Home to Lake Brownwood State Park
1. Planned distance: 216 miles
2. Map time estimate: 3:21
3. Adjusted estimate:
4. Actual distance:
5. Actual time:
6. Stops:
7. Average mph trip: unknown
Temperature: high 71, low 45
So we were off to Seminole Creek via Lake Brownwood State Park, Garner State Park and San Angelo State Park. I'd planned the Lake Brownwood Park as a stop on the way to Garner STate Park, which is supposed to be one of the busiest parks in Texas and rumored to have horrendous long lines at checking. So this Stop would make the drive the Garner only take a couple of hours, leaving plenty of time for congestion at check-in. I'd chosen to leave on a Sunday afternoon so that Ed could get in a Sunday morning at church and then have an easy afternoon drive.
None of these things happened as expected. And I failed to account for the annual arrival of "The Great Daylight Robbery" . It was going to get dark an hour earlier than we expected.
Ed had been working on the towing hookup and brakes for the Jeep all week long, and he wasn't quite finished by Saturday evening. So I went to the Whataburger alone and didn't even bother going somewhere to get edible food for myself. (I don't consider Whataburger edible) I just got myself a fish sandwich and onion rings, which weren't very good but fooled my body into thinking it was getting nutrition.
So he skipped church on Sunday morning to finish his work, and still we got a pretty late start.
Since I didn't make any notes during the drive, I have to assume it was uneventful. We arrived at about four o'clock and found the site with a little difficulty. It was one of those typical Texas state parks by a lake, with waterfront sites, little elevation change, and small oak trees all over. And by "waterfront" I mean well away from the water but with nothing between you and it except bushes and well-mown grass. It was a pleasant place to walk the dogs.
Funny thing was, when I booked the site the web page said, as usual, that the campground was near 100% capacity. And it wasn't. My only explanation for this is that due to Covid, the state parks are marking half of the sites as "Reserved" rather than simply marking them "Unavailable." Maybe they need a web site change to make sites unavailable. In some cases they put up an orange cone to block off the closed sites; in others they simply stay vacant.
So I had chosen the best site I could right next to the tent camping sites, and from Google Satellite view I couldn't tell if it was waterfront or not. I kind of thought, not. But I was totally wrong and pleasantly surprised--we had a lovely, unobstructed lake view. Plus, none of the tent sites were in use so I could walk the dogs all in and around the tent camping area without bothering a soul. (Except the Great Blue Heron who liked to hang out in the water there)
Notes from the time:
Sunset gorgeous. There had been a full moon last night, but where is it now? Light wind out of the north all day and tonight it's supposed to get down to 37 or so. Gorgeous place. Flat and boring, but clean and pretty and very, very quiet. I heard killdeer, of course, and Great Blue Herons, but another cry that sounded like a Yellowlegs and still another that I could have sworn was a loon. It's time for loons, isn't it?
We'll see what birds show up tomorrow.
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