Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 3

Wednesday September 2

It was cool in the morning, 71 or so. Wow. Ed felt shitty.

There was a rabbit in the parking lot taunting Molly.  And with that, we happily said good-bye to Texas.

We started seeing the mountains at about 35 miles away from Raton. We passed by Capulin Volcano, a place we visited a few years ago. But it was funny that I could not tell which volcano was Capulin. Was that because we approached it from the south, when before we’d come at it from the north?

The stopping point for the night was Lathrop State Park in Colorado, near Walsenburg. It was a very nice little park, nearly empty, with nice big sites surrounded by small trees that obstructed our view but not so much that we felt closed-in.  Just lovely, state park camping that I enjoy the best.

Molly and went for a 35-minute jog at 2:30, down the road to the lake. It was a nice little lake but awfully barren of wildlife. 

The weather was hottish, about 82 degrees, and mostly sunny. So that, plus the altitude change, made a 35-minute jog plenty enough exercise for me. We were at 6300' and I felt slightly breathless.

Note for another time: sites 80 and 81 had great views. Or 90. Our site had a water fill that might be annoying in busy season. There were plenty of other water fills around the camping loop.

Later Molly and I took a walk on the trails. We didn’t make it to the Hogback Trail but it looked like a great trail. But we did make it up the approach trail, about .6 miles to the scenic overlook. There were lots of great big boulders to sit on up there. Some had water pockets in them, still holding water despite the drought. I could see the lake and past it,  the highway in the distance.

Magnus goes (With luck) to Oregon, Day 2

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Ed says he’s feeling better but I can’t see it. It’s scary as heck. That pizza from two nights ago is still stuck in there somewhere. Nothing is coming out.

We arrived at Corral RV Park in Dalhart at about 1:30. The sign on the door said closed until four but choose any site, but the descriptions of the sites and how to occupy them was confusing as heck. Just as I’d made up my mind which site to choose, a grumpy woman came out and checked me in.

It’s a nice enough place (for an RV park), and convenient, but management sucks. Why not just assign us a site before we arrived, based on our length? And what were we supposed to do if all of the sites had been full? Not likely, but if it happened then my so-called reservation would have been of no use.

At 8:16 a cool front started coming through. It may not rain but the wind shifted and became much less hot, and brought a strong aroma of feedlot. Lovely.

There was a nice little playground and a lot of big cottonwoods in the back, where the “dog walk” was. Other campers were friendly.  Other than Ms. Grumpy, I’d give this RV park a nice rating.  Later, I saw her again during our morning walk and she seemed pleasant enough.

There were lots of fellow overnighters. It went from almost empty (in the overnight spots) to almost full to almost empty again.

Magnus goes (With luck) to Oregon

Monday August 31, 2026

I don’t usually like to leave on a Monday. It’s adding one more option to Murphy’s pool of disaster. Nothing good happens on a Monday.

Ed woke up with gas but he took a Gas-X and it’s better now that he’s driving.
We just got off I-35 onto Highway 380 at Denton, which is a horrible mess. But after going south then southwest and then north, it’s nice to finally be going west again.

It's a very nice RV Park, this Ole Town Cotton Gin place. Dry and hot of course but they’re trying--with the tree plantings and the sprinklers and all. The dog park is small but better than nothing. No picnic tables at sites. Very nice people on the phone. Traffic noise and train in distance, otherwise very quiet and peaceful. Lots of green grass (for West Texas).

Review: Ole Town Cotton Gin RV Park    Site 18. About $41.

Very nice—dry and hot but they’re trying

Dry and hot of course but they’re trying to make it pleasant with the tree plantings and the sprinklers and all.

We had a nice pull-thru spot with full hookups. No problems with anything. The sites are close together, of course, but I’ve seen worse. It was easy to get in and out.

The manager was very, very nice. I made the reservation months early and by the time we were due to arrive all their sites had filled up. I think it’s from some construction nearby. But they honored my reservation; she called me a few days before my arrival to get the credit card number for charging.  Which was fine with me—I just wanted a space for the night.

They had a nice little dog park.

 

Review: The Berry Pickers

The Berry Pickers

By Amanda Peters

I DNFed this, but I skimmed through the second half of it to see if it was going to get any better. It was just moving soooo sloooowww and didn’t have any mystery in the plot. You knew what was going to happen to one of the characters, Ruthie, from early on. And Joe’s story might have been better but by the time I’d slogged through pages and pages of the same old hints and innuendoes of “the big secret about herself” that she took so freaking long to figure out….

 I just gave up. Sorry—it’s well reviewed. So obviously, other people like it.

Review: History Matters

 History Matters

Writings by David McCullough

I’m going to mark this down as a ‘did not finish’ and that’s not because I didn’t enjoy it, or, of course, the parts I read. But I was thinking it was going to be writings and speeches he gave about “why history matters.” And some of it is.

But a whole lot more is about general topics—the books he wrote and why, the reason why he chose his subjects, the subjects themselves. And a delightful little essay at the end about why his parents (and he) gave each child a new book for Christmas.

 All the rest was enjoyable too, but too much and too diverse. So I enjoyed it and I recommend it. And it’s short.

Review: West With Giraffes

West With Giraffes

By Lynda Rutledge

Awesome.  Can’t. Stop. Reading. Each little episode is a scary horrible awful mishap on the way from the east coast, where a hurricane stranded the pair of giraffes and left one of them with a horrible leg injury, toward the San Diego Zoo on the west coast. Terrible things happen. Terrible

And I still loved every minute of it!   It’s an old man’s final act of kindness—it’s a young man’s coming-of-age—and it’s a story of America in the final days of the depression before World War II. Some of the scenes involve Hoovervilles and some involve Sundown Towns and negro-white races. And some involve horrific animal cruelty.

And somehow, despite it all, love, kindness and compassion are found in the strangest places.