Mammoth Goes to Cagle. Where's that?

Monday, 28 February 2022

Home to Cagle Recreation Area, New Waverly Texas.
Distance: 228 miles
Planned time: 3:15
Actual time: 4:05
Stops: quick pee stop at rest area. Longish gas stop at Pilot in northern Huntsville.

Off we go, camping again, again; a camping we will go!
If that sounds a little sarcastic, it's because it's not that great a place we're going. When I planned it, I had the mental picture of it being close to all sorts of things. It's close to Houston, so doesn't that make it close to all the other places that are close to Houston?  Like Attwater NWR or Galveston Bay or the Johnson Space Center?

Nope. It's over an hour away from all those places.

No matter--it's still Camping with a capital C, yay, hurray! For the first time in a long time, instead of trying to detour around downtown Dallas we just stayed on 75 and barrelled right on through, 75 turns into 45 without any of the complicated maneuvering I remember going through back in the 90's. One time I was taking my Mother to Houston and I got off the highway and ended up stuck in downtown--able to see the big freeways towering on either side, but completely unable to get back on them!

If that doesn't sound sufficiently embarrassing to you, let me spell it out. You've lived in Dallas for years, driving to Houston many times, and you get lost in downtown Dallas. With your MOTHER in the car.

Something happened to the route and it is nothing like it used to be. I won't use the word "pleasant", but I will at least say "bearable".  And traffic was light at the time of the morning, 11:00 am.

We made a quick pee stop at the Navarro County Safety Rest Area, then a long-ish gas stop near Huntsville. First time using our new Pilot/Flying J pump start and credit card. The only reason for the long stop is that we pulled in behind a trucker who was washing his windows, adjusting his underwear, and cleaning bugs off his front grill. When we realized he wasn't going to move anytime soon,  Ed decided to go inside for a quick purchase. As he passed the truck driver, the man asked if we wanted him to pull forward while he got his Wendy's carry-out food.  For reasons unknown to modern man, Ed replied "no rush, we can wait."  
And so we waited. I was beginning to think he took a good crap, did a little shopping, got a massage and then ATE his Wendy's food inside, when finally the pump beside us opened up and we moved over there.

Notes from the time
Later. We have arrived, and it's really nice here. Really. The campground is maybe half full, and there's an empty spot right beside us and across the road from us. But even if those sites were occupied, we've got a great big old lake spreading through the trees and plenty of space all around. People who restrict their camping to private parks must not know what they're missing. For half the price, we have water, 50-amp electric, and sewer. And space, glorious space!

And a surprising number of birds. Nothing unusual, but in the short stretch of time I saw or heard pine warblers, chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatch, Carolina wren, blue jay, cormorant, white pelican, tern of species unknown but one of the larger ones, wood duck, turkey vulture of course, and some other warbler I couldn't identify.  It would have had to be either yellow-rumped or orange-crowned at this time of the year.