Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 3

Thursday, Nov 6

On the road from Lake Colorado City State park to Balmorrhea State Park. For reasons unknown, the trucker app chose to take us about 18 miles out of our way--first south and then north again, instead of taking the shorter route to the interstate. Who knows?  I’m pretty sure we took the shorter route in the past. But of course I was navigating then.

No problem, though, other than the annoyance of the longer drive. We were soon back on I-20 and headed west. Midland and Odessa were horrible. Midland had scary, narrow and dangerous road construction for a long, long way. And Odessa was just crowded and ugly. I’m not looking forward to taking that road again next year to Edward’s new job site.  And again and again. Ugh!

 

But eventually we made it. (Typical 3 hour planned drive turned into 4-1/2 hours) And Balmorrhea appeared to be a really nice place. Little shelters at each campsite. Most of the sites appear to be little curved pull-thrus off either sides of little curved roads. Cute. And all are clean as new. Almost too much so.  But I’m not complaining.

Written at the time:  I can imagine the place being very crowded in summer when everyone wants to swim. Which we should have done—it was 90 degrees when we arrived and the swimming pool pretty much empty.  And huge, and very lovely. Maybe we’ll go tomorrow.

The only think I don’t like about Balmorrhea is the lack of dog-walking places. All I can do is walk through the campground to the parking area, the office and the swimming pool. And then back again.

Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 2

Wednesday, Nov 5

Ed asks me which way to go, and when I tell him, he doesn’t do it. And then argues that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Frustrating.

In summary about Lake Possum Kingdom: this is a nice little park on a nice little lake but it has no birds, there are houses all around the other side so therefore no view, and no wildlife except three deer, a possum and a lot of Canada Geese.  Very boring and I see no reason to come back.

I’m still not sure why I routed us so far off the route to get there. But now I know--been there, done that, and don’t have to do it again.

The day’s drive was taking us to Lake Colorado City State Park. It’s not a great place and we’ve been there several times already, but it was conveniently placed halfway between stops.  So, we’re going back.

We spent much of the drive monitoring our elevation with the new device: 

From trip notes:

And we are there. And it’s hot. 90 degrees in a completely clear sky.

There was very little shade from the mesquite trees and prickly pear, so I chose to stay inside for an hour or so until the sun started to slide down the sky. Our campsite was an excellent one, site 53, although one on the west side of the loop might be better for afternoons. Just next to our site there was a cut-through dirt road over to the non-electric sites. They’re close to the lake but still not lake view—you an only see the lake from the road in a vehicle. The lake is down in a deep valley.

 

I remembered from the previous visit that there was a nice trail all alongside the lake. Pretty rugged, too. So I was thinking about taking it again. When Molly and I took a short “arrival” walk in the sun, we went to the trailhead at the north end, near a boat ramp (dry, mostly) and a day use area. But I remembered that you could cut across country from the electric-only campsites to get to the trail, so that may be what we do. Either that or walk to the south end, get on and circle back the way we just went.

There were no birds when we arrived although I did hear some little chirpy birds in the trees and saw one golden-fronted woodpecker.  You’d think the place would be just swarming with horny toads and roadrunners, but no.  Or at least, none that I’ve seen. There used to be ground squirrels here but I don’t see any right now. There are several filled-in holes near our campsite, but I’d not expect the squirrels to have gone underground so soon.

Maybe we’ll see some later.

 

LATER  Never did. I saw a roadrunner and a few rabbits and…that’s about it. And a curve-billed thrasher, a mockingbird, and some finches (I think.) Pretty dull.

Molly and I ended up taking the trail at about 4:30 when the sun went down enough for the walk to be bearable. And soon it became enjoyable. I didn’t manage to make it all the way up to the start of the trail because there were some campers up around there, right about where I thought it might start.

The lake seen from the trail, 

And even if they weren’t at the start of the trail, we would have had to walk right by them to get to it, so I chose to bushwhack across behind one of the nearer campsites. It was a little scary at first, but soon we found the trail. We kept losing it again during the walk, but only a little bit—it’s pretty well marked and also pretty well used—even when I wasn’t sure of the way to go, all I had to do was consult the the shoe prints on the ground. Showed us the way.

It took about 45 minutes total, from our campsite up the road, across the bush, down the trail to the day use area, and then back up the road to our camp. Pretty close to my target afternoon walk for Molly. It was only after we’d gotten back that I remembered my plan to jog that day. Oh, well.

 

Snowbirding Magnus style

Tuesday November 4, 2025

On the way to Arizona to see Sandhill Cranes. I think. I planned this trip a long time ago and now I’m not sure what the point for it was. But at least, we’re on the road. Hurray!

I’d chosen Lake Possum Kingdom (or is that Possum Kingdom Lake?) for our first stop. It was ridiculously far off the route and I don’t remember whether I considered that fact when I chose it. I think I just saw that it was a highly reviewed Texas state park.  On the map it doesn’t look so bad—due west of Fort Worth and a bit north of Abilene, but when we actually left I-20 and headed off to the park, it seemed like the drive went on forever. When we diverged from I-20, we were two hours into a three-hour trip, and all the rest was almost due north. And a little east. Wow.

But it seemed a really nice place. Dry and dusty, but a beautiful lake. No birds to speak of and I only saw three deer and one armadillo.

 

Ducks on the lake 

Molly and I hiked up the trail to the nearest overlook. There was another overlook that was reputed to have lots of wildlife, but it was very hot and I didn’t want to walk the extra mile to get to the start of its climb. Plus on the way up, my heart kept having spells of beating too fast. That seems to happen mostly in hot weather when I’m exerting myself; lying down fixes it quickly, but obviously this was not the sort of ground I wanted to lie down on. (Too rocky!)  So I had to sit down and rest a couple of times. 

 

 Our whole climb up and back ended up taking an hour but it was only about 1-1/2 miles.

Very nice view of our motorhome from up there.

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s the end of Lake Possum Kingdom. Not bad but I see no reason to return.

Review: A Midwife's Tale

A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

The author, Ms. Ulrich,   did a great job of extracting bits of the diary, putting them in historical perspective, filling in the gaps and making us really understand Martha Ballard, her life and times. Kudos!

I had read bits of either this or another condensation of the diary before, a long time ago. And I’d read a fictionalized history based (very loosely) on the life of Martha Ballard. They were both intriguing in their own way, but this was complete and quite fulfilling.

Gardening Roots - late November

 The frost killed a lot of things, but not my lovely turnips!

I picked a few and cooked the tops--best turnip greens I ever ate. The one turnip I ate wasn't so good, but I'll hope for better later.

I also found a few sweet potatoes, but not really enough to gloat about. But it's not like I planted them--they planted themselves. 

Review: The Beautiful Snow

 The Beautiful Snow:

The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880-81

by Cindy Wilson 

Being a devotee of all things Little House related, I found parts of this book extremely interesting.  But not nearly as many parts as I hoped. It was a whole lot railroad history and facts about how the railroad companies tried to deal with the snow. And that part was pretty interesting…but I’d had enough after five or so pages of it.

Then she treated the winter month by month, with a section for each describing how the Ingalls family got along, then how the various settlements in and around De Smet fared. For each settlement she described newspaper publishing, fuel, food, railroad, human entertainment, and a vague subject she called “boosterism”. This latter described how the various entities (newspaper writers, politicians, railroad companies, ets) promoted life in the Dakota territories despite the little inconvenience of snow.

The book was well written and very much well researched, and it had lots of interesting stuff in it, but I found it a little bit overkill for me. Another history buff might say it was just right, though, so I won’t try to speak for everyone.  Just my opinion—a great book to check out of the library but I’m glad not to need to own a copy.

Review: The Battle Cry of the Siamese Kitten

By Philipp Schott DVM

This is what I was expecting from the first of his books that I read!  It’s almost all anecdotes from his life and his time as a small animal veterinarian. (Very few lectures or chapters explaining the complex answers to frequently asked, seemingly simple questions.)

It was very entertaining.

Gardening...not exactly

 I think I need a new category to describe interesting plants I find on the property. Here's one:

Possum-haw Holly

It's native to the southeast U.S. and forms a nice little tree. But apparently in order to have berries you have to grow a female tree, so if I save these seeds and plant them, how many would I have to cultivate--and for how long--to get a tree?  

 Maybe I'll try planting the stem I cut off.