Wednesday and Thursday at Belton Lake

Wednesday October 7, 2020

Nothing disastrous happened on Tuesday night, and so far, on Wednesday. Ed let me choose whether to go driving over to see the piddly little waterfalls or go fishing again, and since we still had minnows, fishing won. We explored some more of the lake and found no good spots at all--actually, there was one spot I wanted to try but Ed didn't think it worth the trouble--and then came back to our normal hot spot with all the brush piles and things. The lake is marvelously beautiful and only built up with people's houses in intermittent spots. I can imagine in twenty years the lakeside will be lined with homes, but for now there are huge areas of trees, cliffs, underbrush, and gloriously unoccupied nothing.

We didn't catch much, but oddly enough, just when they'd stopped biting on a previous occasion--two o'clock--they started. The fish that we could see had been stationary, but all of a sudden they started moving around and tracking anything that looked edible. Someone must have warned them that we were about to quit feeding them.

Since we were leaving the next day, there was no point in prolonging the fishing. We packed up our gear and headed back, arriving in mid-afternoon. I had a small ton of dishes to do, then dogs to walk and a shower to take. But I ate lunch first and by the time I was done with the other necessary items (dishes and dogs), it was too late to worry about a shower.

During the walk I saw the thing I'd been looking for--a canyon wren. Too amazing--I'd been trying to get a picture of one for the last two trips and I'd pretty much given up trying. I'd not really for sure even heard any. But this time Molly and I were walking along the street and crossed over a large culvert pipe under the road where a dry stream bed crossed--and there he was. Bobbing a little and letting out a bit of a peep that reminded me of the canyon wren's song...a very white breast, absolutely no white stripe through the eye and I could even call it it a dark stripe, very reddish-brown tail and back, absolutely gorgeous The only field mark I didn't verify was the long, curved beak.

Of course I didn't have the camera.

Dinner was going to be a bit of a production--sushi, tempura vegetables, and frozen pre-breaded tempura shrimp. I cut up vegetables and made the tempura batter while Ed prepared the rice balls for the sushi. Only problem was, we started the rice way too late and ended up having to wait almost half an hour for it to cool enough that he could handle it. We didn't start "cooking" until six (I think). In fact, Edward decided to eat his dessert first so that he wouldn't end up overstuffed and have to miss it.

Wise decision, since we didn't get started eating until nearly eight. After that the day was pretty much over.  The dogs got a short walk each, and bedtime arrived.

Thursday October 8

Packing up; driving home. So routine it wasn't worth writing about. Maybe next trip will have something to show for it.

We left the park at 11:17; stopped at Buc'ees in Temple for about 10 minutes at 11:40. Arrived home at about ~3:05, and by 4:06 we were hooked and unpacked.

NOTES:
1. Totally unrelated to camping--my bottom oven seems to cook a little hotter than the setting indicates. Plus, when you're cooking the graham cracker crust for a cheesecake, short the time by at least 3-4 minutes.
2. Always take the dumb camera on dog walks.