SANDERSON, Texas – After 10 restful days based at the Lone Star Corral RV park in Hondo, we hitched up the wagon yesterday and drove 230 miles west along US 90 to the once bustling ranch town of Sanderson. Along the way we crossed the 100th Meridian into the desert southwest, another milestone in our cross-country journey.
The RV park where we stayed near Hondo, 40 miles west of San Antonio, is not your typical RV park. It’s a cooperative for exclusive use by members of the Escapees club. Escapees are RV owners who are 55 or older and many live full-time in their RVs. At the Lone Star Corral, almost all the people live there most of the year and actually own rights to a parking space and, typically, a storage shed next to it. We were probably the youngest people in the park during our stay.
Everyone was very friendly, as people typically are in RV parks. The clubhouse included a free library and two billiard tables and a snooker table. After envying the billiards rooms at the Biltmore and Graceland, I finally had one of my own, if only for 10 days! My dear wife indulged me by playing me six games, and we teamed up to play another couple at the park one night. Of course, the greatest blessing during our time in Hondo was enjoying the company of our neighbors Lyle and Melanie Brunson. (That’s me and Lyle trying to hitch a ride outside Hondo, which is also home to a state penitentiary.)
As we left Hondo behind yesterday, we could see the countryside changing from black dirt and green fields to scrub brush. The 100th Meridian has traditionally been the dividing line in the United States where, to the west, annual rainfall becomes insufficient to support farming without irrigation. The line runs roughly down the middle of the Dakotas, through western Nebraska and Kansas, and down the middle of Texas.
Sanderson, where we stayed last night, lies at 102 degrees, 23 minutes west longitude. It’s a town of a few hundred souls that was in its prime a century ago as a sheep ranching center along a busy railroad line. Today it has one gas station and one restaurant. According to a plaque we read in a nice memorial garden along its main street, on June 11, 1965, a flash flood brought a 10-foot wall of water roaring down Sanderson Canyon, sweeping away homes, tearing up roads and railroad tracks, and killing 26 people. Two bodies were never recovered.
This morning the sky over Sanderson is perfectly blue.
Dashboard: Days on the road: 40; Miles towing the RV: 2,290; RV parks stayed at: 13; National parks visited: 2
The road ahead (Lord willing): Alpine, Texas; Big Bend National Park.
Daniel Griswold's Blog 