TEXAS BLUE BONNETS - We did get to see a few wildflowers despite the drought
When we left New Orleans, we headed west to Texas. Before we got there, we made a quick 3 day stop at an RV park in Kinder, LA that was part of the Coushatta Casino. For only $17/night, it included everything. Great WIFI, full hookup, cable TV, a big, open pool. Very well laid out park. Off course the cheap price is incentive to walk over to the casino and donate more that way. Dave got his poker day in and came home a whopping $4 down (including tips for all pop and drinks ;-)!
Made it to Texas on April 7, first stop was in a town called “Cut and Shoot”....where else but Texas would a town be called that! Stayed at the Country place RV park for 4 nights. Nothing terribly exciting to see and do in the area but it was a very relaxing, peaceful and quiet stay, perfect place to recharge. This place had a great little pool, good thing because it was hot (low 90s F) all week.
Headed to Austin (the Texas state capital) next, stayed for 3 nights at the Austin Lone Star RV park that was literally right beside I-35. The location was convenient for exploring the city, since we were basically on the outskirts of it. Hooked up with a friend, Frank, we haven’t seen in over 15 years and he gave us some good tips on places to see in the area. He even offered us the use of his Lake House for a few days and we did go and check it out. Very beautiful place with a great view of the lake from every level of the house. Unfortunately we did not have had any place to put the trailer and we were running short of time, so we had to pass. Thanks so much for the generous offer Frank!!
We were impressed with Austin. We walked the length of Congress St (the main one) from just south of the Congress street bridge over the Colorado river down to the state capital building at the north end of it. Took about an hour each way and from what we saw, it’s a very clean, well kept urban area.
Spent a few hours hanging out on the Congress St bridge...why?? Well, it’s home to 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats, one of the largest colonies of urban bats in the USA. When they emerge from the bridge each night to eat bugs, they can be quite the spectacle. Unfortunately for us, they didn’t come out until it was quite dark so we didn’t get to see them as well as I’d hoped to but we could sure smell them. Think about it! I didn’t get any pictures that would do them justice but here’s a link to some on a site that shows how amazing it can be.
From Austin, we went a bit further south west to Johnson Creek RV park in Ingram, which is in the Hill country part of Texas. I had been told this area is gorgeous in the spring because of all the wild flowers that grow in fields and by the roadside. Not so this year. This spring has been one of the hottest and driest in Texas history, so minimal flowers. I’m sure you’ve all heard about massive wildfires in Texas this spring and I understand why. It was very hot, 90’s most days and windy. Normal spring temps here are in the 70s. Every where we went, there were burn bans....it’s so dry, they really need rain.
We did manage to get in one good day trip from there to the Enchanted Rock. It’s this huge, pink granite exfoliation dome, that rises 425 feet above ground, 1825 feet above sea level, and covers 640 acres. It is one of the largest batholiths (underground rock formation uncovered by erosion) in the US. Spent about 4 hours hiking/exploring the area, it was well worth seeing.
Well, that was as far west as we got, time to head east and north, back to Ontario. First stop on that journey was Lake Whitney state park in Whitney, TX. When we got there, we pretty much had the park to ourselves so we had our choice of sites. Picked one right on the water, a huge site, one of the nicest ones we’ve ever been on. It was great weather, hot and sunny, almost perfect except for the wind. It was crazy windy and it didn’t let up. Of the 7 days we were there, only 1 was calm. Every day and night, the wind rocked the trailer. There was one night in particular, it got so gusty that we were expecting to get dumped on our side. Thankfully that didn’t happen.
From there, we went further north and east to a small RV park, Still Meadow in Mount Vernon, TX. We were there on Monday & Tuesday this week when the massive storm that’s spawned the 100 plus tornadoes in the southern states happened. On Monday, we’d gone into Sulpher Springs to get some groceries and got caught in a huge thunderstorm. The rain was torrential and there was pea size hail. Streets filled with water and the drive back to the RV park on I-30 was slow, couldn’t go any faster than 50mph. Talk about scary...the local news station had weather coverage on non-stop for hours each night and lucky for us, the storm cells split going south and north of us each time. Serious damage happened in Tyler, TX which was only about 30 minutes south of where we were.
Here’s hoping that we continue to avoid all the bad weather as we make our way back to Ontario!!!
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