Saturday, November 16
Dyess AFB
We traveled from Monahans Sandhills State Park to Dyess AFB without any issue. The countryside continued to be an oil country with lots of oil pumps and refineries with a strong smell of oil in the air. The land was flat and sandy. We did get passed by a couple of convoys hauling the giant blades for the windmill generators. I would estimate that outside the semi-trucks, over half the vehicles on the road were pickup trucks. Another interesting observation was that there were a lot of RV parks that appeared to only be for oil workers. In fact, we even saw a couple of billboards offering second chance loans for those wanting to buy trailers.
I had avoided most of the military FamCamps on this trip because most did not take reservations. Dyess AFB was one of the few that did, and I actually had not tried to get a reservation here except that all of the other RV campgrounds were full of oil workers. Luckily they had space.
Because the front gate had a lot of barriers, we actually had to use the back gate that was closed during the weekend. To use it, we had to call the Security Police desk and have them come out and unlock the gate for us. They gave Lisa a temporary id to use while she was on the base.
The campground had nice concrete pad pull-throughs but was not much more than a parking lot. There were definitely full-timers there. Two trailers had a lot of junk around them with about half a dozen bicycles which surprised me. Another trailer had what looked like a 200 gallon upright propane tank next to them. It cost $35/night which was more expensive than most military bases.
Once we got set up, we went to the Commissary to get some groceries. After taking the groceries back to the trailer, we headed downtown. It was already after 3 pm, so most everything we would want to see in the area would be closing, so we decided to head to Storybook Gardens and Dr. Seuss Park that each had some cute sculptures.
Oil Change
On the way to the park, we passed Arrow Ford and since we had an alert that stated we need to change the oil in our truck, we decided to stop and see if we could get our oil changed in their express lane. They said it would take about 45 minutes so we decided to go on ahead and get it done. While we were there, we wandered around the showroom and enjoyed the Christmas decorations that they currently had up, and watched some Texas college football while eating their popcorn.
Downtown Abilene
After the oil change, we went to check out some of the quirky sculptures they had in downtown Abilene. We parked near the Visitors Bureau and walked around taking pictures of the sculptures and then wandered over to a park where they had a lot of Dr. Seuss sculptures. They were also just starting to decorate the park for Christmas.
The park was near more sculptures from Storybook Gardens, so we walked around the downtown area enjoying them. We saw the sunset while we were walking around.
Besides the sculptures, they had lots of quotes on the limestone benches that I really enjoyed.
Dinner
We tried to find a brewery for dinner, but most of the top-rated ones were closed. We settle on the Brick & Forge Brewworks which served pizza, but I was disappointed. This ended up actually being a mall pizza restaurant that just served this small brewery’s beers. It was crowded, loud, and they definitely needed more staff. There were only a couple of craft beers available and they were not very good. The wood-fired brick oven pizza was good though.
Evening
We were back to the trailer around 8 pm.
Sunday, November 17
Dyess AFB Dining Facility
This morning we thought it would be fun to eat at the chow hall on base. It took us a little while to find it since we did not have a map and google did not help, but we eventually found it. They sold the breakfast items a la carte which definitely makes you think more carefully about what you ordered. When I was in you just paid a set amount. I also learned that soldiers were given meal cards now with a dollar amount limit on them and they could use it to buy food at various places on the base to include the food court by the Base Exchange. There were but a few soldiers there except for some Security Police. I do remember that soldiers did not like to get up early on weekends if they did not have to.
Dyess AFB Memorial Park
Since it was Sunday, most of the attractions downtown were not open until the afternoon, so we took this opportunity to walk the large static display of aircraft along the main street near the front gate. There were a couple of dozen aircraft with a nice display monument in front of them explaining the role of the aircraft.
Buffalo Gap Historic Village
After lunch, we drove out to Buffalo Gap Historic Village but it was closed. My Roadtrippers application had provided me with some inaccurate open times, but we were able to peek into the village. Definitely looked like something worth seeing at some point in the future.
Frontier Texas
We then drove back to Frontier Texas! and arrived about 15 minutes before they opened. There were a couple of static displays such as a giant steer skull where we took pictures before the attraction opened.
Frontier Texas! was a nice museum about the frontier of Texas using a lot of multimedia techniques such as holograms and a 360 theater. I thought they did a good job showing the viewpoints of the white settlers, the Indians, and even some black settlers. They totally missed the viewpoint of the Spanish/Mexican settlers that were there before the white settlers came around.
We were out of ice cream, so we decided to stop on at Walmart on the way home. I also wanted to get some nice wax to put on the trailer before we headed home.
Dinner
We were given some recommendations at Frontier Texas! for dinner, but most of them were closed since it was Sunday. We decided to try the La Popular Bakery which was a local favorite. When we arrived, we found that it was more a breakfast place that claimed to have invented the Breakfast Burrito. Their specialties were small burritos so each ordered a couple. Unfortunately several were unable because they were out of a lot of ingredients. They were definitely simple but tasty.
That night we enjoyed the ice cream that we picked up from Walmart.