Trip #2: Mountain Southwest Road Trip Day #1: Home to McClellan Creek National Grassland

Day of Post: 6-23-2019
Day of Event: 6-8-2019

Mountain Southwest Road Trip 2019

Well, we're off.  Similar idea as last year.  Road trip.  Little gas sipper car.  Go west.  See some sights.  Tent camp in National Parks, National Forests, and BLM Lands.  Nine days,eight nights.

Last year's trip came about indirectly via family vacation preventing us from attending Boy Scout summer camp with our troop, then plan B and C to attend Boy Scout camp with another troop fell apart due to forest fires all over New Mexico and Colorado during Summer 2018.

This year's trip also came about indirectly.  I requested the week off for purposes of Samuel and me entering the completing the Texas Water Safari, a 262-mile canoe marathon from San Marcos, TX to Seadrift, TX in the Gulf of Mexico.  We had even attended the day long orientation course back in February 2019.  However, the Texas Water Safari requires the canoe team to have a dedicated ground support crew, and that's one critical element we could not get completely organized.  So, we canceled that idea.

So, with a week off, Samuel and I went west again.

Now, I know that all three of my readers did not come here to read.  You want to see pictures.

Departure: 2:15pm Saturday June 8, 2019. 

Took highway 33 on a rural route to Western Oklahoma with intent to tour the Washita Battlefield.  Too late.  Visitor's center closed, gate shut and locked.  I still insisted on getting a picture and we viewed it from afar.  Samuel's getting hungry.....on to find some food for him.

Success!  A fuel up at the Love's.  Samuel got a sub sandwich at Subway.  Asked Samuel the highlight of day 1: "That Turkey Italiano was amazing!"

Night 1 place to camp:  Not original picture.  McClellan Creek National Grassland. This is in TX panhandle, east of Amarillo about 1 hr.  Close to I-40.  Nice place.  Apparently a site for ATV/UTV enthusiasts, so we didn't get to sleep until 1AM when the four-wheelers shut down for the night.

Night 1 campsite.  Samuel likes to hammock camp when he can.  I enjoy it also, but there weren't enough trees.  Sorry picture is blurry.