This isn’t to say that the weather was all great because it was not. Along with those temps came a suffocating deal of humidity, making too much activity unpleasant. Luckily, there isn’t very much to do here, and if you recall from my last post, we unintentionally added an extra day to this stay, making it our longest in one place so far. Brilliant!
With nothing much to do, what did we do? Thank you for asking.
As the name clearly indicates, there is a lake.
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| Buzzzzzz. Throw it back! |
Texas allows fishing from the shore without a license, and TBG caught his first large mouth bass from the shore without a license. It was under the 18″ limit, so it had to go back, but he was pretty excited about it. He tried his hand at it a few more times, with no more luck.
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| Two paddles forward, one wave back. |
I got in a short kayak session. The wind was strong, and it was a struggle to paddle as far as I did. Swimming is allowed in the lake, but even though the heat made us want to swim, the water just didn’t look all that inviting.
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| The old museum. |
According to the ranger, this building was made to look older than it was when it was built, but now it really is pretty old. It’s just decoration these days, which I thought was a shame.
As always, we kept our eyes peeled for critters, and we saw more than we expected, all the new ones only one time each. I will apologize in advance that none of our critter photos turned out very well.
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| Greater Kiskadee |
This bright yellow flyer is common here, but it was a new one to us. Birding is another popular activity at this park, and while I don’t see myself investing in a spotting scope any time soon, it is becoming an activity that increasingly interests me.
There are a few trails in the park, one that was cleared enough for our tastes, but the others were a bit too overgrown and snake-y looking in some places. We joined a ranger-led nature walk one night, a type of activity we decided we need to do more of even though we always feel a bit dorky about such things. We worried we’d be the only ones to show up at the meeting place, but there was a decent turnout, and it was an informative walk.
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| interesting zig-zaggy webbing |
On several other days, we rode our bikes around the park roads, often in the evening after it had cooled off .1 degrees. As we biked one evening, we saw up ahead what we both thought was a dried up agave leaf in the roadway, and we laughed that it looked like a snake. I was ahead of TBG, and as I went flying past it, I saw that it really was a huge snake.
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| Egads! |
We circled back, keeping our distance
until we could tell if it had rattles or not, and were relieved that it
did not. But it also wasn’t moving very swiftly, and we thought maybe it
had been run over. The ranger had explained to us that people
assholes often purposely run over snakes when they see them in the
road, rattles or not. While we waved other cars around it hoping to give
it time to slither out of harm’s way, a guy stopped and jumped out of
his car with a stick. As he walked over to the snake, he told us it was a
king snake that had already been popped (run over) and that he
was the head ranger. He used his stick to move it off the road, where
it had made its way to snake heaven by the time we passed it on the way
back.
Further along in our ride, near the picnic grounds, we noticed a massive gathering of the great-tailed grackles that are ever-present in the park. They were strung along the power lines, perched on all the Ramadas, and covering the ground. It was like pedaling through a scene in The Birds. Then we saw folks watching something at the far end of one of the parking lots. Turns out, it was a nice white-tailed buck eating some sort of seeds or feed that someone had obviously poured onto the pavement. What was even more interesting was the big javelina that was pacing the shrub line behind the buck waiting for its turn at the food. It was our first time spotting javelinas.
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| Peckish peccaries. |
Once the buck got spooked by passing cars, the javelinas ran in to snarf up the feed. We know how the locals feel about these stinky not-pigs, but since I couldn’t smell them and don’t have to worry about them tearing up my gardens, I was free to think they were funny and cute.
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| Black Witch Moth |
The park brochure describes these moths as being the size of a man’s hand, and they really are quite large, startling me a few times when they impersonated bats darting out from under the rig.
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| Looks chilly, but it’s hot morning humidity. |
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| Sand castle. |
These very small twig-like structures were constructed by ants on the pavement everywhere. They were completely fragile and mystifying.
On one of the hottest, most humid days, and suffering from a little bit of cabin fever. I decided I needed a midday walk. It was fortuitous timing because we got to see another bird that’s been on my “Beasties to Behold” Pinterest board since before hitting the road.
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| Green Jays |
The blue, green, and yellow coloring was brilliant, and in true jay fashion, they were making a racket as they flew from tree to tree along the lakeshore.
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| Staying cool inside at site #118 |
This was not one of our more memorable stays, especially given the standard we’ve been becoming used to in other Texas State Parks. But it did mean there were very few other people around, making it usually peaceful. On our last full day, though, we experienced the phenomena of other campers traipsing right through our site. I don’t mean hurriedly cutting the corners, I mean full-out strolling between the rig and the picnic table more than once by more than one group! If we’d been sitting outside, they would have literally walked between us and our RV. I may have to revisit that “Why?!” question.
We’re not sorry for our stay here, but we probably won’t regrese any time pronto.