journey that matters, in the end.
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
April 4-7, 2020
Destination: Steinhagen Reservoir for two nights, then Sea Rim State Park for four. Our route took us east on US-380 to Greenville, then US-69 South. And there on 69 we stayed--for a long, long time. Except for the bypass around Tyler on the TX-49 loop. At long last we got off on SH-48 Park Road in Jasper County, and arrived.
The second leg (to Sea Rim) should have been simple--just get on US-96 South, proceed to SH-87 South in Port Arthur, then turn off at the park entrance. But I messed up and let us take a wrong turn in some little town and we ended up on a ten-minute detour on very confusing city streets.
1. Planned distance: 250 miles, then 105 miles, then 343 miles to home
2. Map time estimate: 4:23 then 1:52 then 5:56
3. Adjusted estimate: didn't calculate
4. Actual distance: 251.2 miles, then ?? miles
5. Actual time: 4:30 (without stops 4:20), then 2:23 (without stops 2:15), then 6:40 (without stops 6:25)
6. Leg 1: quick pee break after an hour, then a gas stop. Leg 2: gas stop. Leg 3: 10-minute pee break at a rest area and 5-minute gas break.
7. Average mph trip: unknown
We were all loaded up the night before, so we left bright and early at 9:31. Okay, maybe not so early and definitely not bright--we'd had rain and more rain during the week, and it was cold outside. Saturday morning was colder than snot--43 degrees. Not unbelievable for April, and perfect weather for the sugar snap peas in the garden, but not so good for loading a Mammoth RV.
We hadn't gone far before I had to take on the Wasp Challenge. I coexist with wasps pretty well, although that's not true of all insects. (Fire ants are Evil Incarnate!) So a wasp in the windshield is no big deal...if I were the driver. Past history has shown me that some people are not so tolerant, so, as co-pilot, it was my job to take care of the wasp.
I had neither magazine, newspaper, or any other implement of destruction. We were on the designated highway, traveling at sixty miles per hour, with no stop lights or delays expected, and if there was road construction in our future it was not yet on the horizon. So I did what I had to--I girded up my loins, unbuckled my seat belt, and stepped to the rear.
It's a scary thing, walking around a moving vehicle, despite the fact that I was surrounded by padded seats on all sides. It's just not natural, as Gaffer Gamgee would say. But every day of our lives is full of taking chances, large and small with varying degrees of risk and reward, and this one seemed worthwhile. I deemed the chance of us hitting a tree in the one minute it took to snag the flyswatter and get back in my seat smaller than the chance of a distracted driver scaring the bejeebers out of me.
Now, flyswatter in hand, the question way only how to get the job done. If you've never been in a Class A RV, then you won't know this so I'm telling you--the windshield is huge. (And even bigger from the inside.) The wasp had lots of room to roam, but luckily, I had lots of room to swing. That's the good news. The bad news is that it was on Ed's side. If I took my usual wimpy swing and half-missed, we'd have a very angry wasp right in the driver's face. I had to channel my inner Terminator and take this sucker out in a single blow.
I did it like a pro. And disposed of the body. And apologized to the poor dear insect who was just trying to feed his family but ended up in a speeding box on a man-made environment. So here's my apology...
sorry, sucker.
Mineola, TX
On the way we stopped only twice--a quick pee break at an elementary school somewhere and a quick diesel fillup, The temperature improved, marginally--at Tyler it was 52 degrees; Lufkin, 56. But our waywas strewn with glories--
I was excited to be getting into the Big Thicket.
We arrived mid-afternoon at Martin Dies Jr State Park at Steinhagen Reservoir. That wasn't my original destination--I'd wanted to camp at the Corp of Engineers park at the same lake. But all of the Corp. camping areas had been closed and I was lucky to snag a reservation at Martin Dies Jr. only a week before the trip.
Unhooking wasn't so easy. We'd parked on the road in front of the site, but the road was curved to start with and the tow hitch had shifted angles during the drive. It was nearly impossible to open the latches holding the safety chains--the wheel well was in the way. It took a good bit of banging, thinking and fiddling to get them loose.
We had arrived at 2:00, but by the time we got moved to the correct site, it was about 2:10. So I'll put down the official arrival time at about 2:10. By the time we were parked and unhooked it was 2:52. The rains held back for the drive; skies were overcast all the way but in the end it had warmed to about 68 degrees. Very bearable, but very humid.
Our site was right on the reservoir, with a nice view through trees to a very shallow arm of it. (We thought it was shallow, but on the second day we saw motorboats go through at a good clip. So it clearly had enough depth for a boat motor.) Looking across the water to a grassy peninsula, I immediately saw a new bird--Common Gallinule. New to me, anyway--it's extremely common and according to my notes I had seen it once before, so long ago I don't remember it. My old Golden Guide to Birds called it a Common Moorhen.
At first I thought it was a coot--a close relative--but it had long legs and a noticeably red face. Then I saw the white markings on the sides--the book calls it a "white stripe on flanks"--but at my distance away, it looked more like white blotches. I also saw the white tail.
There were a few coots over on the peninsula, and a sleek little angel bird that lives all over the place but I never, ever see--Little Blue Heron! The first day I only saw one, and I wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to photograph it. The second day there were four!!!
There was also a large rodent of some sort. I'm thinking muskrat but it could be a nutria. More on this later.
The campground never filled up, and I wrote this in my notes :
it is really sad to be out and about when so many people are stuck at home. Maybe we should be, too. I don't know. Looking back at the day when I wrote a food list for this trip, I see that at the time I thought I'd be retired. I was so happy. Now, not so much. I don't think anyone in the United States of America is happy right now.
To explain this: I'd planned to retire on March 31, and this was supposed to be our first big camping trip post retirement. But the economic disaster and the stock market drop had scared me, and we hadn't yet sold the stock that we'd planned to live on for the rest of 2020. So we had the choice of selling the stock for $20/share less than it had been two months before, or postponing the retirement. I was scared and I chose to postpone. The decision relieved a great deal of anxiety and I felt better right away...but so very sad. This was something I'd been looking forward to for a year...actually, for thirty-five years. And now I was losing yet another April, May and June of the last good years of my life.
So anyway, we snuck in this trip. When we returned, I'd go back to work for three more months.
Other than trying to photograph birds, I didn't do much that first night. After a bit it started in raining, not super hard but constant. I was down at the water's edge and noticed it starting to dimple, rather prettily.
But after an hour or so, it was raining off and on enough that it wasn't all that pleasant exploring. I did take Zack for a nice long walk, with an umbrella. Not that he got any benefit from the umbrella, although I would have gladly shared it with him.
Luckily it didn't rain too hard to grill supper outside. We went ahead and did supper early, getting started cooking (steak, shrimp, skewers, etc.) at about 4:00 and eating at about 5:30. At 6:26 it was beginning to look dusky outside. And then it pretty much rained all night.
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