Van Horn, TX

Wednesday, 5 Dec

Only got down to 36 degrees last night.  We are watching the weather - temperature and precipitation - very closely.  Temperature because we haven’t winterized, and hope not to.  Also, temperature and precipitation creates undesirable driving conditions.  Reviewing the weather forecast, NW Texas and SE New Mexico are to receive a strong upper level trough from the West Coast is brining in moisture to this area, combined with a cold front, we may have to factor in freezing rain and snow in our trip planning.

Although the sun is rising later as we are further west, we were still up at regular time.  So we had already made coffee when sunrise started.  

The photo is about peak color for this morning’s sunrise.  We thought it might get even more dramatic as the sun rose, but the overcast skies muted the colors shortly after I took the photo.

We did some small chores in the RV while we waited for it to warm up enough to get out.  The RV Park had some sort of arrangement with Mountain view Golf Course, which is the municipal golf course in Van Horn, TX, and the only golf course within 40 miles.  The arrangement was for free greens fees.  The golf course was a nine hole course, and our research prepared us to set our expectations very low.  We decided to get a cart today, which costs all of $8/person.

Overall, the course was in poorer condition than the one we played yesterday in Marfa, TX.  While it also had Texas hard fairways, they had watered enough (overwatered?) that some places were wet and sloppy, making us surprised they had no cart restrictions.  Like yesterday, we both had some shots that rolled a long way, as well as others that screeched to a stop when they hit wet area.  The greens were okay.  Darrell opened up with a par on the first hole to take an early lead, and was up by 5 strokes at the turn, in part because of a nice birdie on the 9th hole.  Second time around, we tried to learn from the first nine.  Kris struggled with her chipping (usually the strongest part of her game) off the hard ground, so Darrell had to treat her to a McDonalds Carmel frappe afterwards for finishing ahead on the day.

If you are a serious golfer and passing through Van Horn, TX on I-10, we would only recommend playing this course if you just need to get out of the car and swing the golf club.  We took some comfort that it was so inexpensive, more so because of the arrangement with the RV park.

Again, for the first nine holes, we were the only people of the course, and on the second nine, there were only two other golfers playing.  Being a cool, gray winter day may have contributed.  We finished in about 2-1/2 hours, and after the McDonalds stop and calling to get availability for a campsite to tonight, we headed north on the Texas Mountain Trail (Texas Highway 54) for Carlsbad.  Very little traffic, but numerous places where they had warning signs for high water, making us glad it had not rained recently.

US 180 also had long straight stretches of highway, some over ten miles between any curves.  We picked the Carlsbad RV Park as it had better reviews than other RV parks in the vicinity.  As we turned in, they had a “No Vacancy” sign out front, briefly causing some concern since we did not have a reservation.  As we checked in, we learned all the full-hookup sites were full.  All that was available were the water/electric sites for small RVs.  Perfect for us.