A post from Rip!

This is my first time at blogging as the lead driver in Rips Joy and the adventure. We have made it to Arizona and the time changes have given me jet lag or something like that. It is now 6:30 pm and I am ready for bed. Now at home it would be 9:30 pm and almost my bed time. The sun is setting and this is adding to my jet lag so I have decided to open up Rips Drive-in movies. Well that is what we call a laptop computer and a series of movies on DVD’s about California that my friend Randy gave me. So far the first episode was interesting!

Travelling east to west across the southern USA was an eye opening adventure watching the landscape change. Yesterday we stayed at a small state park called Balmorhea State Park. This park is in the middle of nowheresville. Its claim to fame is a spring fed swimming pool that is the world’s largest (77,083 sq. ft. artesian spring). At our last park Big Bend the local news paper stated that Big Bend is a desert park and if you want to swim go to Balmorhea, so we did. A great place to swim although at night a water snake makes its way into the pool for fishing and cooling off. Oh yes this being a natural pool is 25 feet deep in the middle with rocks on the bottom and lost of minnows and catfish swimming around. The outside is a cement bottom for swimmers and to make it the worlds largest spring fed swimming pool.

I visited the local town “ Balmorhea” and spoke to a local girl in the corner store. When I ask what this town had going for it and she said water from the state park. The water flows along paved ditch aquaducts through farm land and through the town and ends in a lake. The town diverts water once a week for watering everything.

Our next stop was Kartchner Caverns State Park. This must be the off season as there is only four other campers in the camp grounds of the state park last night. Yes the jet lag had me up just before 5:00 am as the sun was rising!