Boondocking night #14...peace and quiet

Not a very long drive yesterday, our last full day before crossing the border into Mexico. We stopped in the town of Carrizo Springs at the H.E.B store to see if there were any other things we should pick up. H.E.B (not pronounced Heb!) is a major grocery chain in southern Texas and Northern Mexico.

Unfortunately, not much to be had. We bought a bottle of wine for tonight's dinner, and a couple of bags of dried split peas!

When we were at the cash, it came up in the conversation that we were from Canada. Everyone in the store is Hispanic...except for us. Almost as much as in Mexico, we stand out like a sore thumb. We said we were heading for Mexico for the winter and the woman behind us said "We live here and even we don't go there!". Too funny. Of course the border zones are a bit of a grey area and the people who live near the border areas are a little brainwashed by the media stories.

And so then we continued on.

Our goal for crossing the border is always to do so as early in the day as possible because you never know what glitches may come your way. So, the closer you can overnight to your border crossing point, the better. We like to use the Colombia Bridge crossing. It is a truck crossing that avoids the congestion of Laredo and it's a little out of the way, however it's also very RV friendly, and it's not very busy to begin with.

So, where to spend our last night in the U.S.?

Our choice in past years has been Lake Casa Blanca State Park in Laredo. But it's a bit pricey and you have to deal with Laredo traffic. One of our readers (hi Sue and Brian!) had suggested the visitors center on the I-35 heading south near the truck toll highway to the Colombia Bridge. We were aware of this possibility and it *is* a convenient location, but of course the truck noise and the Interstate highway noise is not to our liking.

Looking for something better, I had come across a listing for the Chaparral Wildlife Management area. It said that there was a free camping area available, but you had to have a $12 annual permit. We decided to risk a bit of a detour to see if we could camp there without the permit.

We arrived at the entrance gate and squeezed Sherman through. They have a nice little visitors center building, but the only other people we saw were hunters. I went and read one of the sign boards and learned that the Chaparral WMA is only open to the public from April through the end of August. I went in the office, and there was a young guy behind the desk. I asked about camping for the night, and said I realize there is supposed to be a $12 annual permit involved but I explained that we were from Canada. He had a bit of a "what do I tell them?" look on his face when another guy who had obviously heard my story came out and said "I don't see what harm that could be...they can use the camping area".

Apparently at this time of year the area is closed for private hunting and there is a quail hunt going on just now.

Ruth, opening the gate. 

We were told to go about a mile down the highway to the entrance to the camping. There is a separate entrance for tent camping, and another for RV camping. We pulled into the RV camping area, and we were the only ones there!

Sherman, all by himself. 

Nice...just the way we like it!

Spent the rest of the afternoon doing some minor motorhome repairs. Some of our window blinds were starting to rattle loose and there was that propane compartment door that I told you about the other day that wouldn't stay shut. Also, Sherman had developed an annoying rattle in the dash and I think I got that fixed. And, we figured out our route to friends Chris and Juan's place just outside of Monterrey and got the GPS coordinates input into our Garmin.

Had a great sleep! Up early and crossed the border into Mexico. That story you can hear about tomorrow morning!

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