The Journey Unfolds — Unruly Skoolie

Turns our Satan’s happy trail is an impossibly evil, dusty and denigrated road called Highway 652 which shoots west from the unholy orifice of Orla, Texas almost to the New Mexico state line. Some of you pretty West Coasters won’t be surprised that all roads leading to Satan’s nether regions collide in West Texas and honestly, I’m not either. Im a born and bred Texan, and dang proud of it, y’all, but seriously, even this cosmic hippy cowgirl found herself unnerved at the godlessness of it all. But I’m skipping ahead.

We woke up happy at Balmorhea. The weather was perfect and we congratulated ourselves for our awesomeness. The Unruly drew more attention than I expected. I thought maybe people would side-eye us and go about their business, but several groups of families and old timers waved, cheers and stopped by our site to talk about the rig, ask about the solar, take a peek inside and congratulate us. We were feeling pretty good.

It was time to swim. The pool was uncrowded. It was heavy winds and most folks were wandering around the edges of the pool keeping in the sun while a few brave kids splashed with masks and mouthpieces giddy at the sight of the Comanche Pupfish which can only be found at these glorious waters. I took a quick jump off the small diving board and hauled butt to stay warm over to where Phoenix was riding Skeets like a dolphin as he swam through the cool water. When we had our fill, which wasn’t long in the windy morning, we headed back to the bus and organized to leave. Our goal for the day was Carlsbad Caverns National Park, across the New Mexico border. After the long haul that was yesterday’s 300 miles, today’s 120 seemed like cake.

Comanche Pupfish, taken with our underwater Fujifilm camera.

Oh, cake. You cruel, cruel temptress…

The drive to Pecos was uneventful. Skeets commented several times on the Mad Max aesthetic of the place, but a dusty and worn down town in West Texas is no stranger to us. Thank Gaia for La Tienda grocery store. Of course it wasn’t on Google Maps, which only led us to Wal-mart in our attempts to find produce, but unlike the sad latter, La Tienda got us stocked up with noplates, tortillas, meats, cheese, beer… all the staples…. so we happily headed north.

Forgive the crudeness, but on second thought, I think Highway 285 is actually Satan’s happy trail and Highway 652 is more like his taint. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what that makes Orla.

When you're going through Hell, just keep going.

For the 80 or so miles that stretched these gnarly roads we were blasted from all sides by extreme winds, crazy dust storms, aggressive oil field truckers and were rattled to the bone by the damaged asphalt beneath us. This is no man’s land, except it’s full of man-camps- oil field camps who’s inhabitants have stripped the land of all the native species that keep the dust at bay and work tirelessly to give us the oil that feeds our collective addiction. On this unforgiving and inhospitable stretch of highways the bus began to overheat. Skeets pulled over twice… or was it three times? Our awesomeness was waning. He got out his tool kit and went to work running some water line to some heater line and ratcheting this and that until he was satisfied we could make it out of Hades. God bless him. The bus and we were covered with a thin layer of sandy silt by the time we gratefully rolled into the welcoming but still windy gates of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I was so looking forward to finding a safe spot to park the bus and kick back, drink a beer and laugh about the day’s wild ride. The wind was crazy fierce as we made our way up to the visitor’s center atop the peak of the park. Overheated again. This could be bad.

Another unexpected turn of events when the ranger at the visitor’s center tells us that there’s actually no camping at this park, but we can turn back another 20 miles and find some free BLM camping. (BLM is public land held by the Bureau of Land Management- bless them. Free camping!!) Hell. Ok. The bus does well down the long and winding hill and we find our way to where we sit now- a back road in the middle of nowhere in the desert somewhere between Carlsbad town and Carlsbad park. There’s a VW camper about 1000 feet away taking advantage of the free spot like us, so although the wind is the worst I’ve experienced, rocking the bus like a ship in rough waters, I can see them, I can see the highway in the distance and I feel safe in our small but mighty rig. We’re together and we’re celebrating crossing the Texas state line in one piece.

Our dusty, windy BLM site outside of Carlsbad, NM.

May these winds take our troubles away.