Jan 2

De roads in Arkansas are very bumpy and Texas isn't much better. A bit better in the neighborhood of Dallas, where we stopped for barbecue for dinner, and discovered there's water sloshing out of the bottom of  the RV. Split PVC pipe. We decided to tuck the kids into bed and drive a few more hours, so we can get to Lubbock earlier in the day on Sunday. There's a friend of Opa in Lubbock, and we want to see if it's suitable for taking a day off for the kids to enjoy. Supposedly the weather will perk up by Monday.
Opa did discover that the electrical problem - the "house" batteries were dead - was probably caused by the lights in the storage compartments being mysteriously on. Hmmm... there's a switch on the side of Opa's chair that lights up when it's on... I wonder, who could have turned that on? ;)
We drove on to a hamlet by the name of Cisco, to a minimal RV park, but all we wanted was electricity and water anyway. After a decent night's sleep we discovered how minimal. A small play structure and two old wheelbarrows for the kids to play with (they loved it), no bathrooms, an office trailer with a mail slot labeled, "payment $20.00". We stuffed a twenty in it and off we went.
The landscape is flat, with scattered scrubby trees in dead grass, stubby cotton fields, occasional oil pumps, wind turbine farms, power lines, cows, rolls of hay, rusty pick-ups, and a minimal RV park at almost every exit. The cars on the road are mostly pick-ups, or else 4wd's. There were waterholes further back but not much here. Can't wait to see Lubbock! Maybe we can get the kids cheap cowboy hats. And I could use a haircut... Keeping my fingers crossed that the consensus of opinions says we take a day off.