This trip, long planned and oft canceled, is intended to get us to a slightly warmer clime in March and also to go see the Caverns of Sonora. If we were to happen to see a Golden-Cheeked Warbler on the journey, so be it. I wouldn't complain.
Day 1 was simply a stop on the way toward the hill country, intended to break up a long-ish drive into two very short drives. So I chose Cedar Ridge/Turkey Roost campground on Belton Lake, the same place we used to stay at when Edward was stationed at Fort Cavasos. The Fort has prime Golden-Cheeked Warbler habitat on their gunnery test range, but they won't let civilians in without special arrangements. Not fair!
We had a hard time making ourselves leave late enough so that we wouldn't get to Cedar Ridge too early, before check-in time at 3pm. We'd might as well not have bothered--there was no one at the gate to deny us entry. In fact, we wouldn't have seem or met a single person if we hadn't decided to drive over to find the campground host and ask about the burn ban. He said it was in effect but we could get away with a small charcoal fire, just for cooking.
Park of the delay was that we stopped at the Love's at Troy for the last time ever in all the rest of our lives!!! One single re-fuel stop took us thirty minutes! And that was all waiting time--the actual refueling time was only about five minutes. It's a shame, because the stop is conveniently located right where it needs to be on the route from up north (home) to down south (San Antonio), but we've had issues there every single time we've tried it. But it had been a couple of years so I thought....
Yeah, well. As I said, never again.
Cedar Ridge campground was remarkably crowded. The water in Belton Lake was lower than ever. But the grounds were very clean and the canyon wrens still sang. We didn't see any deer or turkey, unusual, but it was a pleasant and predictable place to spend the night.
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