Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 16

Wednesday, November 19

It was quite chilly when I got up and walked Molly. 

The Van Horn place wasn’t so bad, but I was still happy to leave it. We procrastinated on purpose so as not to get to the Monahans Sandhills State Park before noon. Check-in time is not until 2pm, but in the Texas State Parks that are less crowded, like this one, we’ve never had an issue with checking in early. I think possibly Garner was the only one that enforced the check-in time.

We had a nice, boring drive. I noticed we were going 80 mph a lot on this leg. There were many little segments of road construction,  though, including one slowdown that caused us to brake hard enough that our brakes made that “burning up “ smell. They used to do that with every stop so I’m happy that it’s only on the occasional hard stop that they do it now.

Monahans was pretty much empty when we arrived. There were two other cars in the camping loop and there was one group of people in the picnic area. 

 

I wrote:

It’s such a very nice place—I kind of love it here. I’m definitely happy to be back. Ed doesn’t remember it, oddly enough.  Which is strange because I definitely remember us taking a walk together. And of course I remember being in a campsite meant for double occupancy, where we weren’t sure we could get out of our site on account of the people in front of us being a little too far back to let us maneuver around the power pole.

It should be very lovely and quiet tonight. Probably not a lot of star gazing because It’s overcast now (at about 2pm) and expected to be cloudy tomorrow. But we will see.

Several day use visitors came and went. And by the end of the day there were five campers total—us, a fifth wheel, a tiny airstream trailer, a pop-up triangle thing, and a camper van. I often wonder whether if Ed were to die and I were still able, I would get a camper van and go on traveling. And I could—but what’s the point in thinking about it? I don’t want it to happen and I imagine I’d be feeling sad all the time because I was all alone and I missed him. So live in the moment!

We all took a short walk to the top of the nearest dune and down to the day use area.  The nearest one of the day use areas, that is—actually there are three of them. Climbing up the side of a 20-foot sand dune is the hardest walking you can imagine. The only thing harder than that is trying to walk through thigh-deep water.

After that it was only three o’clock or so, so Molly and I went for a long walk. We went on the road to one of the day use areas, climbed a dune and cut a short cut over to the restroom, then went on the road to another day use area. We walked for a little over an hour, seeing Loggerhead Shrike, lots of Scaled Quail, a small flock of Lesser Goldfinch, and some sort of blackbirds. Some prints in the sand look like lizards but I didn’t see any. 

Scaled Quail 

Then back, for supper and another walk and an episode of Suits on Netflix. Same old glamping life—got to love it. I went outside before bed to look around and listen to the sand. It was overcast outside but what little light got through the clouds bounced off the gray-white sand and made the world glow. Awesome. Does it ever get really dark there? I’m thinking not.

There is no city near enough to make a dent in the dark skyline. Monahans isn’t too far to the south but I couldn’t see it. The railroad tracks and I-20 were near enough that I could hear the traffic and a train going by. But otherwise the night was beautifully silent. When Molly and I walked the camping circle, only one out of the five campers had stupid, pointless outside lighting. They weren’t outside enjoying it, either, so I guess they just want to screw up the night for the rest of us. Luckily they were on the opposite side of the loop from us, so their idiotic lights didn’t shine in my window. But the glowing sand dunes did.