping.

We packed up from South Padre Island and drove about 200 miles northwest through a sparsely populated, poor, dusty, cactus-filled, scrub-brush landscape.  Before we started, we shopped at a grocery store near South Padre Island, knowing that we needed to stock up before we left civilization.  I love the grocery stores here.  They sell warm tortillas in the produce section.

Cilantro is $.25; huge pink grapefruit $.20; avocados $.50, limes $.15, etc.  

Texas is a huge state, and it takes a long time to drive across it.  This map shows where we have been:

1.  Goose Island, near Corpus Christi

2. South Padre Island

3.  Laredo, where we are now.  

We'll continue to hear northwest tomorrow.

This state park is quite nice, on a lake that actually has water.  Last year, most of the lakes in state parks were dried up, due to drought.  We hiked around and then George washed the sea salt off the camper and truck.  The landscape is pretty barren.  We saw roadrunners and rabbits in the brush.

DINNER:  Texas grilled rib-eye.  George cooked the steak over the hibachi.  We had a side salad, and baked potato.  I served the steak with chimichurri sauce, and paired it with a Malbec, to give an Argentine twist to the evening.