Ok, here's the much awaited (right, who am I kidding?), first episode of our travels! 
The total trip, according to Google Maps, would entail to 1550 miles, 25 h without traffic. Ha! For us that's more like 7 days or so!

Our first day's end-destination was the Walmart in Odessa where we planned to 'dry-camp' in the parking lot after stocking up on groceries and whatever else would tickle our fancy.

Since we were pretty much packed up, the only thing we had to do on the morning of our departure was dismantling the water, sewer and electric and off we went! On the road again! Yahoo!!

A last view of the Chico mountains in Big Bend National Park, from the 'hill' before Terlingua's Ghost Town, before driving the  familiar 1.5 hours to Alpine, where we made a short stop to fuel up and hit the lumber yard for a few small items.

Alpine

We arrived in Odessa around 2pm and after gassing up and taking a wrong exit we finally arrived at the Walmart superstore.
It didn't look too inviting, being located in the busy, and noisy, commercial district of town, so we decided after we'd done our shopping, to drive on for another 25 miles to the small town of Andrews. 
I knew from searching the 'Free-Stays' web there would be a small City Park. Apparently nothing special, but probably a lot quieter.

Directions were a little vague, and it took us a little longer than anticipated, but eventually we managed to find it. It turned out to be a small parking lot, next to the Chamber of Commerce and the Veterans Memorial of Andrews County, where you can overnight for free.
Hookups included!

Not a bad deal and just fine for a single night!
We'd picked up some food-to-go at a Chinese fast-food place, and after cracking open a nice cold beer, we happily settled in for the night.

After an excellent night we were up bright and early, and continued our journey through what is called 'the pan handle of Texas', towards Amarillo.

Not much of a scenery I'm afraid, but rolling fields of dry grass. 

This region's true value lies deep underneath the surface and is only given away by the existence of the slowly moving pumps:

Oil. And lots of it! Although this area didn't seem to be as bad as others we smelled the occasional whiff of it. Bleh!

       

 We stayed on the 385 until Lubbock, passing right through the centers of a few small towns, the ones of the 'don't blink or you'll miss it type
.......

But all with the inevitable, characteristic water tower .....

..... and took the I-27 from there until Canyon, just under Amarillo where we exited for our destination for one night, the Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

The Park is known as the 'Grand Canyon of Texas', due both to it's size and its dramatic geological features, including the multicolored layers of rock and steep mesa walls similar to those in the Grand Canyon and is the second largest canyon in the country.

Deep, colorful ravines and eroded badlands:

Notable canyon formations include caves and hoodoos. One of the best-known and the major signature feature of the canyon is the Lighthouse Rock.

Instead of hiking one of the numerous trails, we took the (paved) road in and steeply down to the canyon floor, since we were only staying for the night and didn't have much time. I have to admit, we're not much of hikers also ....

We visited the, excellent, visitor center and stopped at various viewing points, including one with a viewing 'blind' where I took some pictures of the 'locals':

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Since the Park was fully booked, we stayed at the Palo Duro Rim Campground which in hind-side was a good choice. 

I wouldn't have liked the steep and very windy drive down (10% grade!) to the bottom of the Canyon with the RV behind us. 

No sir-ree!

It started to blow something fierce in the evening hours, we could see thunderstorms unloading lots of rain all around us, and lightening flashes continued all through the night.

We didn't get a drop of rain though and although the wind was still very strong the next morning we decided to move to our next destination regardless, since it was only 100 miles away.

And since that was going to be in Oklahoma I'll save that for the next post. See you there!