Mammoth Stops Off at Fort Parker State Park

Tuesday 1 December 2020

We were headed to Cedar Ridge to see Edward again and maybe get in some year-end fishing. But I decided to stop off on the way, at a little state park called Fort Parker, to see something different along the way. Seeing Edward is always great but Cedar Ridge is getting awfully boring.

Written at the time:

It's 5:30 and the sun is down, but the western sky is putting on a light show. It's a sick shade of red, though--but perhaps I am only feeling that because I know that rain showers are supposed to move in tonight. It's cool enough (okay; 59) that I'm not in the mood to sit outside. But I should, really I should. I could bundle up in hat, gloves and a double layer of shirt under my jacket and enjoy the last light.....

 

Until my brother called. But it was nice, all the same. I could hear a little road noise, but it wasn't at all close.

 

 

 

 

We got an awfully late start but since we knew it was only a 2-hour drive, there was no rush. I hadn't made the camping cookies the day before, or done any of my packing. About all I'd done was load the food we bought on Monday morning into Mammoth's fridge. I had made a batch of dough for experimental thaw-and-bake dinner rolls, but that was a waste of time because I forgot and left them in the freezer.  I'll try cooking them when we get back, and if it works, I can do another batch for the next trip. But still... damn!

So we ended up leaving sometime around 12:30. I was driving the Jeep and Mammoth pulling the boat, and I listened to the one p.m news on the way. Traffic was horrible!  Big trucks, big gravel trucks showering particles, were speeding down the expressway at seventy miles per hour. Cars, trucks and more cars filled in the gaps. And the wind was horrid, too. I had some lunch with me, but I couldn't take my hands off the wheel long enough to get it out of the travel cooler until we were on 635 westbound. There the traffic lightened up a bit.

I-45 south was better, but still bad. I managed to eat my crab rolls, doritos and jelly beans without making a big mess all over. One jelly bean got away from me--it's still in there somewhere.

My phone had gotten de-synced from the onboard controller early on, but that didn't matter--I had it mounted in the air vent holder up where I could see it from the driver's seat, but suddenly, at some random moment, the holder decided to eject itself from the air vent and crash land in the passenger floorboard. The phone vanished from sight, and there was no way I was going to get it back while the jeep was moving.

I didn't need it, technically, but I had to keep pretty close to the motorhome the rest of the way.

Fort Parker ended up being a lovely little park. The sites are nestled in a slightly sloped hillside on the lake shore. Our site, a pull-through, blocks the view for people who might occupy the back-in sites across the road, but they would still be nice sites to have. One minor annoyance is that our picnic table is on the street side of the RV, where the hookups are.  So if we wanted to sit out on the table and eat, we'd have a gorgeous view--of the back side of the Mammoth Mobile. But it's clear that was the only place to locate a picnic table given the topography of the campground. I'm not complaining.

Shorter than it needed to be

 Notorious RBG

by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

As a biography goes, this isn't. It's just a short, delightfully presented, rough outline of her life and some of the important cases she worked on the supreme court. for the snippets of decisions and dissents that she wrote, annotations are added to show what cases she's referencing, directly and indirectly.

It would be excellent recommended reading for a high school student. For me, I wanted more. But I got the impression that she kept her private life (and thoughts) private, so we may have to wait fifty years or so to get a better look into the inner RGB.  Or maybe I'll try reading Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life  by Jane Sherron De Hart.

Long and sad and sadly true

 A Chance In the World:

An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home
by Steve Pemberton

Yeah, I understand that this is his life story and he deserves a chance to tell it. And he tells it well! But the last ten or so chapters could have used a lot of editing. I can't give examples without revealing details of the story that aren't mine to reveal, but there were several parts of his life that I didn't need to read in such excruciating detail. Listening to the audio book, it was hard to skip, but if I'd been reading a paper  copy, I'd have skimmed severely.

My minor criticism doesn't apply to the first 85% of the book. It needs to be read (or listened) in complete. But yes, it is so very very sad. Almost unbearably so.

The moral of the story, if there needs to be any, is that there aren't enough decent foster parents out there. Especially for older kids. And the second moral is that we, as a people, need to quit outsourcing our responsibility to our children to government agents. Community groups, religious or not, could be a part of the solution. Kids are too important to let idiots screw them up.

A quick entertainment and a slow serious

Enforcing the Paw
by Diane Kelly

Still very formula; still entertaining. This time I just skipped every third chapter where the bad guy tells the story from his perspective. I didn't miss anything important that way, and I didn't have to listen to his stupid.

We Are the Luckiest
The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life
by Laura McKowen

She really has a knack for writing truth. It's painful sometimes, to read, when she's describing her own personal story. But the truth is obvious even if we don't want to admit it.
1. There is no hard line between "normal" drinkers and "problem" drinkers.
2. All so-called problem drinkers started out as normal drinkers.
3. The label "alcoholic" is meaningless. It's used either to apologize for a choice that shouldn't need to be apologized for (sorry; I can't drink because I have a self-control problem) or else to excuse a problem behavior (Yeah, I fall down drunk at parties but that's okay because I'm not an alcoholic).
4. There's a whole lot of alcohol in our society. Start noticing and you'll see it everywhere. More even than bacon. Or cookies.

Very good book. Very sad society in which we live. My gut feeling is that there are a whole lot of people out there who have a problem. It's not something we talk about. But we ought to.

Freakishing weird memoir

The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls


I listened to this on audiobook, and frequently kept on listening after my designated activity (jogging, dishwashing, folding laundry) was over. It was just that hard to stop.

So I can't say something bad about a book that encouraged me to catch up on the mindlessly boring tasks of everyday life. And I won't--but oh, how much I wanted some well-meaning adult to step in and take the kids away from their fruitcake parents. Two people with classic cases if narcissistic personality disorder and maybe a touch of schizophrenia got married and had four kids, then left them to raise themselves. It made strong people out of the kids--but only because they banded together and took care of each other.

Their life adventures were amusing when they weren't scary as hell or sick as heck. The author starts off with a tale of being badly burned because she was cooking hot dogs for herself in a pan of boiling water, alone in the kitchen. She was three years old at the time.

Stockton Dog Mysteries #7-9

High in Trial
Double Dog Dare
Home of the Brave

by Donna Ball

These books are great, absolutely great. Each has a uniquely formulated plot, so while the humans and dogs are the same in each, the criminals and bit characters are all different and convincing in the roles they have to play. They're a little too short sometimes--I want more, more more!  And they're extremely fast moving, so they just don't last long enough for me.

I can only think of one tiny suggestion for the author--don't telegraph the bad stuff with little one-line teasers. You know the sort--if only I had known then....  Little did I know that might be my last chance. Blah. They're irritating and purposeless. Frankly, she writes too well to need that sort of nonsense. Luckily, she only does it once per book that I've noticed.

So good a way to fill in jogging time

 So Done

by Paula Chase

Okay, I'm clearly not the target audience for this book. But I needed an audiobook for jogging and my audible.com monthly subscription book wasn't due for another week. So I did something I seldom need to do--browse the library's available ebooks with a very broad search criteria.

I came up with the YA book, So Done. It's simply a teenage coming of age story about a couple of best friends who grow apart over the summer. It's told in alternating points of view, from each of them. And it's very well written, with people you absolutely love and hate and feel like you've known them all your life.

But as much as I enjoyed it at the time, it left me feeling empty. The ending was too sweet and easy, and there wasn't any meat to the tale. I might do another of her books if I'm every hard up for listening material, but probably not.

All over the place book, and great. (on camping)

Under the Stars
by Dan White

This book is good in a lot of different ways and great in a few. He does what he sets out to do and treats every aspect of camping with equal love, humor and respect. From the early days of "woodcraft", when the sign of a true adventurer was how deeply he might leave his mark on the wilderness, to the modern days of "leave no trace" even when it means hauling poop bags down Mount Shasta, he studies it all. And whenever possible, experiences it first hand.

It's hard to even hint at the adventures told in the fourteen chapters of this book. Let's just mention that he spends a night emulating John Knowles, who went out into the woods naked and weaponless and vowed to return well fed and wearing a bear skin. He may have been a charlatan, but his adventure inspired Mr. White to do the same--if only for a single night.

He writes much about John Muir, of course, and Teddy Roosevelt. He finds stories of the intrepid women of camping, including Victorian ladies who hitched up their ankle-length skirts and climbed mountains with east. He writes of Edward Abbey and mentions Colin Fletcher and his "feel how" books of instruction.

And to my surprise, he rents a Class-C motorhome and takes his wife and daughter out on the roads--which was scary--and then to a campground where he plans to speak to everyone there, just to find out what kind of folk do such an unnatural thing as to haul the trappings of civilization along behind them in their quest to get away from it all.  He is pleasantly surprised at what he finds--

And no more telling. Read the book--it's great. It seemed really long at times, but it still ended too soon.

Gardening in my Roots, mid-December

(written Dec 11)
We've had a string of unseasonably warm days--low seventies in the afternoon--so I determined to get my garden in order. You can't tell it from the picture here, but I can--the five rows are staked out evenly, all five feet wide by 29 feet long with a one-foot trench between them. They are supposed to be 30 feet long, but I put the stakes in at 30' and started digging the trenches without thinking that in order to get the full 30' of garden space, I needed to dig outside the line of stakes.

But I don't care. It's beautiful. After I finished I dug and hauled about six wheelbarrow loads of compost that had been making for the last couple of years. Also I pulled up all the roots that I dug out and filled up three new compost piles. My compost piles are circles of screen wire placed on the ground. I've not been good at "layering" the greens and browns to make a scientifically precise mixture; nor do I ever get around to turning them. I just let the grass clumps, vegetable stalks, and food scraps rot in a loose pile for a couple of years.

Given enough time, they turn into crumbly black gold.

Sadly leaving San Angelo State Park

 Sunday, Nov 8 returning home

Bye bye, mesquite!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bye, bye, lake!

 

 

 

 

My typical picture of a water bird looks like this:

I was really sorry to say good-bye to the Harris' Hawks, but not so sorry to be going home. It had been a record long trip--seven days!--and I was ready to see my kitty cats again.

On the way we crossed the Leon River. Out there, it was tiny. (as in, creek) But down at Belton it becomes a marvelous lake, and past that a decent-sized river where I-35 crosses it.

We stopped for gas at a truck stop, which should have been a quick and unmemorable thing but ended up being a short nightmare. Stickers in the grass alongside the driveway! I set Zack down in the grass and immediately had to pick him up and carry him back to the RV, hollering for my glasses and the scissors. I sat on the RV step and cut out burs for ten minutes.
Stupid Texas.

I need to research the topic of grades, such as what is the cutoff point between a "hill" and a "grade". If a grade is listed as 7%, what makes it different from some of the hills we went down that I'd have sworn were a 10 or 15% slope? (It turns out, a 7% grade means the road drops/rises seven feet over a 100' length)

NOTES:
1. Always take a good, postable picture of each campsite.
2. Always write down three paragraphs of summary every day, no matter how tired you are.
3. Seriously plan lunches for travel days. Especially the last one. Peanut butter and crackers, hummus, rice balls, cold noodles. Even veggie dogs.
4. Don't bother printing the state park parking "stickers." The people at the gate always reprint them anyway,
5. On multi-stop strips, plan the complete route ahead of time and make sure it avoids small towns and FM roads.
6. When planning trips to state parks, always read through the TPWD website carefully. We'd assumed there was no where we'd want to go--any place that looked interesting would have too many people around to visit safely during the pandemic.  Otherwise we'd have gone to historic Fort Concho, went shopping along Concho Avenue, and strolled the Riverwalk. But the state park website has this note: Lake Nasworthy and Twin Buttes Reservoir offer swimming and fishing about 10 minutes from the park. We could have gone to those places.

Lazy Day at San Angelo State Park

Saturday Nov 7; High 77; low 53

My Molly morning jog had taken me to the buffalo and longhorn pens, but there were no animals around. But later, Ed and I took a drive to check out the campground and the "North Unit" and we arrived at the stock pens just after feeding time--

Then we drove around the various little roads in the park. We ended up taking a road that was a road no more--the pavement fizzled out and we were driving on flat patches of concrete mixed with short scrubs of grass. In our new Jeep, this wasn't a worry at all!

But that road ended at a low iron fence and we had to turn back. No off-roading for the Jeep this trip.

On our drive up to the North Camping Unit, we passed a dead animal by the side of the road. It was a little larger than a racoon and we wandered what it might be. But we went on, and found that the camping area was closed off by heavy iron gates with locks--hmmm. Turning back to return, we passed the animal again. When we got back to our own camping area, at the gate we asked the ranger about the gates. She informed us that we simply needed to use the gate code to open them.  We had the whole afternoon to kill, so we went back.

This area was set up for horse camping. It was nice, though, and had beautiful trees along a creek called the North Concho River. Interesting--the Concho River flows through San Angelo and into the Colorado River at the O. H. Ivie Lake, about 50 miles east of where we were.  So, in a single year of camping in Texas, we have camped close to the headwaters of the Colorado and at its end, where it flows into the ocean. But I don't really feel I "know" the river, like I would if I'd swam in it or canoed over it.

After our drive around, all that was left of the day was dishes and a dog walk at evening. Molly and I went down to the lake and were going to walk to the end of the boat ramp which no longer meets the water, but a bevy of kids on bicycles were out there. So we veered toward the dam and waded through the weeds to water's edge, which was a great idea!  There were all kinds of interesting animal footprints in the mud there. Wish I'd taken pictures.

We walked back up the hill with the setting sun in our eyes and a falcon watching for dinner. I never saw him move.  Kestrel:

Mammoth Moves to San Angelo State Park

Friday November 6; High 83; low 57

Friday was travel day. Our new destination was site 13 in the Red Arroyo Loop at San Angelo State Park.

Contrary to our usual habit--get up and go--we dawdled a little, taking a short farewell hike with our friends over to the campsite nearest the end of our loop, then an easy amble down to the river. I don't know why no one is camped at that site--it looks perfect. Note: if coming here again, try for sites 358, 360, or 364. The sun had started coming out of the haze as we packed up the RV, so by the time we were ready for the hike it was beautiful--but not so much as it had been the previous evening.

As we left the park and headed north, I busied myself trying to photograph the gorgeous scenery and the plum=colored (or is it coral colored?) sumac at the side of road. Here's the best I could do:

The terrain was hilly for a long time, then eventually evened out into plain old west Texas--which is great by me!  The visibility is near infinity, with layers on layers of long, far-away hills on the horizon. It's not flat like the Panhandle, of course, but it's definitely not home.

We arrived to find that our new campsite had a lake view--a very distant one. Our best guess was that the lake had never risen to expected levels or had fallen a whole lot over the years since it was built.  According to my research, the drought we'd experienced over the last few years had shrunk its acreage considerably.

The Texas parks website says:
O.C. Fisher was effectively dry in early 2015, but water levels improved in spring. TPWD has restocked the reservoir with largemouth bass, white crappie, blue catfish, channel catfish, and bluegill. Although a few large fish can be caught, most fish are small as they are only one to two years old. Contingent upon favorable water levels, fish populations will continue to improve and expand.

 

The campground was immediately made memorable--Harris' Hawks, two of them, patrolling the desert scrub! Beautiful birds!

 

 

I wrote this campsite review:
posted:
review RA013, Loop: RED ARROYO
         Fri Nov 6 (2:00) - Mon Nov 9 

Well-separated sites with peaceful views over Texas scrub landscape. There are two "camping units"--the South unit is along the shore of the drying remnants of the O.C. Fisher Reservoir; the landscape is gently rolling hills with low mesquite trees, cedar and a few scrubby oaks. Lots of prickly pear and a whole lot of evil little prickly burrs that hurt like heck and leave bristles behind when you pull them out. Harris' Hawks patrolled the hillside. Our site and the ones next to it had lake view (in the far distance).
The North Unit was along the river, with medium-sized deciduous trees providing shade and smashing fall colors. It seemed to be mostly tent sites and horse camping sites with corrals.
Our site was roomy, almost level (4" blocks under front levelers needed), and surfaced with small gravel. Covered concrete picnic table. Fire pit and barbeque grill. Only 1/2 occupied in November; quiet neighbors; very clean. Too close to city for good star viewing. Our only annoyances were the wind and the prickly burs in the mowed grass along the road, all to be expected in West Texas. Lots of well denoted walking trails and good map to them. The buffalo and the longhorn herds are in a fenced area; go during the morning feeding time if you want to see them.

I also saw a few birds: Brown Thrasher. Lots of cormorants, blackbird sp., coots, gulls. Didn't get close enough to ID the gulls, but I'll take some pictures tomorrow. Great Blue and Great Egret. Meadowlark. Strange little stripey birds eating thistle--could they have simply been house finches?   If so, all were female or immatures.

Lot of walking at Garner State Park

Thursday Nov 5
High 84; low 60

Ed and I decided to do pancakes for breakfast, which was not a great idea because the milk was still frozen. We carry along small bottles of frozen milk for pancakes, and ideally we'd get the idea the night before so we could thaw the milk out in the refrigerator. But we hadn't done that. Fifteen minutes in a pan of hot water turned enough of it into liquid to do the job, but it still took an hour for me to get breakfast on the table.

 Our friend Bob was was inspired by my bird-watching mania--he saw and took a picture of the Golden-fronted woodpeckers which inundated the campground.  Nice birds, big and gaudy and don't mind us campers a bit. 

 

 

After the very slow breakfast, we took the short drive down to the day use area with our friends. The day had started out overcast but was clearing by noon. it was gorgeous down there and not supremely crowded.

When we returned from our drive, it was not time for lunch yet, so Theresa and I took a long walk with Molly and their younger dog Rojo. We started out on the little cross-country route at the campground, hiking through low scrub oaks and mesquite. When we hit the end of that trail, another one began, so we ended up walking all the way that we'd just driven, up over the top of the scenic overlook and down the other side to the in-park cafe. On the way back we took a shortcut trail by the river, thus agreeing with my principle of never returning by the same route as the outbound one.

The trees were starting to turn and it was, of course, gorgeous. The trail was just a little bit hard to follow, but how could we possibly get lost sandwiches between a cliff, a road, and a river?  We did fine and only had to question which was the real route and which was a lazy human cut-through.

All in all, it ended up being an hour of brisk walking. We planned to tell the guys we'd stopped for lunch at the cafe, but that lie was exploded when we walked back into camp famished for lunch.

I didn't succeed in seeing any birds other than the black-crested titmouse. There were jackrabbits all over the campground, though, and huge red ants...but not a horny toad in sight. Sigh.

Desperate to see some birds at last, I took Molly for a walk at about four p.m. I stopped at our friends' camp and found T annoyed because her phone would not download the Times daily crossword puzzle. She decided to come along and see if she could get a better signal out on the road.

As we were walking by the first (actually it was the last as in highest numbered) campsite in the loop, I noticed there was a little path down to the water and the sun setting over the water was amazingly beautiful. So down we trek'ked, and it was indeed beautiful.

Then we went back up and wandered around the road a little until her puzzle downloaded. Dog walked, job done.

For supper Ed and I heated up our food and carried it over to their picnic table. He had the burrito meat I'd made at home and frozen; I had a Boca burger chopped up in a big salad with a little avocado. It was good but left me hungry later. On our next trip I either need to spend a little more time preparing easy-to-fix meals for myself, or else I need to plan more interesting canned or frozen foods to bring. Such as the sweet potato hash with spicy veggie sausage--easy, tasty and filling. Maybe I'll do that again or else bring some spicy veggie crumbles and put them in Neogiri noodles.

Seminole Canyon day trip

Wednesday, November 4

High 83/low 54

The plan for the day was a Jeep trip over to Seminole Canyon, so we pretty much just hung out at camp until time to leave. The drive took us almost due west until we were close to the Mexico border and we could see mountains--but what were they?  Were they the northern end of the Sierra Madre Oriental, in Mexico, or the southern end of the Rockies, in America? Will we ever get to go there?

No matter, it was amazing to see mountains again. Far off in the distance, just a smudge, but mountains!

Here is the Amistad Reservoir, on the US-Mexico border.  Great-looking place but there are no campgrounds with water/electric along the edges. Maybe someday we'll get up the courage to boondock.

The park at Seminole Canyon was lovely. It was very windy--flags were flapping hard and continuously. Does the wind always blow in the desert? It hadn't been blowing like that when we left in the morning.

And yes, we were very much in the desert. All the plants were desert plants--sage, ocotillo, sotol, agave, yucca, prickly pear cactus and several other low cacti hiding in the underbrush. They've built an excellent little interpretive trail with tons of interesting plants labeled. The resurrection plant was in its "dead" phase, we guessed--it looked like a dead Christmas cactus. Okay, I said tons of plants, but it was more like 25 or so. Still, I enjoyed it greatly. Lots of Black-throated Sparrows were hanging out by the headquarters. Common as heck, but another new life bird for me!

I wish I'd taken the time to get a picture, but by the time I was ready the sparrows had hidden themselves.  We didn't get to take the tour because I'd brought the dogs and leaving them unattended in the car was forbidden in State Parks. Oh, well--another time. We took the little trail instead.
 

We returned to a shrimp dinner--courtesy of dear friends Bob and Theresa. From their home near San Antonio, this park was only a couple hours drive for them, and they'd volunteered to fix supper. Grilled shrimp and vegetables, yum. The only thing keeping it from being a fine restaurant meal was a lack of crusty bread and a garlic dipping sauce. (Hmmm...would that be a fun dinner for us to fix, someday? Shrimp, crab legs, bread and sauce?)  We provided cookies for dessert and then we had a good chat by their fire.

Leaving Lake Brownwood for Garner State Park

Tuesday November 3
High 78; low 46

After a quick breakfast, it was time to pack up and move out. I'd been surprisingly lethargic and unenthusiastic about all and everything. On Monday I'd passed up hundred of opportunities to see birds, so after walking the dogs I snuck out alone and tried to take a picture of the gulls and coots in the water. I may have gotten that pied-billed grebe...I think.

Here's a killdeer's butt:

As I was idly watching the red-winged blackbird crew, I noticed a couple of different birds. Just robins, I thought--they'd hopped a little and robins are of a similar size and shape, with one difference being that robins hop while red-winged blackbirds walk. But no--these birds started to walk, too--and they were distinctively yellow underneath. Meadowlarks, of course--but western or eastern? Impossible to tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Brownwood State Park to Garner State Park (Site: 343, Live Oak loop)
Our route:
TX-279 S to US-377 South in Brownwood
US-377 S and US-190 W/U.S. Hwy 190 W
FM 1311 to US-377 South to Junction
Get on Interstate 10 Eastbound for a second
US 83 South to Garner State Park, planned 198 miles, Google time 3:17
Our actual mileage was 214.7. We had two unnecessary detours--the first one happened when I set my phone navigation to stop at the Pilot Truck Stop in Junction. For no apparent reason the phone app routed us eastbound on I-10. We had to go to the next exit, make a U-Turn, and come back to our gas station, which would have been a simple turn on the right just past the on-ramp. Then later we missed the park entrance as I describe below.

 

The drive, which took about four hours, turned out to be surprisingly tiring.We drove through some very hilly country but mostly the hills were to the left or the right and our drive was simply slow uphills and slow downhills. The road was mostly two-laned with climbing/passing lanes placed every five to ten miles. We stayed behind a truck pulling a trailer for an annoyingly long time, with no chance to pass except uphill, where Ed couldn't summon the power to speed up.

Then we were stuck behind an RV pulling a trailer (I think) for nearly forever, until we went around a courthouse to the left while he went to the right. Several wrong turns later we ended up--guess what--behind him again. But a passing lane eventually let us by.

I'm thinking that was the same guy we met again at the entrance gate. I'd thought we wanted to come in the south entrance, so we passed up the Google Maps recommendation and went on. It turned out that one was closed, so when we went back to the north one, there the guy was. He parked closer to the door than I did, but I outran him.

Later it occurred to me that if I'd been planning this trip in the old way, with paper road maps, I'd not have taken that route. Especially not the FM (Farm-to-Market) portion. I might not have chosen the shortest route, or the fastest route--for cars--but I suspect I'd have chosen the better route. I've mentioned before that the RV can't speed up and slow down as fast as a car, so going through small towns with traffic lights really does a number on our drive times.

For the conclusion of this lecture, see my trip end notes.

I'd read horror stories about check-in at Garner State Park, one of the most popular state parks in Texas. People wrote of two-hour waits in long lines of cars. That was one of the motivating factors in doing our Lake Brownwood stop instead of driving straight through--I didn't want to arrive at closing time.

But we had none of that, since it was a weekday and not peak camping season. Also it looked like Texas had spent a lot of money setting up a check-in process that reminded me of an airport ticket counter--you parked in the huge parking lot, took a number on the way in, then stood in line until one of the clerks behind the counter called you up. (Actually, when we arrived it was empty, so we breezed on through)
As expected, our camp site was in a flat clearing in a low mesquite/post oak woods with nothing special to recommend it. It was only about two-thirds full. On the way in we took a wrong turn and ended up driving the Mammoth down to the day use area. It was full of people--nice people, I'm sure, but so many! Ug.

But back at the place we belonged, we found the spaces decently spaced and not at all noisy. There were only a few kids running around, although I wouldn't have expected any at all. The campers weren't all old people, like us--there were quite a few young people. With a pandemic still raging in the U.S., a lot of people are out of work...although you wouldn't guess it to drive through McKinney at rush hour.

We were greeted by a Black-Crested Titmouse--new life bird for me! No picture, though, I was too busy helping set up.

We did take a short walk down to the water:

Zack in the Rio Frio.