Sierra Blanca to Van Horn TX

There are 3 or 4 posts previous to this one that are brand new... I've finally caught up!

It was our plan to go 71 miles to a place called Kent but events conspired to foil these plans!

As we were leaving Sierra Blanca Taran mentioned that he had a sore ankle. He said that it had hurt a bit yesterday as well. We had gone about 10 miles when Taran again said his ankle very sore. We got off and took a look at it. It had a slight swelling and a small bruise. We wrapped it up in a tensor bandage and kept going. Although the tensor bandage helped, it was still bothering him quite a bit. We decided to stop in Van Horn (35 miles) instead of going to Kent.

There were a number of choices in Van Horn to stay at, but we chose the Eagles Nest RV park. It had a rec room, laundary and nice bathrooms (with showers). I got some ice and placed it around Taran's ankle. We were there fairly early, so we just read our books and generally just hung out. At around 7:30pm it started to rain...and rain. Luckily I hadn't put up the tent yet. It stopped raining a while later. At about 8:30 just as I was about to go out and put up the tent, it started to rain again. I went over to the owner and asked if it would be okay if we bunked down in the Rec room. He agreed. Thank goodness, because it was quite the thunderstorm, complete with lightning.

The next morning Taran's ankle was not any better so we decided to stay an extra day. I spent a couple of hours cleaning the Rec Room in order to 'repay' the owner (Bill) for the use of the Rec Room for our stay. He was very appreciative. In fact, he offered to cook us dinner and kept giving us soda pop.

He also offered to let me use the office computer. I went in to use it and it was at this time that I learned that Bill really liked to talk. He told me a lot about himself and his life experiences. He also drank a lot of beer and smoked non-stop. He was a really nice guy. During dinner, we met his kids Bill jr, Megan and Cassie. They were very cute. They brought some of their toys out and Taran played with them for about an hour and a half.

Around 9pm, the kids went home and Taran and I again bunked down in the Rec Room. I stayed on the couch and Taran got the floor! We're currently at the Van Horn Library and we're heading to Kent very soon.