Utopia, Texas

Another nice drive yesterday. And, another nice day. Nothing but sunshine and blue sky all day. High around 68F (20C), which is nice, but they were calling for temperatures around the freezing mark last night.

We took the scenic route from Llano to Utopia. Actually, there is no other route really, if you want to get to Utopia, you pretty much have to take the back roads. It does go through the more urban areas of Fredericksburg and Kerrville, and we stopped at a park in Kerrville and went for a walk. Also used the library internet across the river.

Bought our Mexico RV insurance from Andrea at Wayfarers Insurance . I think we've dealt with her three times now for our Mexican insurance, and she's been great. They specialize in insuring Canadian RV's both in Canada or while in Mexico. We do the whole thing through email and I'd highly recommend using them.

From Kerrville to Utopia we didn’t see many other cars. Again, just a two lane back road, but a 70 mph (112 km/h) speed limit. Oh, and you’re suppose to slow down to 65 mph on the curves! Sherman was quite happy doing 50-55mph.

Drove by this one section of fence where people had put their old boot on top of the fence post. There had to be 100 or so of them.

Some of these ranch properties are huge. Lots of private hunting ranches as well. Saw one for sale that was 5,000 acres. Most of the time you can’t even see the house on the ranch, but some entrances have a massive fancy gate that says the name of the ranch. So I can only imagine what some of the houses are like.

Typical 70 mph back road. Quite a bit of this road floods at times because the stick at the side of the road is a gauge that goes up to 5 feet. And there are signs that say "watch for water on road".

We stopped at the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. It’s really just a state park, and they do have camping but with the $6 per person entrance fee it was well out of our price range. So we carried on to Utopia.

Utopia does not really live up to it’s name. I couldn’t find anything mentioning RV parking online, so we headed to a town park by the river to see what might be available there. Turns out they have “camping” available there, $15 for either tent or RV. It was a rundown place though, and we might have stayed there for free if there was nothing else, but certainly not for $15. There is not much to see in Utopia, so we decided to carry on and see what we could find.

Didn’t have to go far though. Just as we were heading out of town there was a big church with a big empty parking lot, partially hidden from the road by trees. We both looked at each other with the same thought…looks like a good overnight spot. So we pulled in and there was a couple of Mexicans working on building a new BBQ area for the church so I went and asked them. They said to knock on the door of the daycare next to the church. I did, but there was no answer. The door was unlocked, so I opened it and called inside. No answer. So I wandered over to the church itself, and the front door was unlocked. So I went in there and called for anybody. No answer.

So we parked in the lot and waited to see if we could see anybody. Nobody ever showed up, and eventually it got dark. Lots of deer around, some very close to us. Taking Whiskey out later, she was distracted by all the smells.

And I’m pretty sure that it did get down to freezing last night. We had the furnace set on it’s lowest setting 50F (10C) and it did come on a few times in the early morning hours.

Yesterday's drive. 125 miles (205 kms)