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.