Mammoth Goes After Spring MIgration, Day 7

Wednesday 13 April 2022

The highlight of the day was a birdwatching expedition to the Sabine Woods Sanctuary. Was it worth the $20 "donation"? Maybe--if there'd been any birds. I saw a brown thrasher building a nest and a green heron pretending to be a statue.  I heard several birds, faintly, in the trees, but never got the lenses on them.

But I say "maybe" worth it, because in other times it would definitely be worth it. For sure after a strong north wind. It's a pretty big spot--30 acres, maybe? with a lot of different kinds of trees, some pines that I'd consider tall for this part of the word and a lot of deciduous that were medium-height but very old and sturdy. Oaks, possibly live oaks, and many others. In the right time of migration, it could have held a lot of birds.

Right smack in the middle is a creek/pool holding alligators, of course, and a fair smattering of turtles. Plus at least one massive bullfrog--we heard him but didn't see him.

Nice spot. A little crowded when we first arrived, but the cars had thinned out by the time we left. I'd guess it at 12 cars, which is about all that the parking spot can handle. There were three porta-potties.

Bird list for Sea Rim and the refuge here--Roseate Spoonbill, Green Heron, probably lesser Yellowlegs, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Laughing Gull, Red-winged blackbird and great-tailed grackle, Crested Caracara, Brown Thrasher, that annoying little sparrow, Common Moorhen, Blue-winged Teal, Brown Pelican, White Pelican, Great Egret, Great Blue heron, Little Blue Heron, Pissed-Off Osprey, Snowy Egret, Sedge Wren (voice and a short sighting), American Avocet, Harrier, Lesser Yellowlegs, Semipalmated plover, Wilson's Snipe, Killdeer, Nighthawk, Barn Swallow, Both Caspian and Royal Terns (if the bill tinting in the photo can be trusted), Dowitcher. Black Skimmer. And especially, King Rail!

Back at camp, Molly and I took a jog and then a bird-watching walk. The wind which had been gusting strongly out of the south all the previous day ameliorated a bit, and the jog and walk were almost pleasant. The sun was trying to come out and it wasn't as chilly as on Tuesday.

Rain at bedtime.

Mammoth Goes After Spring Migration, Day 6

 Tuesday 12 April 2022

Today we headed out to High Island but stopped on the way at the totally awesome Anahuac Wildlife Refuge. It was worth a trip all on its own.

At the entrance station, there was a large expanse of brand-new board walks by the butterfly gardens and in and around some low trees. A prime spot for all kinds of birds!  I heard a few warblers but didn't get my glasses on any. 

Oh, and the Jeep got old.

Then we went on to Shoveler Pond. It was indescribable.  Much like our drive yesterday, it was a slow creep in and around marshes and ponds, full of birds. I spent more time out of the Jeep than in it, and saw--at the least--

White Ibis, Roseate Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, white Pelican and Brown Pelican, Black-necked Stilt, blue-winged teal, comon gallinule, and a whole lot of other stuff.

We picked up a good bit of traffic on the little roads in and around the marshes--maybe ten cars?  A lot for a wildlife refuge. There were so many alligators there it made yesterday's drive look piddlling. We saw a couple of nutria, too.  The route around the pond was listed as a two or three mile "auto tour" but I think it would have been a great place just to walk and see everything the slow way.

And we went on to High Island.  The birding sites look okay although I can see them being very crowded later in the month and after a drop out. Drop out, or is it fall off? Anyway, it's what bird experts call it when the migrating birds coming across the Gulf of Mexico hit a strong cold front coming from the north. Exhausted from their flight from Yucatan to Texas, fighting north winds, they drop down in the first trees they can find--which happen to be on High Island.

I'd been wanting to check the place out, and so we did. There are three or four "woods" run by the Houston Audobon Society and I'd thought it cost $30 for an all-day, all area, pass. But the sign we saw indicated it was only $10. However, I'd already seen enough for the day and we had dogs in the car, so we skipped it. This time.

We went on to check out a couple fo RV parks nearby, to see if we'd want to camp at them. Sea Rim is the closest public campground and it's over an hour away. There are several private ones that I'd been able to get reliable reviews on.

Note for future: both of the two I marked look fine--the one on the oceanside, At the Beach RV Park. seems bigger and a little nicrer.  The one bayside, Beach time, is more than adequate especially if we can get the site closest to the water. No one would be blockiing our view.  There are a couple of tohers on the map--the only one I saw was Pirates Landing which would be okay but not as cleaned up as the others.

No bird pics, but I believe this is the big mama alligator from our campground pond.

Mammoth Goes to Spring Migration, Day 5

 Monday 4/11/22

Small alligator in the pond by our campsite, later replaced by a big mama alligator:

I also had the good fortune to see a rail, most likely a King Rail. My usual glimpses of birds like these usually look like this:

 But he came right out in the open for me!

Unless it's a hybrid between the King Rail and the Clapper Rail, my ID is most likely correct. One thing in particular, the King Rail prefers fresh water; the Clapper Rail salt water, and these little ponds are most definitely fresh water.  They may be sprayed with salt from the ocean wind, and they may get a dosing of salt water when a hurricane blows through, but in general  they're all fresh.

After breakfast, we took a drive down to road just to see where it ended up. Google maps indicated we could drive into the McFaddin Wildlife Refuge, and we could. We drove along endless little roads along canals, ponds, and pools of water of all sorts. And we saw hundreds and hundred of alligators, from large to tiny--so many I quit looking over when Ed called out, "There's one. And another. And another...."  

But oh, the marshes! they went on for miles and miles, intercrossed with canals and lots of little alligators. Tons of Common Moorhen and enough red-winged blackbird to fill a ton of pies.

The road on Google went on a long way (to nowhere), so we decided to follow. After a while we saw what looked like a huge greenhouse in the distance. Closer up, we eventually realized it was a floating greenhouse, and then, not a greenhouse at all. It was a ship in a navigation canal that went all the way from Galveston bay to Port Arthur.

At long last the road ended at a gate to some sort of little buildings. So that was the end--for us.  Out there we saw several Osprey--I wish I'd taken some pictures of them, but they didn't seem to like us stopping to look at them. They were roosting on electric poles alongside the road, and when we slowed down to look they started spreading out their wigs and preparing to fly.

Birds at the pond by camp:  Green Heron

I wasn't able to id--probably a Lesser Yellowlegs

Wilson's Snipe

 Some sort of Plover

That was all for the morning, and more than enough for any morning. After lunch, Molly and I got in a jog. Out through the day use area to the ocean. Then I wanted to jog north (actually it's north-east) but eventually got to a load of birds that I just didn't care to disturb, so I turned back and headed south.We passed up the boardwalk and the campsite, past the primitive campers at the ocean--just two smallish RVs this time of year.  One we went until finally, my stopwatch said 30 minutes. Half done, and finally, we got to turn back.

We retraced our steps and it was about one hour when we returned to camp. Jogging accomplished.

Molly's Nemesis

Mammoth Goes After Spring Migration, Day 4

Sunday 10 April 2022

Double Lake to Sea Rim State Park
Planned time: 2:17
Actual time: 3:01

Travel day to Sea Rim State Park. The day started off normal and even a little boring, which is good for a travel day. But then, expecting only a two-hour-fifteen-minute trip, we decided to stop at the Love's Travel Stop in Beaumont for gas even though it was a little out of our way.

Hate you, google maps! It was a whole lot out of the way, and the route you plotted took us on tiny back roads that were barely suitable for an RV. And then the connector from the Love's back onto I-10 going eastbound were not functional due to road construction. We had the choice of going back on the back roads or go westbound until we could exit onto a road that went southeast.

I chose westbound and I think it was a good choice, but it added fifteen minutes onto our trip. On the other hand, it let us avoid Beaumont and Nederland entirely--definitely good places to avoid.

The other issue with travel was wind--a strong, gusty south wind. When we were heading into it, it slowed us down, and when we were heading across it, it buffeted us around like a misdirected sail. Awful driving conditions, just awful.

On the way we saw a swallow-tailed kite!

You can tell when we're getting close:

We ended up making the drive in almost exactly three hours, and then we ended up having to wait at least ten minutes to check in.  I'd already advance registered and printed out my car and RV stickers, and of course they printed them out again. The Texas State Parks online registration website is excellent, but it has a certain persistent disconnect with the folks on the ground. I often print out the stickers at home and then I never end up using them.

In any event, we arrived at two p.m. and had plenty of time for walks and rests and then preparing sushi and tempura vegetables for a huge dinner. So much for my diet.

The ocean, at last!  And not too happy to see us.

 

A tern, a something, and a couple of something elses. Darn ocean birds.

 

Blue-winged teal, male following female.

Laughing gull

Mammoth Goes After Spring Migration, Day 3

 Saturday 9 April 2022

Today's agenda was driving. No, not to our next destination. To a Nature Center--Big Thicket National Preserve. Which is, apparently, managed by the Park Service. There's no entrance fee, though.

We went to the Visitor Center first. They had restrooms--nice--and some really well done, expensive-looking Big Thicket exhibits. One f them, a table with a thick laminate that looked like water surrounding the top parts of an alligator and a water snake. I'd like that in my living room. They had a fifteen minute video about the Big Thicket but we had dogs in the car and didn't want to leave them for long.

We should have walked the nature trail there, but instead we went on up to the Pitcher Plant trail, a .5 mile boardwalk through a bog. Three-quarters of the way around, when we'd almost given up looking, there were the Pitcher Plants!

No birds there, so we went on to the Birdwatcher's Trail which supposedly had good views of the sandbars of the Trinity River.  it was out on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere--although people's "houses" (aka mobile homes with improvements) were along one side--but eventually came out to a lovely park service sign--

and a parking area overrun with poison ivy.  Ed parked with my door exiting right into it. And me with hiking sandals on!

No matter, I waded through fearlessly. (I'll be sorry tomorrow. Or not. Sometimes poison ivy fails to affect me, while other times it gives me the miseries for weeks. We can but wait and see)

Zack hiked the trail like a trooper. Again, no birds, but after a long time of hiking toward the noise of a chain saw in the distance, I looked at the GPS map on my phone and decided that we weren't far from the floodplains of the river. So we went on. It was probably no more than a half mile out when we saw the chainsaw wielder--a couple of guys in a flatbed boat out in the creek cutting away a snag. They were at Menard creek, not the river proper, but you could see it nicely in the distance.

Wouldn't it be a blast to float down, all the way from Lake Livingston dam where we were the previous day on down to Trinity Bay. Possibly one could even cross the strait between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island and end up in Galveston.

That would put us in water which had traveled all the way from the creek behind my house to the ocean. And that would be cooler than the law allows.

I've lost track of which day was the momentous one, so it was either this one or the day before that I saw a WORM-EATING WARBLER!  I've wanted to see one of those for forever!  

Here's the trail I was on--took a picture at the turn to remind me which was was back.

They don't eat worms for real and I don't understand the origin of the name, but they're a really cute little warbler that skulks around in the dense undergrowth of wet woods, which is where we were. I remember exactly where, too--on the bike trail, we took the right-hand fork and walked just a little ways, intending to backtrack and cross the lake.  The trail was going downhill pretty steadily, so I wanted to see if it ended up at a creek. It didn't, but at one point I stopped and realized I was surrounded by birds. The Hooded Warbler song, which I'd begun to recognize, was all over and I got a glimpse of the singer--cool. And then suddenly there was the Worm-Eating Warbler, right in the bushes in front of me. I didn't have my camera or my bird book, so I had to wait to get back to camp to ID it. But the good thing about male warblers in the springtime, if you get a good enough look at it, you're sure. Unlike sparrows which all look like little striped brown birds and are a beast to ID at the best of times, with warblers, when you're sure, you're sure.

Hooded warbler (picture from allaboutbirds.org) https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hooded_Warbler

 

Worm-eating warbler (picture from allaboutbirds.org)  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Worm-eating_Warbler

 

Night walk recap: in future I want to write a few notes about the nighttime feel of each place we stay. So here goes: Double Rim Recreation Area.

It's Saturday night and kids are yelping and squawking over at the late, but when I walk far enough away I can barely hear them. Instead I hear the treetops talking and swaying, ever so slightly. Below is a confused buzz of every type of night bug--it makes for distracted walking--distracted, but somehow peaceful. It's a clear night and there's a big chunk of moon in the sky, but stars can barely be seen through the tall pine trees. I can't make out a single constellation in its entirety--just bits and pieces of the big dipper. But I know it's there.

I walk on the asphalt and it's wide and smooth enough that I don't need a flashlight. Most people have lights on at their camp sites, but there's enough undergrowth and the sites are spaced widely enough that they're not glaring in my face and making it hard to walk without a flashlight.

It's a nice walk, but I don't expect to come here again. It's of the "okay" variety--neither great nor horrible; nothing to come back for.

Mammoth Goes After Spring Migration, Day 2

Friday 8 April 2022

Hooded warbler!!!  No picture, but I got several really good looks at him through the binoculars.  Near the parking lot at Big Creek Scenic Area.  The area wasn't all that scenic, but it was quite beautiful in spring--trees and a creek running through to meet up with the river. I could hear a wood thrush in the distance, plus one of those "trilly" warblers that could have been a pine warbler. And chickadees, cardinals, wrens, and red-eyed vireos.  On the way out of the campground we saw a red-shouldered hawk; and then again on the way back in.

There are lots of lovely, well-marked trails at Double Lake and at the Big Creek Scenic Area, and in fact, a person could hike on trails all the way from one to the other.  I'd guess it would be about four miles, but you can look it up for yourself.  We were limited to the speed of Zack, and even if we hadn't been, we didn't particularly plan on hiking across trails for hours and hours.  it was just a short drive to break up the day.

After that we tried to go to Lake Livingston State Park, but found the entire park shut down due to water line problems. Seems absurd to me, but then if I'd been the maintenance worker who had to clean out the toilets after a few people's "emergency stops" when the water was shut off, I'd want the park closed down too.

On the way there, we'd seen a truck driving across the dam on the Trinity River, so we tried to come back that way. It was closed off, though. Then we tried to drive over to the river access behind the dam (or is that below the dam?), but those roads were marked by signs with a big STOP, permit required, obtain permit at so-and-so marina. So all righty, as the RV dreams guy says. Not doing that.

We found another road that seemed to lead to the water behind the dam. I was marked, oddly, gazebo access. And sure enough, there on a high bit of ground overlooking the tailwaters of the damn, was a gazebo. Just plunk on top of the river bank, out in the middle of nowhere, and rather ugly at that.
 It was very, very windy and very, very amazing--

More birds than you can imagine, all feasting on the fish at the spot. Mostly White Pelicans, gulls and cormorants, but I also saw Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons for sure and a smattering of smaller birds that could have been Snowy Egrets, Tricolored Herson, and Little Blue herons. It was just too cold to stand there and take pictures enough to see.

Also an Osprey or two--seemed to be two--and a few swallows. Wow.

Mammoth Goes After Spring Migration

Thursday, 7 April 2022

Home to Double Lake Recreation Area

Planned time: 3:51
Actual time: 4:26
Stops: pee stop Navarro County Safety rest area 6 minutes
Long gas stop at Love's--24 minutes total. There was a huge crowd of trucks and we had to wait in line forever.

Finally we arrived at Double Lake Recreation Area. Again. We were there approximately one year before with grandkids, and I'd written it down as a nice place to come back to--when I could actually enjoy it. With the grandkids, it was all about the grandkids. It was the first place we traveled to on our 3-stop trip with them, and things were all new to us. We were full of anxiety--would they sleep? Would they eat anything? and most worriest of all--would they cry the whole time?

And the answers were YES (after a rather long lullaby session and a weak attempt at bedtime stories), YES (like a couple of little piglets), and NO, hardly at all. I'm sure we had an episode of tears or two, but I don't remember them. At one point Ethan fell out of bed and cried a little. All I had to do was put him back and rub his back for a minute. Another night he fell out of bed and never even noticed it--I got up to go pee, checked on the boys to see if they had covers on, and found him sound asleep on the floor.

It was nice, really. At one of these places--I think this one--we had to run to the laundromat after a diaper leakage left poo all over the sheets. The laundry trip was a little boring--we had some toys, but couldn't really play together too efficiently. We went on a walk or two but couldn't go far. Basically, all my long-ago methods of keeping kids entertained had evolved to games and plays that involved communication. And we couldn't.

They're talking a little better now, and that is good. But at the time, they understood most of what we told them but were absolutely incapable of answering back. Not even the simplest "yes" or "no". They could point at something they wanted and that was all.

But back to here and now.  The trip this time was kind of boring, which is the best kind of all.  It seemed rather short, despite us making it longer by about 5 miles by going to get the cheaper gas at Love's. The line at the truck pumps took freaking forever! Twenty-four stinking minutes! We only had one truck in front of us, but he had to wait on a truck in front of him that had pumped his gas but parked there to go inside the store. We figured that Wendy's must have had a lunch rush.  Unlike cars, when trucks are finished pumping and want to go inside, they usually pull their trucks up and allow access at the pump for the person behind. But then, if they're still inside when you finish pumping, you're stuck for life. (Or so it seems)

I've seen a yellow-rumped warbler and a kingfisher, American Crows (3), chickadee, a pair of cardinals, and a strange gray and white bird in the trees that was probably just another yellow-rumped warbler. But I heard one that was almost certainly a red-eyed vireo! We don't have those at home yet. And other birds that could have been warblers of one sort or another. But nothing else seen.

Dogwoods are in bloom here!

Molly watches while we set up camp

 

I should have brought my game cam, darn me!l There are tons of places that look gamey.

After supper I took Molly for a sunset walk. Ended up sitting on a bench in the swamp, waiting for the sunset and looking for swamp birds. I saw neither--there were trees across the swamp that hid the celestial event, and there were no swamp birds in evidence. But it was a lovely bit of sit-down.

Gardening, the Green Season

Right now it's all about the greens. Here are the broccoli plants--no heads yet--and some Bok choy.

Lovely lettuce.

And I actually had a whole two plants from the thousands of Collards seeds I planted. They look like kale, I know, but it's a variety called Alabama Blue.

Wow great

 This Much Country
by Kristin Knight Pace

This is an amazing woman. And she meets some interesting people. And she has some amazing dogs. And she's in Alaska. Enough.

All of these together made it an irresistible book for me, but on top of all that, she writes well.  Very well, and some descriptions of her surroundings were so shockingly beautiful I wanted to get in the car and head north--right now!

I'll warn you, though--bad things happen. But really, really good things happen, too.

A learned listen

The Biology of Desire
Why Addiction is Not a Disease

by Marc Lewis

I listened to this book and found it very thought-provoking. He reviews some of the historical research on addiction and treatments, showing how it doesn't really fit into  the disease model that the medical profession has tried to cram it into. Treating it as a medical condition is helpful in getting people into treatment, and sometimes helps with the insurance coverage. But in most ways, it just doesn't act like a disease. For one thing, a surprising percentage of people recover without treatment. For another, saying that changes in the brain observed in addicts "proves" the disease model--but the brain changes all the time, for all kind of reasons.  But he talks about a lot more.

Although highly technical and backed by a lifetime of research, the book is styled as a series of about six life histories told by various recovering addicts.  Although he notes several times why the word "recovering" is maybe not a good way to describe them.  He talks about prescription drug abuse, Heroin abuse, and alcohol, of course, but also takes a detour into anorexia, showing how it both does and doesn't match the same patterns as the others.

After presenting the first half of each life history, he steps aside to discuss topics demonstrated or discovered by the case. But he always returns to satisfy the reader with how it ended up.

Gardening in my Roots, return from spring warbler watching trip

There must have been a light frost while we were gone. In a light frost the plants on the south side of the garden are harmed but the others survive okay. And that is what I'm seeing now. The hot peppers, all planted at the southern end of the row, are dead at the tops and looking miserable. The sweet peppers at the northern end are fine. The purple hull peas are pretty much wiped out. I'll have replant them tomorrow.
And the buckwheat which is growing as a cover crop is mostly dead at the southernmost end; the rest is unchanged. I have no idea why that is. 

But nothing else looks hurt at all. It just all needs a lot of weeding.

My first crop.

Cool space stuff

 For We Are Many
Bobiverse #2
Dennis E Taylor


Very unusual. Bob is a clone...and a clone of a clone, and a clone of a clone of a clone. He--the original Bob--died some time back. But not before making a copy of himself with all his memories and personality traits. And then later, he (clone Bob) clones himself some more time. Or did they all start with the original copy?  I get confused.

But somehow this author manages to keep all that confusion and the space travel and the "guppy" units and stuff straight, and write a very entertaining story. I'm not sure if I can get through another one of the series, but I might try. Unfortunately I didn't start with volume 1--We Are Legion (We Are Bob)-- so that may explain why I felt a little lost at times. But I enjoyed it a whole lot all the same.

Failed to be funny, for sure

 How Not To Get Married: Confessions of a Wedding Photographer

by George Mahood


Mr. Mahood, what were you thinking? This book is 75% serious--and you're supposed to be a humor writer. I keep reading and reading, waiting for the joke at the end of the paragraph--and it's not there! This is seriously an advice book for expectant brides and husbands-to-be.

It could have been so funny, too!  I know he's capable of it. But that apparently wasn't the point, and I'm very disappointed. I'll keep reading it, though--I like all his other stuff and he does have a funny inserted here and there in the straight story.

Mammoth Visits Grandkids, Day 3 and return

Wednesday 3/23

Common Loon in breeding plumage!  Awesome. Also an osprey but that's not so unusual. The Loon should be heading north soon. It's a life bird for me although I suspect I've seen one before, at least once and probably more. But this is the first one in unmistakable breeding plumage. Cool.

 And below is the look again, with a gaggle of coots in the background.

We probably won't do much today. Take Molly for a walk; go to Lowe's; then go take the kids to the park.

This is an okay camping spot. Very spread out--if it were fully booked we'd have someone right in our face on one side--there's a pull-through site next door--but on the other side a big, delicious break. I suspect that's why I chose this site instead of the pull-through, but I don't remember. If the map didn't show type of site, then I would have automatically gravitated to the one at the end of a grouping.

There's a little sycamore tree next to us but other than that, it's very cleared out here. I can see the pieces of trees where they cut down a few along the lake's edge. My guess is that they died, from heat and exposure after the rest of the ground cover was removed.

But the one thing I like is all the empty space around. And lack of sticker-burrs in the grass--at least for now. I can walk the dogs a long way and not have to pass other campers. I'd prefer a few more trees but--

Cool! A small, striped tailed hawk with a white rump just glided down and disappeared past the bushes in the water. Cooper's or Sharp-shinned. Probably Coopers'.  Add that to the osprey and two kestrels I've seen, and that makes a nice assortment of hawks.

It sure seems like this would be a great place for some owls. But none seen or heard. The owls of open country don't occur this far south.

LATER We returned just after dark, having done our grandkid thing and picked up Food Court meals for ourselves and the others. Boston Market seems to work well for them--the boys like mashed potatoes, corn, and chicken; Elyanna likes the mac'n'cheese. I didn't like my Japanese "light" vegetables with steamed rice, but the vegetable egg roll was great. Ed did a Charley's cheesesteak and liked it very much.

 

Thursday 3/24

Done with it all and time to head home. Nothing interesting this morning--just a large Buteo in a tree by the water while we sat at the dump station, waiting for the tank to clean. Same old same trip home. It's over and spring camping season has begun.

Return time 3:45 which included an unusually slow fill-up at Love's in Burleson -- almost 20 minutes.

Mammoth Visiting Grandkids, Day 2

Tuesday 22 Mar 2022

My enthusiasm of the day before was much dimmed. A bad night's sleep will do that to you.

Our visit yesterday was...not good. But we've had worse. The baby is one and a half years old now, but when we came into the house she pitched a screaming fit that lasted for a half hour. She didn't show the reaction I'd expect, either--not like she was scared of us, but more like she was scared of us to the point of breakdown. It was weird and unexpected.

And the boys don't talk. I'll try harder today, I promise. Yesterday I was so freaked out by the girl's screaming, I basically ignored Ethan. Assuming he'd warm to us after a minute. But I should have realized he was trying to play with us and didn't know how. I suspect he vaguely remembers us--it's only been a few months, after all.

Thunderstorms came through in the night in scattered fits. I don't think our campsite got one drop of rain, but parts of Killeen sure did. And other parts did not. Weird, but hey--this is Texas. If only if only my garden got some!

And now it's fiercely windy. It was very awfully windy yesterday, but today it's much worse. A cluster of birds--coots and redheads, I guess--is hanging out across the lake, on the sheltered side. Yesterday I saw four pied-billed grebes and a Pelican. Plus two kestrels, some meadowlarks, grackels and such.  Some kind of long, slender shorebird. Sounded like a yellowlegs but I didn't see any yellow.

Some campground pics:

LATER
Molly and I had our long walk. The stopwatch said 1:10 or so, but I stopped it when I was chasing down a Bewick's Wren in the cedars. Not a golden-cheeked warbler, of course. It could have been...but it wasn't. The song was all wrong.

Funny thing, when we were off in the hills with a wind-break, it was pleasantly warm. I took off my hoodie a couple of times. But back at camp, the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't close the Mammoth door. The weather app said 19mph but I could swear it was 30 at a constant speed. I guess we were in some sort of wind tunnel.

After that we went to visit and I got May to come up with a list of things she'd need to tide her over until Edward gets back. Which we still don't know when. "Sometime" in April.

Mammoth pays a short grandkid visit

 Monday 21 March 2022

Home to Dana Peak Park on Stillhouse Hollow Lake

Actual time 4:00
Stops: 7 minute pee shop in rest area; 22 minute gas stop at Love's--there was a long wait at the pumps, with many trucks in all lanes. They all appeared to be slow.

This is it. Then end of our long layoff and the start of the spring camping season. I didn't schedule anything for February or early March, thinking the weather would be so cold and miserable that we wouldn't want to go anywhere. Other than the same old places in central Texas we've been so many times.

That was dumb of me, because there are still plenty of places in Central Texas we haven't been. But I also wanted to get some work done in the garden, and I have.

But now it's spring...pretty much. As the lady on JRW said, it's a late spring in North Texas. That's because it's so bone-crunchingly, utterly dry.  Yesterday I finally saw my redbud tree starting to squeeze out a little faint pink. I've been giving sugar water to the bees because there aren't any flowers yet. I may put out one last cup before we leave.

Anyway, now it's the start. Roughly every two weeks from now until September we will be pulling up stakes and hauling out of here. 7-1/2 weeks out of 23. Mammoth will be carrying us along, except for the last trip when American Airlines will do the chore. I should be happy, and I am--
If only it would rain.

View out the window: