KSP March 2022
----I can’t say that I was looking forward to this trip, because I totally forgot that it was on my calendar. I most likely planned on it as a chance to dump my tanks after my last trip and de-winterize the camper, both of which require full hook ups. Anyway, I saw it on my calendar a few days ago and figured, "What the Hell… Let’s go camping!"
----As fate would have it, Tuesday was the windiest day ever. The wind was blowing between 16 and 20 mph with even higher gusts. I white knuckled it the whole way there. The normally 70 minute trip took me almost 2 hours.
----Good news… The Trak4 worked perfectly on this trip for the second time. I charged it while I was there, but in over a month it only got down to 76% of battery. This is the fifth device since I first started using them. It was a long path of defective units, units going bad, and units that just didn’t like me. The company is wonderful and works really hard to make things right.
----When I got to the park, I set up the basics and headed over to the Korean restaurant. I called to make sure they were open this time. (Remember I tried twice on the last trip, but they were closed due to illness.) I’m not sure it was all that good, since I am not an expert on Korean cuisine. Seemed kind of lack luster to me. I won’t be back.
----When I got back to the camper, I finished all the other set up things that were left. I opened all the windows since it wasn’t hot enough for AC. It was really nice and comfortable. I spent the evening drinking wine coolers and watching my Korean series on my old Fire TV device. By about 10:00 PM, it was too cold in the camper, so I got the heater out and used it.
----Wednesday morning I woke up and had a cup of coffee. Then, I hit the trails. I crossed over to the river side first and got some pictures in the butterfly center. Then I went through the gate and walked a few miles on the River Trail. I heard some birds, but they just weren’t there in the numbers I am used to for this time of year. I did see an Eastern Towhee. That was a first. I also saw a little dove that I couldn’t identify. It was tiny like an Inca, but the coloring and markings were totally different. When I checked Facebook later, my friend Jessica Bergner had posted an infographic designed to help us identify fledgling birds in our area. Sure enough, the dove was a fledgling mourning dove.
----I walked around the river side of the park. I didn’t see many birds, but I enjoyed peeking into the cabins and seeing what they look like. I walked to the Butterfly Garden and had a heart attack when I saw that my truck was gone. It took me a few seconds to remember that I had walked over. As I started walking to front gate, I realized I was hungry. I decided to hike over to Brewdawgz, where I drank a beer and had a patty melt. I got my order in just before a group of 17 firefighters walked in the door.They must have been in town for a training or something. Every two or three of them had a different town on their T-shirts.
----Back at the trailer, I quickly hooked up the water and drained all the pink stuff out of the pipes. Then I processed the pictures I took that day and put them up on my blog site. After that, I napped for about an hour before taking another hike on the park trails.
----The evening was a repeat of the night before: wine coolers, Korean series, turning on the heater.
----Thursday morning, I got up and drank coffee until daylight. Then I hooked up the sewer pipe in anticipation of draining the tanks later that night. I wasn’t going to wait until Friday morning because I wanted to leave for home ASAP to have time to shower and change before a luncheon I was looking forward to.
----At about 9:30 AM I drove over to the nature center to hike on the River Trail from that direction. I didn’t get very far. They were doing construction one way and they had the other way barricaded to close off Tranquility Island, where they are rebuilding the steps to the library that washed away a few years ago. I got back in the truck and drove to the park. I parked at the butterfly Center where the local Master Naturalists were having a work day. I went through the gate and hiked about a mile, but not seeing any birds, I turned around and came back.
----After a few minutes walking around the river side of the park, I drove back to the camper. I went through pictures, but only wrote down the keeper numbers without moving them or uploading them. After that, I was really tired and took a nice long nap.
----At three o’clock, I drove over to Schreiner University to try out the Trailhead Beer Garden. It was really nice. They only have four beers, but they are a well selected group of Texas craft beers from around the area. I also hiked the trail from there to the bridge. I wanted to get my steps in and stall for time. I wanted to go to Basement Brewing which opened at 5:00.
----At Basement Brewing, I had a quick flight and filled my Growler to take back to camp. As soon as I got there, I drained the tanks and stored the sewer hose. I also checked the tires and put air in as needed. That’s another thing I usually do in the morning before heading home. There were other things I went ahead and did like stowing the coffee maker, washing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming the floor, and some other general clean up chores.
----The rest of night was spent drinking the beer I bought and watching my Korean series. About 15 minutes in I got a text from Netflix saying I had used 100% of my hotspot data. After that, it gets throttled. The show kept going for about 2 minutes before it stopped. I waited for the little circle to count back up to 100% and it started again. I was just thinking that maybe Netflix would work at the slower speed when it stopped again. So, lesson learned: streaming Netflix on my fire stick over my hotspot uses it all up in about two nights. I switched over to watching it on the phone, which I really don’t mind doing.
----This morning, I woke up before the 7:00 AM alarm. I went immediately into departure mode. By 8:15 the trailer was hitched and I was ready to go. I took the trash to the dumpster and headed home at 8:30. The wind speed was 1 mph today, so it took the usual 70 minutes to get to the storage lot.
----All in all, it was a nice trip. I do wish that I had seen more birds.
