Ray Roberts Lake State Park - Isle de Bois Unit, Pilot Point, Texas

 9-12-2024 to 9-26-2025

            This spider seemed to be the campground pet. Its home was on the outside wall of the bathhouse. Everyone checked on its status every day. 
        


        We were staying at an equestrian site. We saw a variety of horses with their dogs and owners.  Some came for a day. Others stayed over a weekend. 



        In addition to horses and dogs, we saw a lot of deer. They were by the roads, in the camping area, and near the trails. We also heard coyotes howling in the morning darkness as we had our coffee.



        We hiked every afternoon, as usual.  The Randy Bell Scenic Trail (pictured below) was a 2.2 mile concete path around the park. The camping areas were outside the Randy Bell Trail and the Dorba mountain bike trails were inside the trail. Horse trails were all over the place. We hiked a few, but there was lots of deep sand that was difficult to walk through. After a heavy rain one night, the sand was compact and easy to walk on. We liked the Dorba Mountain Trails best. They were in the woods, so shady and pleasant in the hot afternoons. Annie was always with us, but we could tell she was feeling her age (13) because she slowed down before we did. Scott started taking water for her. 



        We paddle boarded one day. Ray Roberts Lake is huge, but only a small inlet (below) is ok'd for paddle boarding. I was pleased to be able to stand up and maneuver. It's been a while. 



        Our site did not have a full hook-up, so Scott and Annie filled the tote buddy twice and emptied it at the dump site. The last time we used the tote buddy, Walt pulled it all by himself. 




        We had the biggest site in the Bluestem area.  This picture just shows the space by the RV where we had coffee in the morning and played cards in the afternoon. There were a lot of grassy areas which needed mowing, except for spots where the horses grazed.  



        We had another good experience with a mobile RV tech. He fixed the propane leak, and also a leak that had developed in the freshwater system. 

        I also finished the free motion quilting part of a quilt for John. My machine definitely didn't like the varying thickness of the variegated thread I used. I also probably need to get my machine serviced. Why I didn't think of that while we were near the Cotton Cupboard for 10 months I'll never know. But in my defense, the machine was working beautifully for piecing. It just wouldn't hold the tension once I started quilting after we left Austin. 
 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memphis KOA Journey, Marion, Arkansas

Image
 10-24-2024 to 11-7-2024         We traded a beautiful, spacious state park stay for a cramped, parking lot stay at a KOA by a noisy interstate. Reason for this unlikely trade was learning that the state park has no internet and very limited cell service. So we chose the KOA because we wanted to watch the election returns and the World Series.              After we got in the mode of being Memphis site seerers, it turned out ok.  Our first sightseeing walk was the Big River Crossing, the longest (about a mile) public pedestrian and cyclist bridge across the Mississippi. Great views and nice grassy trail at the end.  Entrance View from the river crossing          We went to Tom Lee Park several times, either combined with sight seeing or as the primary destination. It is a long strip along the Mississippi River that's fun to walk. There's a statue of Tom Lee, who saved 32 people in 1...
Read more

Prophetstown State Park, near West Lafayette, Indiana

Image
8/24/2023 to 8/31/2023         The main reason for choosing Prophetstown State Park was its proximity to Purdue University, where Scott spent 5 years in a co-op program (combination work/study) ending with a degree in industrial engineering. We visited 525 Dodge Street, home of the Dodge Street Boys for 4 1/2 of those years. I saw the street where they played four square continuously with loud music and somewhat frequent police intervention. They only went to jail once, and that record was erased with the help of a good lawyer. I learned a lot about Scott's college years as we walked around campus. It was the time of the Vietnam War and lottery system for the draft. He spent a lot of time protesting.  I           Prophetstown is a unique park with a focus on history. There is a Farm at Prophetstown, a small-scale working farm depicting life in the 1920s. There are several Sears Robuck prefab houses on site, furnished from that ...
Read more

Our New Home for the Indefinite Future

Image
 Fredericksburg, VA / D.C. KOA         We arrived in Fredericksburg on Saturday, Dec 7th, after a brief stop in Wytheville, VA, where our RV held up in the 11 degree weather. We are here for two reasons. The most important is to be near Sam and Kara and the grandkids. The other reason is that we have decided not to travel in the RV on a regular basis anymore. It's just gotten too hard.           Maudie was our first visitor. She came on Sunday and helped us get set up. Not only did she wash the windows before we put up the magna shades, she washed the whole RV with the window washer brush. Inside we cleaned out drawers and washed floors. You name it, she did it for us. She also worked hard to vaccum up all the yellow lady bugs that came inside while we were at Natchez Trace. We took a little time in the afternoon to play Oh Hell and let Maudie rest before driving back to Alexandria. The drive took her a little less than an hour...
Read more