January 1-15, 2025 Texas, New Mexico and Arizona

It’s still boggles my mind that it is January already. We are getting hit with a cold front so we wanted to get out of Oklahoma and head back to warmer temperatures. We drove longer than we normally would and took a nice break at the Czech Stop. We kept seeing billboards for it on Interstate 25 so we decided to stop. We needed a break anyway. And boy am I glad we picked this spot to take our break. The bakery inside this gas station convenience store was unbelievable. I never knew that Czecks were such amazing bakers. Greg knew and recognized a lot of the baked goods because his grandmother was from Czechoslovakia and she baked many of these same things that they were selling. It was a little overwhelming but we just randomly picked things that looked delicious and it definitely did not disappoint. 

Once we had our fill we carried on and drove another two hours to a Cracker Barrel for the night. 

Next day we drove another three hours and finally hit Corpus Christi Texas. Our first stop was to the H.E.B supermarket. That’s the food store here all over Texas. They have amazing produce and meats. We went shopping and also picked up our beach pass. The beach pass is $12 for the entire year. This is ridiculously cheap compared to the beach pass for NY which is probably up to $200 by now. This beach pass allows you to drive and stay over night on the beach. They have porta potties and garbage pails and the sand is very packed down so basically anyone and any kind of car can drive on it. Most people just come for the day or to go fishing. Our first night was just us and a fifth wheel and a tiny house and one car camper. Next night was just us, the fifth wheel and a scamp. Seems the scamp camper must be a YouTuber. He filmed the entire time he was here. Woke up this morning to fog and he was out there filming.

The high tide came up at 7pm so there was no panic that we were going to wake up out at sea. We still parked super close to the dunes and the road that leads out just incase. The cold front is arriving tomorrow as is the double tide so we got off the beach and headed to the nearest state park which was about 45 minutes away. We settled in at site 17. The weather was a lot warmer here than on the beach. We took a bike ride and enjoyed the sun.

We pumped up all our batteries using the electric at the site. It’s going to hit the 40’s and 50’s for the next week so that affects the batteries plus our heater runs on diesel but it also used the battery plus on top of that it’s been pretty cloudy which is also not good for our battery bank. It was a nice two days without any worries. On the third we checked the weather once again to see where we could go to chase 72°. Seems there was no where. The cold front was lingering and there was no drive to take us to warmer weather, unless we drove back to Florida to the Fort Lauderdale area. That area consistently is the warmest in the country, and also the most crowded. So it wasn’t an option. Instead we checked out, drove into town, had some lunch at a local coffee and bakery lunch place and then decided we may as well do another two days at the State Park. I got a good book from the library and we headed back. Basically trapped in the van for two more days. Started watching season one of Silo on Apple to kill time. Bundled up on occasion and took some walks. We have the whole campsite loop to ourselves. And the bathrooms all to ourselves as well. As many hot showers as we need. 

Drove another 3 hours south right down to the Mexican Border. You can see in the weather map below the rain and gloom above where we came from and the blue dot to where we are now. Atleast it’s not raining but still we can’t seem to find 72°. We had dinner at a Cracker Barrel, a nice spot by the fire and then settled in for the night. 

Ok. Woke up to another cold morning and studied the weather a little more. It’s freaking cold and staying cold so we might as well be cold in Arizona where the land is free to camp on so we decided to push west. Did some crazy driving and finally after three 6 hour days made it to New Mexico. Each of those three days, the morning temp was in the twenties. Stayed at another Cracker Barrel and a rest stop on I-10 but today will be at the The Faywood Hot Springs it will still be cold but a we are on our way again to 72°. 

Greg LOVES the Faywood Hot Springs!! We booked site 46 which was nestled between a bunch of small trees and bushes. Every spot here is like that. It’s nothing like other campgrounds we have been to. They have three hot spring tubs and each has three pools with different temperatures of water. The shower also runs off of the hot water that feeds these pools. The same hot water, I guess that is coming out of the ground. They have a cute gift shop and clubhouse. Last year Greg did a YouTube video about this place. This was one of the first ones so this video has me narrating his footage. I’ll post it below.

Woke up here to 25° outside and 35° inside the van. Again, we are so grateful for this Diesel heater that we have, plus we parked perfectly where the sun came up right on the windshield and the place warmed up pretty quickly. Today we are going to drive 3 and a half hours to Tucson, Arizona. I don’t think it’s any warmer there but atleast they have a casino there that we can warm up in for today. We also have to print out our property taxes and mail out some checks and also need to get my prescription filled. A place like Tucson is perfect for these type of chores. On a side note, it’s amazing to me that it’s the year 2025 and we still have to write a check for property taxes. None of our property taxes offer electronic payment. It’s bizarre. So every year, our friend, Theresa and now Lynn sends us a photo of our tax bill which comes in the mail and we go to the library to print it out. We’ve been doing this for the last five years wondering when and if they will ever switch over to an electronic system. 

Greg got a few more soaks in before we left the Hot Springs Campground. 

We headed out and had lunch at a rest stop. We added some DEF to the engine and went on our way. About 45 minutes later, the check engine light came on. Ugghhhh

Thankfully, we were about 2 hours from Tucson where there is a Mercedes Benz Dealer and Service Center. We spent the night at the Casino in Tucson and then called the dealer in the morning. They, unfortunately, are out a week for making an appointment but the guy said we can bring it and leave it there for the day and they can run a diagnostic check on it if they can squeeze it in between all the Amazon and Fed Ex vans that are getting serviced. So basically for now, we are sitting in the van at the Dealer hoping they can take us at some point. Basically, it’s a wasted day but we really have no plans anyway. We may take an Uber to go to lunch at a Buffet. But for now we will just patiently wait our turn. 

Our service guy, Kyle offered to send us anywhere we want to go. They pay for the Uber so we took him up on that and went to a casino and hotel resort. A different one that we went to yesterday. This one had a buffet. So the Uber arrived and drove us there. We had lunch, gambled a little, then sat in the hotel lobby. We called the dealer back at the end of the day and he sent us another Uber. They were able to get the van in to diagnose the problem but not fix it. They have to order a part. They allowed us to overnight in their lot, which was awesome. The next day we waited again in the hopes that they could get us in there. The good news is they had the part, the bad news, it was another expensive fix but we knew this going in before even purchasing a Mercedez Benz, we knew that any repairs would be costly. So today we waited again. This time we are gonna take the Uber to the movies. There’s a Dave and Busters over there too where we can kill some time. Fingers Crossed that they can get us in today  and then we will be on our way. Here’s our view for most of the wait. Atleast we are in the sun and the batteries are getting charged with our solar. 

We saw “A Complete Unknown” at the movies. We both enjoyed it. Then we walked around Walmart for a bit. Kyle sent us another Uber and we headed back. Our van was actually in the shop getting repaired. We waited about an hour more and out it came. There’s no such thing as a Mercedes repair costing under a thousand dollars but we knew this when we made the decision to get this van. We try not to let the cost of things bother us too much, except for eggs costing 7 dollars. Now that annoys me. lol

We decided to stay in the Tucson area for the night just incase the light comes back on. We will head to the library today to get our property taxes printed and to send out the Blog. We love this area of the country and it’s actually starting to warm up a little so here’s to a good time in the Southwest.