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Coming Soon,
Palmetto State Park, Gonzalez, Texas (3 days / 2 nights) TWPD’s Official Site
Palo Duro Canyon, Near Amarillo, Texas (7 days / 6 nights) TWPD’s Official Site
Coleto Creek Park and Reservoir, Near Fannin, Texas (7 days / 6 nights) GBRA’s Official Site
Guadalupe State Park, Near New Braunfels, Texas (6 days / 5 nights) TWPD’s Official Site
And hopefully more in between
Date: April 13, 2007
After a day of preparing to tow my pop-up camper, and family 2 hours into the Texas Hill Country (Read: Freaking out and blowing up at everyone/thing) my wife and I pick up the kids from school about an hour early and head out. As is typical, I over-react to her reactions (or over-reactions, if you ask me) and we somewhere along the line start to bicker.
In typical fashion the kids are blankly staring out the windows trying to ignore the barbs the adults are exchanging. They take comfort in, as my step-son put it,” Once, we get there and set up, everyone will be HAPPY!” lol - Okay, so We stop in Sabinal at an obviously podunk gas station for some bags of ice and hot dogs (D’OH! Left’em at home….lotta good the day of prep seems like now…) So, I grab a pack of wieners and two twenty pound bags of ice. As usual, fashion, only one and one fourth of the two bags actually fit in the cooler…so I set the bag on top and go about my merry Hill Country cruise.
About 20 feet out of the parking lot, we encounter a railroad crossing, with flashing lights and arms down…and no train in sight. Of course, I being my-stubborn-self, decide to not ‘take the easy way out’ and turn down the road that wasn’t blocked by crossing guard arms. I could have done that, but, nooooooo. I pull snugly up to the vehicle in front of me and patiently (read: with boiling blood) as a parade of cars simply makes the easy series of turns which would have put me in a clear path, and of course, by this time, yet another brainless lemming pulls -directly- behind me, now blocking my escape. Soon enough, the kids and wife are quizzically looking around to spot the source of the train-crossing jam. Slowly, a U-Pac (Union-Pacific, our local railroad mafia) service vehicle shimmies down the tracks. About a full 5 minutes later the arms lift, and we go about our way.
My wife, who had been to camps in the area near Garner and so she had printed up “the road less traveled” directions. (without pre-reading them at the house….) And so, at some point, the directions Microsoft had given us started refering to “local roads”….WTF!??!?!??!?!??!?!?! LOCAL ROADS? I’m not local, how would I spot one….? After I begin to calm down a bit and start to get my bearing on my location and where I need to go, and my wife and I’s guesses just happen to be good enough to lead us to the right road, I come across it….The Frio River. Not, “a bridge over the Frio”, but “The FRIO over the road”. (…Um….I don’t think this is the right way honey….) So, going against every bit of good sense beaten into my skull over the years…I begin to forge the river, with my camper and family in tow. Of course, I was being a sissy, of course everything came out alright, and minus the metaphorical change of pants and heart attack, we got on our way.
We slowly meander our way to the entrance of Garner State Park, to find a fairly full parking lot, and a fourty minute wait to check into your camp site. (This was at 4pm on a Friday, my advice = Get there at 2PM at the latest to quick check in on weekends) And so we fight our way (literally) to the camp-site and camp setup and such, and finally settle into some fun while camping. (See, nothing to this Friday the 13th crap!)
The kids play, my wife and I hang out and laugh with/at each other and start to make dinner. About 5 minutes before dinner “should have been cooked” the clouds whip up, dark and fast and the wind starts to blow in a heavy northern gust. (In Texas that means STORM! See, the warm coastal, and consequently more humid air collides in the upper atmosphere with the air from up north with is subsequently more cool and dry….and this makes some fantastic thunderstorms) And so, the kids come scurrying back to camp and we frantically strap-down or put up anything but the truck and the camper and get inside. Fat drops of rain start to fall as we finish just in time.
We collect ourselves and our food inside and settle in to ride out the storm. The rain drums loudly on the camper’s metal roof and at some point we decide, it’s too loud to be just rain….So, I bravely unzip a window, just a crack, and to my surprise in the dusky Texas twilight I could see small pebble sized hail hitting the ground. So, now I’m TOTALLY freaking out, on the inside. Being that I’m the “man of the house” and I’m with my family, they can’t see I’m about to lose it, so i get out the weather-band radio. I try in vain to get a signal and come up short….no breaking news, no AM Talk news, no “Tune to FM 103.1 for Emergency Information”, just a lone classic Country and Tejano station to pass the time.
Just then the weather seems to break, and the sound of rain is less cacophonous than before, I check out the door and discover, the storm is over and the sky is now clear and the air chilled. After another short sprinkle the weather remains nice for sitting by a fire and talking the evening away. (OMG I’m so glad today is over!)
Date: 04-14-2007
Weather: Cold and Windy High Temp: 64 Low Temp 46
HOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooly COW!!!! It’s really, really cold now. I wake up and start to brew coffee, and a fire. I browse the trail topographical map for the park and start to mental pick the trails I like. ( Since I can actually read a topographical map, I pick out a few trails for me with the kids (9 and 13 / girl and boy respectively) as well as some that might be more challenging for the more proficient hikers. (my step-son and I) The family slowly rises shortly after the Sun and my wife makes breakfast tacos.
Soon after breakfast the kids and I head out to hike some trails in the hills around Garner (more details to come in the “Tails from the Trials” section), after an interesting 2 hour hike, we come back to camp and eat some lunch, and my step son and I prepare yet another hike. (Okay, I’m a nut, 4 miles in the Hill Country in a day isn’t too much for me, and actually it’s just not enough.)
About an hour and a half later we get back to camp and hang out, after dinner, we head down “The Pavillion”, a part of Garner State Park which is now an institution. On Spring Saturday nights, and every night from Memorial Day to Labor Day there is a DJ dance party outside at night. We go to find music playing and not a soul in sight other than the DJ. So, we decide to drive around scout out new, better or more preferred campsites. ( a favorite past-time of the whole family…..lol how sick is that) After a tour of the parks campsites we swing back by the pavillion to find it vacant again.
Not to be outdone, my wife in a stroke of genius offers the children an alternative. “We could go back to the campsite and make S’mores with PEEPS!” We actually bought the kit to do so. They’re good, but let them cool first, that outer sugar coating can get extremely hot. So, the kids bought it, and we kill yet another night sitting around the fire, eventually retiring to the camper to play Phase 10, due to the chill in the air. (Wow, today was fun!)
Date: 04-15-2007
Weather: Sunny, Chilly, Breezy (but not GUSTY, like the day before) High Temp: 78 Low Temp: 50-something
Wake up early again, and like the morning before, just miss capturing the sunrise on video, I’ll have to do that next time. The family slowly wakes up just as my step-son and I had been readying ourselves for a morning hike without the girls. So, we settle in for breakfast and decide instead to take more family friendly hike and include my wife and step-daughter. A brisk 2 hours or so later, we’re back at camp making hot-dogs and getting ready to leave, after a short swim the kids join us and we prepare to head home. (Oh my, GARNER, this place is beautiful!)
I would HIGHLY recommend a stay at this park, while I stayed in what is known as “new Garner” I still had alot of fun and didn’t have to deal with the day use crowds around my campsite ( a common problem with the “old Garner” sites, though all the concessions, gift shop, and TWPD store are in old Garner, and a bike or a car is almost required to travel between the two, I still really enjoyed this park fully intend to come back to hike and swim more.
So, with the recent purchase of a 10ft pop-up tent camper, the family and I now enjoy the hobby of camping. On our maiden camping trip as a family at Ink’s Lake, my wife and I decided I should blog about my camping experiences. I deciding it was a great idea, immediately began taking notes about my gear, my campsite, the weather, and anything information I could get my hands on to disseminate back to the public. And so I’ve created a few new categories to deal with these new types of posts.
The Happy Camper includes general stuff camping and outdoor recreation in the state of Texas. (and where ever else I may travel)
Camper’s Blog covers the specific details of my camping experiences as well as anecdotes and information about the campsites themselves.
Gear: Cheers and Jeers houses all of my rants and raves about specific camping, hiking and outdoor recreation products.
and last but not least…
Tails from the Trails details much of the information about my hikes (one of my favorite past-times and 99.9999% of the reason I camp) and is likely to be one of the most expansive sections.
While, unfortunately I did not begin collecting information early enough in my Ink’s Lake trip, I’ve just returned from a 2 day, 2 night camp out at Garner State Park, which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone within a 5 hour drive. And so, over the next few days, I intend to write up my notes. So, watch for frequent updates in the near future.
At the begining of the month, I made a list of 13 words. Kept in a safe place (read: in my wife’s purse where I’ll never find it…) and removed from my mind, I am now going to honestly do a word association exercise of my own creation. (Thank you, short-term memory loss!)
1. foot:
2. chicken:
3. Ah-Ha:
4. drink:
5. funk:
6. watch:
7. fly:
8. loan:
9. boot:
10 take:
11. seat:
12. house:
13. chemical:
So, I’ve been thinking lately about all the committees and hearing we’ve had to discuss the most obvious and basic of points. Silly questions like “Has the presence of American troops in the Middle East caused an increase in terrorist attacks. Hmmmmm, let me think it over. No wait! I need a study, with a study about that study to insure its truthiness (Thank you Mr. Colbert). After the study for the study concludes, we’ll have a hearing. Immediately called a kangaroo court; there is a follow-up hearing about the “partisan-ship” of the hearing. All the while the media snaps up the bad news like a Great White Shark grabbing a Leopard Seal. Is there really a need to do intensive research on the topic? Is it not obvious these people are just as cheesed-off about us being there as we are about our sons and daughters dying in the desert? I’m sure they are. Is it any wonder the President of Iran is currently an Islamic dictator hell bent on destroying the US? If any of this is news to you; you need a wake-up call. RINGRING!
For my inaugural post of Thirteen Things for Thursday; I would like to start out with something simple. Such as 13 albums I feel every person should be issued at birth in no particular order. Feel free to post a comment including your own personal favorites.
1. The Point by Harry Nilsson - An awesome combination of a seeming innocent children’s bed-time story with an underlying social commentary most adult listeners can even enjoy. As a child my father used to play this for my siblings and I as a special treat. I’ve done the same for my step-children, although I play it on CD now instead of a reel-to-reel player. It’s quickly becoming a family tradition. Just listening to one track from it would be like having only an appetizer to break a 10 day fast. Although I prefer to listen to the album as a whole; some of its stand-out tracks include: Think About Your Troubles, P.O.V. Waltz, and Me And My Arrow.
2. The Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse - A remix album consisting of Jay-Z’s Black album and The Beatles White Album. A vast departure from your standard hip-hop fare. I have always been a fan of both bands, so DJ Danger Mouse invented the musical Peanut Butter Cup. Two things you love made better by mixing like Cran-Apple juice. With tracks like Dirt Off Your Shoulder deftly mixed with Helter Skelter I instantaneously fell in love. Like a bartender for your ears, DJ Danger Mouse is one of my all time favorite musicians. Ironically, I’m such a fan, he’s the only musician to appear twice on this list.
3. St. Elsewhere by Gnarles Barkley - You have got to hear it to understand. In an awesome twist of fate, Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo recorded an album together. While I am not an “across the board” fan of hip-hop and R & B; this is something everyone should hear, repeatedly. While difficult to describe, their sound covers most every musical genre up until now and beyond. Singles like Crazy and Smiley Faces you’d swear you were listening to an old soul band. While other tracks like Feng Shui and Transformer can only be deemed hip-hop. No matter what you want to call it, I can’t get enough of it.
4. Perfecto Presents Another World by Paul Oakenfold - Possibly the best double disc dance mix I’ve ever had the pleasure of aurally exploring. The album starts with very placid tones sampled from Dead Can Dance, and slowly morphs into a pulsating machine of rhythmic joy. With few lyrics and repetitive beats, this album is not one to sit and contemplate; but creation entirely its own. Of course, I’m rather partial to dance music, and I doubt it would go over well at a geriatric home, it is one of my favorite party albums. Just drop in both discs and hit play…OH, and enjoy the ride. Almost like an ice replica Michelangelo’s David, it’s good for a party mix, but you wouldn’t want it in your living room everyday.
5. Kaya by Bob Marley and the Wailers - Simply the best reggae album of all time. Timeless grooves and the silky-smooth sound of the young Bob Marley crooning Rasta anthems and love songs. While Exodus is widely accepted as his best work; I’m more impressed, as usual to see Bob showing a softer side of his musical personality. With laid back tunes like Easy Skankin’, Misty Morning, Kaya (for which the album was named) and Satisfy My Soul this album is a great choice for Sunday morning coffee, or a long peaceful drive.
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
Plato - Courtesy of ThinkExist.com
Sometime between 428 and 348 BCE, Plato spoke these famous words. And though for thousands of years they fell upon deaf ears; these words now resonate so loudly the din grows completely unbearable. Politics in general now falls into the hands of the dastardly and incompetent. Greed is the new compassion. Hate is the new love. Deprivation is the new giving. Torture is the new kindness.
So, yet again in an attempt to entice myself to blog more frequently my good-buddy Haggis, was gracious enough to update my website and add a bunch of cool widgets. I also noticed my step-son, was blogging more frequently than the “self-proclaimed writer” in the house. On that note, I myself will be adding some new and improved content to assure a constant flow of inane psycho-babble to inundate your listless minds. Furthermore, I will stray from my normal focus on politics and include wider variety of topics.
Coming September 7th: Thirteen Things for Thursday!
Okay, so I haven’t posted or updated anything in a while…I’ve been busy and not really paying much attention to the news and such. I’m quite un-amused with how things have been turning out lately, politically speaking. The Administration notorious for breaking the law, strikes again with it’s banking scheme…Then tries to fight back claiming it’s in the “interest of national security”. I smell something….Is that cow-dung? haha.
Now, on to the part that’s really got me freaking out. What’s with all the protesters at military funerals lately? Okay, so I understand that “The War in Iraq” isn’t the lightest of topics. But, can someone enlighten me as to how exactly “God” is punishing the U.S. for it’s tolerance of homosexuality by killing our soldiers? Okay, I’ve heard a lot of half-baked ideas spewing from the gaping maws of the Christian Right before, but this is ridiculous. What next, corralling them all up into “work camps”? It seems to me that in our attempt to separate ourselves from the Extremists we’re fighting, some people from our great nation have taken it upon themselves to act just like them only in the name of God instead of Allah.
It seems almost surreal to me. How red-blooded American citizens can ruin another man’s (or woman’s) funeral, in the name of their so-called “God”. While I am not a very religious person, I certainly don’t side with whack-jobs like that. It makes sick to thing that grieving families have to deal with these zealots screaming and waving signs…so really have some decency, stay home and be mad there…or put on your tin-foil hat and fret about how the gays are ruining our country…but leave the families of our military out of it. They have enough grief to deal with, without clowns telling them their children, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands or whomever was killed by God. This is just as proposterous as the days when the Christian Right claimed AIDS was a punishment. Violent words from the mouths of impotent men. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Footnote: I, in no way, support this war or this administration and also, I am NOT bashing all persons who wish to practice Christianity, just these losers.)