Lake Arrowhead State Park
Monday October 19 - Friday October 23
Weather expected: 70, 77, 87, 84, lows in low 60s, partly cloudy.
Route: US-380 est to Decatur, then US-287 north to Jolly, then a couple of FM roads to the park. Google said 137 miles 2:29 although it took us a lot longer, as you'll see below.
The return trip was a slightly different route: 281 south to Jacksboro, then 380 east to McKinney. It was longer: 158 miles 2:55
The trip out was sort of routine, except for the brand-new Jeep Wrangler I was going to be driving. I was scared to death it was going to get dings, scratches, or a great big crack in the windshield like my car has. So I was planning to drive like a sheep might run in a flock of coyote--very, very cautiously with an exaggerated idea of personal space.
Even though we got the barest bones model of Wrangler that they'd sell us, it still had features that once upon a time we'd have considered luxury. A back-up camera, for one. A radio with bluetooth and a compass, intermittent wipers, and a few other things I can't call to mind right now but we found surprising. I was so busy playing with all the toys, I failed to note down when we left. Probably around eleven o'clock. We only had a 2-1/2 hour drive after all.
Sadly, I also failed to notice one of the trailer tires going flat. (As usual, Mammoth is towing the boat and I'm following to keep an eye on it) At one point I saw a strip of rubber fly off the back of the right-hand tire and wondered if there might be a problem, but I sped up and checked to be sure that both tires on the right were turning. They seemed fine to me at that point, but about an hour later, Ed made an emergency stop on the shoulder. The front tire on the right was destroyed.
It turned out that we were very close to Bowie Texas, and there were at least two tire shops handy. One was less than ten minutes away--we limped along slowly and found it with little problem. But they didn't have a tire that size, so we went on up to "Hilltop Tire", which did.
But as we were waiting for them to replace the tire, an experienced tire guy came out and pointed out that we were putting an auto tire on a trailer. What did we know? It had auto tires on it when we bought it, although for a coincidence they'd been giving Ed a lot of trouble...he'd patched one or more of them multiple times, and he had been wanting to get the whole lot replaced.
By the way, you might ask, why were we at a tire shop at all? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply put the spare tire on?
That was the fault of the Jeep. The key for the spare tire's lock was in the truck, not the jeep, and so it was over an hour behind us.
The tire shop made us a decent price on "trailer tires", and knowing we were going to be doing this within a few weeks at the least, we went ahead and bit the bullet. Thirty minutes or so later, we were on the road with four new tires and the best one of the old tires mounted in place of the old spare tire. (The shop was able to break the lock)
All told, it wasn't such a bad experience. We arrived at about 4 o'clock or so and quickly did hookups. For reasons unknown to us, the spot I'd reserved was actually a pull-through site even though the map clearly showed it as back-in. Since it was 85-feet long, we could park the Mammoth, boat trailer, and jeep without even unhooking the trailer. So all that time we typically consider as part of hook-up time was saved.
The campground was extremely empty. There were two trailers in our little circle, neither of them next to us. Most of the little circles are similarly empty. Weird--so why had I had so much trouble reserving one of the spots I preferred?
I still have no idea. Best I can see (this is next day), if you include Thursday night in your available site search then the selection narrows down a lot. So I guess a lot of people come in on Thursday night and take a 3-day weekend.
The campground is also very flat, full of scrawny willow-like trees (we thought mesquite, but no thorns), and had no view or the lake. (Later: they were indeed mesquite) I was thinking from looking at the satellite images that we'd possible be able to see the lake past the tent camping area that circled us, but no. It's too spread out for that.
It reminded me a little of Honey Flats at Caprock Canyon, but there was a lot of space cleared around each campsite. We didn't feel closed in at all...but no view! However, compared to the last place we camped (the ugly side of Turkey Roost at Cedar Ridge with all the people crammed in), this was heaven.
On the drive over I was reminded of why I like going west--things start getting flatter and flatter and the tall trees are replaced with scrub and mesquite. You feel like you can see all the way to California...of course that's a wild imagination talking. I suspect there were a number of pioneers with similarly wild thoughts who ended up disappointed. When the mesquite and thin prairie grasses spread farther and farther apart, dust storms blow across wide, treeless plains, and on that goes for seemingly forever. When they could at last see mountains in the far distance, it must have seemed like a miracle.
After we arrived and unhooked, we took a walk over in search of the prairie dog colony...but it was no more. You could see where they'd been, fairly recently, if the grass in and around the holes was any indication. But no dogs.
Canada Geese
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