I was really ready for this camping trip for several reasons. First of all, it’s been a while since the last one. I know I was just at Inks Lake not too long ago, but it still feels like it’s been a while. Second, I love the birding at Choke Canyon Reservoir.

I was supposed to head down on Monday, September 28. Then, on Saturday, I saw that we were going to have high winds on Monday morning. They were going to be in the low to mid 20s. I don’t like to tow my trailer in anything above 15 mph winds. Even that is pushing it for me. I weighed out my possible options. I could either arrive at the park early on Monday morning before the winds got to San Antonio. That was not an option as I would’ve had to leave the parking lot at 5:30 AM. As it turned out, the full blown winds had already reached San Antonio by that time Monday morning, so I would’ve had a windy hell of a ride. The other option was to come down on Sunday. I communicated with the park, and they said they had a site for me. So that is what I did.

The site that I had reserved for my trip, number 131, was occupied on Sunday, so they assigned me to site number 130, right across from it. When I got to the park, I plugged the electricity in, put the stabilizers down, and left the trailer on the hitch. Inside I only got the things I needed out. Then, as soon as the people in my site pulled out on Monday morning, I just got everything ready and moved over to it. It took all of 15 minutes.

As I was leaving San Antonio, I suddenly started seeing lots of butterflies migrating. They were flying to the east across the road beginning somewhere between Highway 410 and Poteet, Texas. For the rest of the drive, and for the rest of my stay at Choke Canyon Reservoir those butterflies were in abundance. I’ll talk more about them later.

Other than the butterflies, the drive down was uneventful. There was very little traffic, and as planned, no winds to worry about.

On Monday, the morning started pretty calm, but got windier and windier as the day went. I don’t think we ever got any winds in the 20 mph range. Most of them were between 16 and 18 down here. We did get some heavy gusts. The only real affect the winds did have, was that I didn’t see very many birds in the morning, and there were less butterflies floating around.

I took a 3 1/2 mile hike from my trailer to the boat ramp and back. It was nice mainly because it was cool. The flowers along the trail were gorgeous, and the butterflies were pretty heavy on the shrubs. I did get to see some herons and some Cara Cara ‘s over by the boat ramp. I didn’t spend too much time, because there just weren’t any other birds for me to see.

Tuesday morning, the temperature was down in the low 50s! The winds had dropped down to about 3 mph, so it didn’t really feel all that cold outside, since it was nice and sunny. I took the same hike that I took the day before. This time, I saw more birds and a heck of a lot more butterflies! They were everywhere. I actually felt like I was walking in one of those snow globes. I spent more time walking around the boat ramp and around the old high school gym area. Then I came back to camp and got cleaned up.

I wanted to go back to Tilden, Texas. I had heard about a boot hill cemetery that was supposed to be pretty interesting. Since it was only a 12 mile drive, I decided to go check it out, take some pictures, and enjoy some lunch at a business I found on yelp.

The boot Hill cemetery was kind of interesting. It was really just a small little yard in the back of the actual building I had planned to eat lunch in. I took some pictures of the signage, walked around and looked at things closely, and then headed to the sidewalk on my way to eat. Then I tapped my pocket as men do, and realized I had left my wallet in the camper.

I drove all the way back to camp, got my wallet, then drove to Three Rivers instead. I decided since it was about the same distance I would head over to my favorite place to eat in the area, Sowell's Barbecue. When I put the directions into Siri, I learned that it had closed at two. So, I did a search for another place to eat, and ended up at a place called the Refinery Speakeasy and Kitchen. I had a bacon bleu cheeseburger and fries. It was pretty good.

On the way out of town, I remembered that I wanted to buy a new washcloth at the dollar store. The one I was using started to disintegrate. I think it is because I used to put it in the microwave to get it hot enough to shave with during the times that the camper was winterized. Anyway I went to the Dollar General store and got six washcloths for $3.25. I am sure they are going to be extremely long lasting.

Next, I stopped at the gas station and filled up my tank. I also bought a couple of bottles of diet Sprite so that I could have wine coolers while watching the presidential debauchery. Oh, I’m sorry, I meant debate. Then, I stopped at the South Shore unit of Choke Canyon State Park and drove around seeing if there were any good birds. I got a great shot of two Cara Cara‘s in the same tree. But, that was about it.

The rest of the day just involved lounging in the camper, taking some pictures at sunset, and watching that damn debate. Boy, I would love to have that time back. What a frapping waste of time! After it was over, I watched a few things on Netflix before going to bed.

On Wednesday morning, it was cooler again. It was 52° outside and 58° inside. I was feeling it more than the day before. I dug out my old ugly nasty brown cardigan sweater that I bought back when I was teaching at Bryan Station Elementary School. I even put my slippers on.

It looked so pretty outside, that I grabbed my coffee and took a short little walk down to the lake edge. They’ve cleared a path to it that I had not noticed earlier while here. When I got back, I decided it was better to get dressed and go on my hike then to sit in a freezing trailer.

This time I hiked all the way over to the boat ramp area, then took another couple of trails over to the 75 acre lake. It was a very nice walk. I was disappointed, however, because I never could get a picture of a green jay. I heard them in the trees, I saw them flashing across the sky, but I just couldn’t get a shot.

At the lake, I took a walk around the water's edge. I don’t remember seeing the trail that I used before. It was just a very wide mowed grass trail that went around the lake. At one point there was like a jetty. I walked out to the end of it to take pictures. I saw three raptors up in the sky flying around the lake. They flew towards where I was and went way far to the other end. All of a sudden, I noticed that one of them was flying directly towards me. I threw the camera up and try to get it in frame the best I could as it went overhead. I am not good at photographing birds in flight. It’s really hard to get them in the frame of that stupid digital viewer. Then you don’t have time to focus it or you’ll lose the the bird. Anyway, as luck would have it, I was able to snap a not so good shot.

I trudged back to camp. I was a lot more tired than I expected to be. Part of that is this extra weight I’m caring recently. Another part is this extra age I’m caring recently. And another part is that I haven’t been getting off my ass and doing anything to stay in shape. I stopped at the cabin area, and sat add a table by one of the cabins looking at the lake for about 20 minutes until I felt like I had enough energy to get on to the cabin.

When I got back to the trailer, I rested for a while. Then I decided to look at the pictures from the camera by hooking them up to my little device that will transfer them to the iPhone. I was amazed to see that the raptor shot was not as bad as I thought it was. I was also amazed to see that it was a bald headed eagle carrying a fish in its talons. I consider that a score!

Anyway, the next day my time at Choke Canon was up. I got ready to go and headed home. The trip home was uneventful.

Visit this link to see all the photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TIFdQvK-z9PH8ATANzamvU6tp1pQiZlf?usp=sharing