A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 504 miles from Abilene, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Our longest drive to date! (And yes, I’ve been using country & folk music for the Texas travel, but switch to other genres on leaving Texas.)
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Posts featuring the coach.
Travel from Abilene, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico
We drove our coach 504 miles, an epic eight hours of driving, from Abilene, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
We normally prefer two hour drives, and will go up to four hours when on an interstate (as they are easier and usually have regular rest areas). We had planned two four hour days, stopping in Pecos, but the weather forecast called for 60 MPH gusts along the route on the second leg. So we decided to push on through, doing it in one day.
Here’s the map route, heading west:
An interactive map, with our stops marked:
Leaving the Abilene KOA:
There were pretty much non-stop pump jacks along the route:
We stopped at several rest areas; this was the first:
An interesting water tower:
Wide load:
“It would behoof you to slow down”:
Road Ranger fuel stop:
We went in, and had Church’s Chicken for lunch (our least-preferred fast food chicken chain):
Back to our coach:
Sleepy Paladin:
A wind turbine blade:
More pump jacks:
As mentioned, we were originally going to stop at Pecos, Texas:
Paladin probably would have preferred that we stopped, but this was just halfway:
A nice rest area:
We were so happy to see mountains again, after spending months in flat Texas:
Lots of trucks:
Allegedly scenic viewpoint:
Entering Mountain Time Zone:
A busy rest area; we parked on the side of the road:
El Paso overpasses:
El Paso artwork:
An interesting RV paint job:
Goodbye Texas; entering New Mexico:
Mountains by Las Cruces:
Our destination, another KOA:
That was quite the drive!
Water softener regeneration and backflush hoses and adapters
The water softener was a great addition to our coach. But it requires periodic maintenance, to regenerate it every couple of weeks, and backflush it quarterly.
Backflushing it requires reversing the connections, to have water go in the outlet, and dump out the inlet. When I first backflushed it, I used the plastic double-female connector that came with it, with a couple of my quick-connectors:
Thusly:
On the output side, I didn’t have a double male adapter, so I just held the hose to my sewer connector, which was a bit messy:
I thought I could do better, so I bought some brass double adapters, which together with my quick-connectors, works much better:
When a test strip indicates the water coming out of the softener is getting hard, it is time to regenerate it (typically every couple of weeks, depending on where we are). This is done by pouring two containers of table salt into the top of the softener (after turning off the water, of course), then I connect a special hose to a sewer rinse cap, that adapts the water hose to the sewer hose, ensuring I can flush out the salty water without making a mess:
Here’s a closer look at the sewer adapter:
Another couple of pics of regenerating:
I also replaced the hose between the filter and softener with a more flexible one, and added a clear sewer hose adapter so I could see the water flow rate:
(You can also see the cap off the water softener in that pic.)
I do enjoy my plumbing bits. It may seem overly complex, but all those quick connectors and adapters make this required maintenance much easier.
Abilene KOA Journey
We stayed at Abilene KOA Journey in Abilene, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A very basic KOA, with loud freeway traffic.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-02-23
- Check out: 2023-02-25
- 2 nights
Weather:
- Cloudy
- High temps ranging between 48-57°F, lows around 35-41°F
- Negligible wind
Noise:
- Loud road noise from the freeway; distant train noise
- No neighbor noise
Site:
- #58, pull-through, gravel
- All the pull-throughs are buddy sites, except this one and the one next to it, where they converted the next-door site to a patio
- Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked behind coach
- Level site
- Medium site: about 60 feet long by about 30 feet wide
- Concrete patio
- Patio table & chairs
- Fire pit
- Propane & charcoal grills
- A few trees
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, fairly conveniently located
- 60 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, somewhat conveniently located (2 10-foot pipes needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- T-Mobile: 46-62 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up, 50 ms ping
- AT&T: 5 Mbps down, 9 Mbps up, 78 ms ping
- Verizon: 1 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 200 ms ping
- Starlink: not used
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- Garbage pickup from site
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Buddy sites and road noise
We stayed here for two nights which was about one night more than necessary. The pull-throughs were pretty much all buddy sites (which I hate), but we splurged on the patio site which meant that we had a little buffer between us and our neighbor on the living side (nevermind that our neighbor the first night seemed to think it was a communal area, but I digress). The real downside of this park is the constant noise from I-20 with trucks using their jake brakes at all hours. We camped at Abilene KOA Journey in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: Frontier Texas! (the exclamation point is part of the name) was pretty cool and worth a stop.
An interactive map of the park:
The map:
Our site:
A nice patio, that we didn’t use, since the weather wasn’t great; but still worth it to avoid being in a buddy site:
A nice fire pit area on the patio:
A GIF of the freeway from our site, showing how close it was:
Bathrooms:
Cabins:
Other sites:
This RV park was a convenient stop for a couple of nights, but we wouldn’t choose to stay here other than for that purpose, what with the loud freeway noise and buddy sites.
Video: Gordonville, Texas to Abilene, Texas motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 244 miles from Gordonville, Texas to Abilene, Texas.
Travel from Gordonville to Abilene, Texas
We drove our coach 244 miles, about four hours of driving, from Gordonville, Texas to Abilene, Texas.
Here’s the map route, heading south then west:
Leaving the Thousand Trails campground:
A rather rough road:
Onramp to I-35, and interesting clouds:
Denton, Texas, “the home of happiness“:
Exit to I-35W:
Sleepy Paladin:
We never did visit a Buc-ees:
A big cloud by the side of the road; we thought it was a fire at first, but it appeared to be some roadworks thing:
There were a lot of roadworks; we don’t enjoy having a barrier so close to the edge of the lane, since our coach takes pretty much the whole lane:
Exit to I-820, marking the start of our westward migration:
Exit to I-30:
Exit 420; we didn’t take that exit, I just thought it was “nice” (unsurprisingly, the only sign was above the road):
We stopped for lunch at a truck stop:
Lunch at the Iron Skillet Restaurant:
We do enjoy breakfast for lunch:
Back to our coach:
Truck foursome:
A very empty rest stop:
Wide loads:
A rolling work convoy:
Another wide load:
Our destination:
Dryer magnets
The door on the dryer in our coach (yes, we have a washer and dryer) tends to swing closed when open. So I attached a couple of strong magnets to the cupboard and dryer doors to keep it open.
Here are the magnets I used:
I attached them to the doors with Glue Dots:
I do have magnets with self-adhesive backs, but they aren’t as powerful, and I need opposite polarities for each magnet so they stick together, so using the glue dots on the magnets works better:
A magnet on the dryer door:
And a magnet on the enclosing cupboard door:
They meet and hold the door open:
Thousand Trails Lake Texoma RV Campground
We stayed at Thousand Trails Lake Texoma RV Campground in Gordonville, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Another Thousand Trails, more of the state park feel.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-02-16
- Check out: 2023-02-23
- 7 nights
Weather:
- Some sunny days
- High temps ranging between 49-80°F, lows around 28-53°F
- Some wind, up to 30 MPH gusts
Noise:
- No road noise or train noise
- No neighbor noise
Site:
- #A43, pull-through, gravel
- Buddy site, but on end so nobody facing us (other than the bathroom block)
- Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
- Not very level front to back or side to side; used blocks to help front jacks
- Medium site: about 80 feet long by about 25 feet wide
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- Grass & trees
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, fairly conveniently located
- 75 PSI water, conveniently located (disconnected during sub-freezing nights)
- Non-threaded sewer connection, very conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 20-55 Mbps down, 1-6 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 13 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 28 ms ping
- AT&T: 15 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up, 37 ms ping
- Verizon: 10 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpster
- Closed pools
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Older campground, needs some love
Unusually for a Thousand Trails park, the staff knew what sites were actually available and we were able to select one at check-in. We wanted a 50 amp pull-through but unfortunately, all the 50A pull-throughs are buddy sites. I hate buddy sites. We were lucky enough to get one on the end so our living area wasn’t directly on top of someone else, but it did open up to the bathroom block. Scenic! The site was not at all level front-to-back and we had to maneuver a bit to find the most level location. The roads here are more pothole than road, so maneuvering our coach to avoid the worst of them was interesting. If we’d been planning to stay longer, I would definitely get one of the back-in sites tucked in the trees. We camped at Thousand Trails Lake Texoma in a Motorhome.
An interactive map of the park:
The map:
Our site:
Rather close to the neighbor:
Utilities; can’t get any better sewer placement:
The view out the buddy-side window wasn’t exciting:
We used the griddle and ate outside for several meals:
Time to add the Virgin Islands National Park sticker to the coach:
And Virgin Islands stickers and a pin on the board inside:
No, this isn’t another picture of our coach, but a neighboring Tiffin with a very similar paint scheme:
This is the 37AP floorplan, a bit smaller than ours:
On the other side of our site were bathrooms, but separated by some grass, so it wasn’t too bad:
Other RVs:
More buddy sites:
A murky but nice pond and island:
The activity center has a large covered area:
Activity pools:
Lodge:
Lodge pool:
Bridge:
A corner of Lake Texoma:
Sunset:
Not the fanciest campground, but not too bad. We’d probably opt for a back-in if we stay here again.
Video: Dallas, Texas to Gordonville, Texas motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 76 miles from Dallas, Texas to Gordonville, Texas.
Travel from NIRVC in Dallas to Gordonville, Texas
We drove our coach 76 miles, a bit over an hour of driving, from NIRVC in Dallas, Texas to Gordonville, Texas.
Here’s the map route, heading north:
We picked up our coach from NIRVC in Dallas, where it had received its annual servicing while we were away:
Paladin sat in the steps for a while:
Denton Buc-ees:
Gainsville:
Our destination, another Thousand Trails:
