LCRA: North Shore Lake Bastrop

I was looking for a closer, cheaper place for weekend getaways.  I didn't really expect to find such a nice place to go.  The Lower Colorado River Authority maintains many parks associated with their dams, lakes, and river control.  This one is 38 miles from the house and 31 miles from the RV storage location.  It is currently under renovation so the showers/bathroom were not open but that is not a problem for us.  They also upgraded the electric and water so more sites have 50 amp service than show on the website.  A limited number of sites have sewer hookup.  The full hookup sites are wonderful.  They are pull through with exceptionally long parking areas and well separated sites and nice tree cover.  The rear view is a beautiful 1300 acre lake.  The sites slope front to back (easily within the landing gear range) but are very level side to side.  There were large open areas thick with clover.  One variety of clover was unusual in that it had perfect small red hearts in the center of each leaf.  Boat launching area was double wide with dock and tie up areas.  Fishing pier.  Wide 5 mile long trail connects to the South Shore park.

Bastrop was the site of a devastating fire last year  with 1645 homes lost and over 34,000 acres burned.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastrop_County_Complex_fire  Bastrop State Park was severely impacted, but the two LCRA parks were untouched.  We drove through the burn area and it was so sad to see the damage done.

Wurstfest

We are at Pecan Park Campgrounds again, backed into a nice long spot with trees for the picture window view instead of other sites.  Had to run the fireplace (electric heater) and a ceramic heater in the bedroom last night as it got down to 41 degrees last night.  We plan to spend the afternoon and evening at Wurstfest in New Braunfels listening to music and enjoying German food and beverages.

We spent another nice weekend, this time at Pecan Park in San Marcos.  We love the tall trees and access to the San Marcos river.  We had our first "sleep over" guest in the new RV and she reported that the inflated bed on the pull out couch was quite comfortable.  We were blessed with a thunderstorm on Sunday morning.  Texas has been in quite a severe drought and we got several inches (2.5 at home).

Grapevine, TX
We spent a very nice three day weekend at The Vinyards Campground and Cabins in Grapevine, TX.  It is about 200 miles from Austin, so we wanted to stay an extra night to justify the distance.  The park is run by the city of Grapevine and was beautiful.  It is on a large lake at the south end with a couple of coves and points, so lots of shore line.  There are some smaller sites clustered together, and some larger sites with sweeping views of grass leading down to the shore.  Some sites are in nicely wooded areas.

The dogs had a wonderful time playing on the shore, wading in the water, and "chasing" the ducks and geese (though they were on leashes and never got close to the birds).

Kerville-Schreiner Park

We decided to go a little farther (120 miles) to a park we have stayed at before.  It was a Texas State Park but is now (again) a city park.  Excellent rural setting  on the uphill part.  We stayed on the deer field loop (30amp max so not enough for our two AC units in the summer).  Lots of deer in the evenings.  There are well marked trails for hiking/biking.  We took the dogs out on Saturday and again on Sunday for 1/2 hour after we had closed the trailer.  Pretty trail along Guadalupe River in the other side of the road by the office.

The water pipe froze on Friday night.  We had emptied the hose and turned it off, but it delayed things in the morning.  We expected it, so we at least had water for coffee.  22 degrees that night.  47 on Sunday morning.

Raton, NM

We had stayed at the Cedar Rail RV park in Raton, NM our second night of the vacation (remember the triple rainbow?), but this time we had a nice back in spot with a spectacular mountain and valley view.  The reason the view was so nice was because just behind the spot is a "cliff" that drops off about 30 feet.  I decided to clean the rear RV windows, and that was quite a challenge.  I tried spraying water and using a squeegee, but that left an ugly mess.  I ended up using a damp micro fiber cloth and that did a nice job with twice over the window.

The next day was occupied with researching a rescue of a Standard Schnauzer reported to be at a kill shelter in Midland, TX.  The report did not have enough information, and even though I called SPCA and other shelters and in nearby towns we never found the dog.  Since that was going on and since the day was cloudy and damp, we decided to take a vacation from our vacation and just laze around. 

One "job" I did perform was to try to scrub out the black water tank (sewage).  Whenever we empty it, the indicator never shows it as empty.  This is most often due to paper or other material on the float in the tank.  The RV has a separate hose connection to spray inside the tank, but when we tried to use it, we discovered that it leaked inside the walls of the RV and could not be used.  I ran a garden hose into the bathroom so we could repeatedly fill and empty the tank to move all the material out.  We would let it soak, then empty, then power spray what could be reached through the toilet.  Hopefully, it will get the guage working properly.  We need to take the RV back to the dealer to get the leak in the wall fixed.

The RV next to us had a hummingbird feeder, and there were normally about 6 hummingbirds there all day long.  As we watched out the back window, we could see them in the bushes/trees along the cliff behind us.  At one point, one bird would repeatedly fly straight up, then dive 75' straight at the ground, pulling up at the last minute to avoid the ground.  On our last morning there, there were at least 20 hummingbirds fighting for a spot at the feeder (see posted videos).

Great Sand Dunes Natioinal Park

Monday started as early as we could reasonably get around.  We got up at 6am and were on the road by about 7:20.  We wanted to get to the Great Sand Dunes National Park before the sun made it impossible to spend any time on the dunes with the dogs. The roads were two lane and very curvy, so we were limited in our speed.  Once again, there was almost no traffic in either direction.  A very nice scenic drive through canyons, plains, and eroded hills covered in grass and topped with trees.

We arrived about 10am, and the heat wasn't too bad yet, maybe 80 degrees.  We had purchased boots for
the dogs to try to protect them from the heat.  The boots have a rubber sole and "socks" that went up their ankles.  In addition, there are velcro straps that tighten the boots around the heal of their feet.  We brought out the water spraybottle and bottle of water with bowl, then headed out towards the dunes. 

The first thing encountered was the stream that brings sand from the mountains and high side of the dunes (mountain side) out onto the plains.  From there, the wind blows the sand back towards the mountains, creating the dunes.  No new sand is entering the system, so the dunes are not growing, but constantly shift.  The tallest dune is over 900' tall.It became obvious that we were at high elevation (over 8000') so we were not going to be climbing the big dunes.  We also found that the boots soles were too thin to protect the dogs feet from the heat.  We went to the first ridge with no problems, but the dogs were doing a very funny thing.  They walked behind us in our shadows!

On the way back in, we were watching the dogs boots to see if they came off, and Annie lost one.  We couldn't find it, even after searching for 10 minutes.  It had disappeared under the sand as her foot went under and came up without the boot.  Then Zoe lost one.  I pulled off the remaining three boots from Annie and began carrying her to keep her feet cool.  Since we were at elevation, that didn't last long, and I "ran" her back to the stream to get her feet into the water.  Terri hurried as fast as she could.  When we got there, it was easy to convince Annie to lay down in the shallow stream to cool off.  Zoe took more convincing.  We then took the dogs to the outdoor showers to rinse the sand out of their fur and feet for the ride.

We passed over the Continental Divide at North Cochetopa Pass at 10,135' elevation, and made our way to the Cedar Rail RV park in Raton, NM.