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.