We arrived in Van Horn, TX, yesterday and took a scenic drive north on Texas Hwy 54 today to the Guadalupa Mountains National Park. These photos are from that drive.
Van Horn is an interesting place — with a population of only 2500 it has at least 4 small RV Parks and 10 Hotels/Motels. It’s all about its location along Interstate 10. However, we learned when we checked in that there are almost no RV spaces to rent or rooms to be had for the next eight months. This little town is about to be filled to capacity by temporary workers on the Texas Comanche Trail Pipeline project. They will be laying a 48″ natural gas pipeline from Waha to San Elizario, just South of El Paso.
We’re leaving tomorrow morning heading to Alamogordo, NM. The weather’s been great and we’re enjoying our leisurely pace along this scenic route.
It would appear from your outsanding images that Texas is not lacking in wide open spaces.
Yes, there’s certainly plenty of open space in western Texas, Steve. :-) The Fort Stockton/Van Horn areas are harsh but with interesting history and a rugged beauty. I’d love to come back and visit Big Ben National Park, south of here at some future date.
Love those open places as many of my images show. Good grief, that is one big pipe! Travel safe!
Thanks, Monte!
Just what we need – another pipeline project! Plenty of pipelines in Texas, though. Not to be picky, but if you’re taking pictures along a road (and there’s plenty of opportunity for that in the southwest) you might want to consider standing in the middle of the road. Not much chance of getting hit since traffic is usually very light and your spouse can be the “lookout”. I think it looks more interesting that way……
Have fun in Alamogordo!
Actually, we’re not far from you today. At the moment we’re in Albuquerque, but we’ll shortly be heading for Sedona, Az. I think right now we’re about 200 miles apart.
There was a huge stockyard of pipe not far from where we stayed in Fort Stockton but it was only when we got to Van Horn that the RV park manager told us there were so many pipeline workers (1000+) coming into Van Horn there weren’t enough sites for them all. Actually, I took a number of shots from road center but didn’t publish any of them in this post.
Hey, you guys have a great time as well. We’re enjoying the sights. We’ve got more time built into each stop to explore from here on out — now that we’ve finally gotten across Texas. :-)