Mammoth Goes to Matagorda Day 7

Sunday, 16 January 2022

The trip to Falcon State Park was short and sweet-ish. A lot of traffic for a Sunday, but nothing to complain about. We got started at 10:40 or so, later than we expected, but we did need to stand around and hob-nob with Bob & T for a few minutes. We only see them three times a year (on average), so we wanted to get in a last goodbye before they left. Their drive was longer than ours--close to five hours.

But now we at Falcon Lake. It's a great place, very clean, very empty. The trees are no taller than a big bush would be in Kentucky, but there are a lot of them. It's like a "busy desert". A few Cholla and yucca, a lot of mesquite. The campsites are pull-through but not full hookup in this loop. I suspect that when I made the reservation, the full hookup sites were all reserved. Or possibly I imagined this one would be nicer--don't remember. But it's fine, and I wouldn't want to be in the full hookup sites anyway because that area is almost all full while this one is almost all empty.

I wonder what this area would be like during spring migration?

Our campsite

 I found this sign amusing

Molly and I went for a long walk "to the lake". At the point where I turned around, I could see the lake off in the distance. But even at its highest level I don't think our campsite would ever be a lake view site.  On our walk we encountered tons of dog poo, most of which Molly ate, but nothing else interesting. We took an itty-bitty walk just before sunset and saw a blue-ish bird, probably a scrub jay, a mourning dove, and we heard a Bewick's wren. And one bunny. Molly liked the bunny.

Thoughts at the time:
I suspect the place is hopping with deer, foxes, and bobcats in the night. But right now, I just want to go home. The birding experience at South Padre was so fantastic that no amount of Chihuahuan desert bird life is going to interest me right now. if I could do yesterday's walk again today, I'd be thrilled. But I can't and all I can think about is the birds in my own front yard.

So I got online and changed my Bastrop State Park reservation from Wednesday to Tuesday, and we'll be leaving here a day early. Day after tomorrow. Kind of stupid to do that, but I'm ready. The trip was marvelous--don't get me wrong--but it's time to be home.