Today's travel day of 334-miles had us arriving at Monahans Sandhills State Park in West Texas. It's our 3rd of "four in a row" Texas State Park visits. At 334-miles it's also going to be our longest 1-day travel of the entire Coast-2-Coast journey.
While in Jacksonville we purchased a new budget friendly "dash cam" which takes decent photographs using voice command, but the video quality leaves a lot to be desired. It takes video in 4K resolution, but only at 30 frames per second.
It's just one more chance to share a different perspective of the scenery as we pass by. We're still trying to figure out what it can and can't do well, so bear with us for a while.
BTW - All future dash cam photos and videos will feature this special "orange" border!
We arrived at the Monahans Sandhills State Park at 4:36PM, six minutes too late to officially check-in for our campsite. I guess we'll just have to drive the 2-miles back to the gate in the morning when they open.
MONAHANS SANDHILLS STATE PARK
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A pretty grand entrance for a state park.
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Our "no frills" campsite, but it does have water and electric for a reasonable price.
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Now you know why "Sandhills" is in the name of the park.
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LOOK! Two other Airstreams showed up at the campground for tonight.
At the halfway point of the drive we stopped for fuel in Van Horn, TX at an EZ-OFF and EZ- ON Love's Fuel Station at Exit 140B of Interstate 10. They have extra wide lanes for trucks with trailers to fuel up at, instead of us having to fight for position with all the other cars purchasing fuel.
Like I said, everything was going great until we reached the city limits of El Paso where we soon were caught up traveling in 55MPH traffic with people cutting in and out trying not to miss their exit.
One car in particular came very close to clipping the front right fender of ROVER as they merged onto the highway. This is the reason we broke down and finally purchased a dashcam.
Watch the short video below. It felt a lot closer than what you see from the perspective of the dashcam.
We've been here at Franklin Mountains State Park once before in January of 2024. As a matter of fact we had this exact same campsite. There are only 5 sites here that are designated for RVs. All the other sites are for tent campers only.
FRANKLIN MOUNTAINS STATE PARK
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At the very back of the campground is this scenic overlook/picnic area with a view!
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Stand up grills, picnic tables and shade, what more do you need to have a good time?
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Need to walk off some of that BBQ? The hiking trails here range from 5.9-15.5 miles long.
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I put a white arrow pointing down at THE POD as seen from the overlook.
That doesn't mean we won't be stopping in New Mexico, as a matter of fact we have three stops to make there.
Next we'll be stopping to fill up one of our propane tanks because for the next 11-days we'll be without electricity to run our little space heater at night to stay warm. We'll also be cooking some of our meals in the oven, but for our stove top meals we can used our induction cooktop and run it off the batteries. I doubt we could run through our other two tanks in that amount of time, but why take the chance.
Lastly, it will be lunch time so as long as we are already off the highway why not let someone else prepare lunch?
I'd be willing to bet that is the cheapest gas we will be able to purchase between now and late October, when we come back through Arizona as we head back to Florida.
Since we left Florida 12-days ago we've spent $632 on gas and the month isn't even half over!
We only budget $500 a month for gas and most of the time that is enough. This year is going to be a little bit different.
It's either a clever marketing strategy, or a complete waste of advertising dollars, because most local people will never drive 979-miles away from home, let alone just to see a Buc-ee's.
Today was only a 136-mile travel day, much shorter than what we've been doing for the last 12-days. The good news is, we only have one more 100+ mile travel day before we reach the end of our Coast-2-Coast repostioning on February 23rd. The bad news is, we will soon be paying in excess of $4.00 a gallon for our gasoline.
How about our State by State Bucket Lists or Visited Campgrounds List?
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