Leaving Belton Lake Friday (June 10)

I made myself take a bird watching walk in the morning. I'm just not and never will be a morning person. I got out of bed at 7:05 but had to take Zack for his morning constitutional first; I probably got on the road with Mollydaa and my binoculars at about 8:00.  Just at the start of the road we listened for a while to a catbird, or so I  believe. It reminded me a lot of the catbirds I heard back in Paducah. I only got the quickest glimpse of it.

Then on and up and over. There were many cardinals singing, and painted buntings, although I only saw one painted bunting for sure. At one point I heard a bird call that I didn't recognize at all--but no luck. Only a couple of calls and no bird.  

We walked down to the boat ramp, mostly in the scrub cedar and oak, but heard no more birds. On the way back I watched a Bewick's Wren for a minute or two.

And that was that. Time to pack and load up.

The drive back confirmed our belief that we have no business taking Mammoth on I-35E. Going through Temple was fine--we stopped at Buc'ees to get gas but didn't go inside. There was nothing we really needed and no reason to go inside except to finally see the insides of one--we've never actually been inside the dwelling place of the buck-toothed beaver which is taking over Texas. Most people in the parking lot were wearing their masks, and we had ours, but what was the point?  Some other time.

When leaving Buc'ees, we were supposed to head east and cross over to I-45, but Ed's phone navigation reset itself and we ended up on the shortest route. The road construction at Waco was bad but not horrid. Another round of it, probably at about West (the town) where 35-E and 35-W join up, was also bad but not horrid. But then we hit Waxahatchie and it truly sucked big time. We shan't be doing that again.

Home.

Trip Notes:
1. On Thursday it was 97 degrees and the A/C was having trouble keeping up in the hottest part of the afternoon, but it was okay by nightfall. So we can handle pretty much the worst that Texas can throw at us. (Yes, I've seen temperatures of 110 on my car thermometer but that was in a parking lot, not a campground.)
2. If we camp here again and want to park the boat in the water, remember that the westernmost sites have a gravelly bottom. However, the site farthest to the northeast, next to the tent camping area, has a gravelly/sandy bottom. It's a great spot.
3. Don't be alarmed if Zack doesn't eat on the first night. By the second day he was ravenous.
4. How did they get those pipes drilled through the mountains out to the water?
5. Is highway 171 the same as the old Meridian Highway, the one that was mislabeled by Ackley as the Chisholm trail?
6. Need to tie a red flag on the boat propeller. It sticks out past the trailer.