O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, by default

Well, the grass isn't as high as an elephants eye, yet, but tonight I find myself in the state of Oklahoma.  That wasn't what the plan was, but that's how it turned out.  :)  Just before I pulled out of Balcones this morning, Adrian asked me to come and see something in the trees about 100 yards behind out sites.  He showed me several dead trees with a whole bunch of birds in them.  It turned out that there were about 50  Mississippi Kites roosting together.  What a thrill it was to see them!  Within moments, they all took off together and headed on with their journey.  Just like me, they were migrating to old stomping grounds.  :)

This morning was the first test of my new trucker's GPS.  I plugged in the address for the campground that I planned to stop at outside of Denison, TX.  I had the GPS set up to recognize the height and width and weight of my rig, so as soon as I pulled out onto FM 1431 a warning panel came on that indicated that this was not a recommended truck route, and there was not enough information available to recommend it.  Of course, I already knew what the twisty, hilly road was like since that's how I got here in the first place.  It's slow going with the rig, and there are no areas for the many cars behind me to pass until I got to Lago Vista.  It is what it is.  There is no other way to get out of there.

As I approached Cedar Park, the GPS routed me off of 1431 and onto US 183.  When I left here last year, I just stayed on 1431 until I reached I-35N.  The GPS indicated that there were truck restrictions if I didn't turn.  I took the new route, and it had much less dense traffic, and I did indeed end up on I-35N.  So far, so good.  When I went through Dallas, I was very thankful to have it telling me about upcoming turns and lane changes.  Without a second person in the rig watching signs, I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to change lanes quickly enough to make some of the maneuvers that were required.  I'm sure glad I did this on a weekend rather than a week day. 

After about 270 miles, I arrived at the entrance to the Granddaddy RV park.  Since there were no signs along the road, I'm sure I would never have found this place without the GPS.  The directions in the Passport America book were not very good.  Anyway, after driving around the campground, I decided I would not stay there tonight.  The place just wasn't to my liking.  I've stayed in some campgrounds that were not the best, but this place had very small back in sites (with no place to put the toad), and was really run down.  The electrical posts were all rusty and none of them stood up straight.  They all looked like someone had backed into them.  There has been only one other time in the last four years when I have left without staying in a campground that I've chosen ahead of time.  That other time was in a state park outside of Yakima, WA.

So, I got back on US 75 and headed into Oklahoma.  I wasn't sure where I'd end up for the night.  That was a little outside of my comfort range.  ;(  I was tired of driving, so that's how I ended up at the RV Station campground.  I'm sure this place used to be a KOA.  You can tell by the shape of the office building.  It's just about as pricey as a KOA as well.  :(  At least the hookups are vertical!  Nice, big, old trees shade the sites, and it will do for a one night stop over.  290 miles is more than I like to do in a day, but I need to get used to it since I'll be traveling with my sister before too long.  :)

I really appreciate the comments that you readers leave on the blog, and I'd like to respond to a couple of them this evening:

Katie:  Emma is safely ensconced in her crate in front of the kitchen sink when we travel.  I now brace the crate between the sofa and the dinette bench.  The first time she traveled with me, I didn't brace it, and on a quick turn the crate turned upside down and went down the exit stairs with her in it!  There wasn't anywhere for me to pull off the road for about thirty miles to check on her.  :(  When I could safely stop, I did, and she was no worse for wear.  She doesn't sleep in the crate, but remains casually aware during the entire drive. (perhaps preparing for another flight through the air??)

Sam & Donna:  Read the above to Riggs from Emma, and he may not be so jealous.  :)

Kathy:  You may envy me having the painted buntings, but I envy you for seeing whoopers!  Thanks for following my blog.  :)

Tomorrow, I plan to move on to a Corps of Engineers Campground on a lake and stay for two nights.  That's the plan, but.....

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later,  Judy

Doing time...

I spent most of today working in the office.  That's not my favorite thing to do, but since Peggy and Caroline left, Rob is somewhat at loose ends (no shock there!).  I got quite a bit of the stuff assembled for the van packets for drivers for the Songbird Festival that is only two weeks away.  I also reorganized the education boxes for the insect program that were pretty well all mixed up from last Thursday's school presentation.  I put in my hours, so now the rest of the week I'll be doing things that are more enjoyable for me.

Tomorrow morning I'll get organized for my talk to the Burnet County Master Naturalists meeting in Oatmeal, TX.  Then on Thursday and Saturday I'll be doing the bird tours.  I won't have the van to use, however.  It left today for Atwater NWR.  They are borrowing it for their Atwater Prairie Chicken Festival this coming weekend.  Next week, they'll drive it back along with one of their vans that we'll borrow for our upcoming Songbird Festival. 

I'll be driving an old Suburban for the bird tours, and will probably have some people drive their own cars since there is not as much seating in the Suburban.  It should be interesting.  :)  I'm hoping we'll be luckier than the past tours.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later,  Judy

Fish, oatmeal, and beef.

Sounds like selections on a menu, doesn't it?  Well, I experienced all three things today and it didn't have anything to do with eating.  I picked up Peggy this morning around 9:00, at the Flying X, and we headed out in the rain for Burnet, TX.  That's where the bird tour I'll be guiding on Saturday will begin.  As I said yesterday, I wanted to check out the locations where the tour will go ahead of time.  We only had one wrong turn and detour before arriving at the County Store where the tour will begin.  Since we didn't have very good directions, we went inside to ask where the Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery was.  Of course, we had to buy some fresh bakery items to fuel our journey.  :)

FISH....This is a foggy, overcast view of the fish pond areas of the hatchery.  Since we were traveling in an official Fish and Wildlife vehicle, we were given a personal tour of the hatchery grounds.  The staff was aware that there would be a bird tour coming on Saturday, and they showed me the best places to take the group to observe birds.  That was a great help to me since I've never been here before.

This National Fish Hatchery raises several kinds of fish including catfish, striped bass, trout, and another species that I can't recall this evening.  Behind this pond, you can barely see the outline of the Texas hills.  The Colorado River borders the hatchery and I will take the group down along its bank.  We observed scaup, egrets, an osprey, and a grebe, through the rain, during our drive. The forecast for Saturday is for much more pleasant conditions, so I'm hoping that will result in better birding.

We checked out the other two places that the tour will go, but didn't have access to them today.  One is on a ranch and the other is at the local water treatment plant.  I feel better after having located where I'll be going.

After stopping for lunch, we headed back toward the refuge via a slightly different route.

OATMEAL....Since we took a back road on our return journey, we were able to go through the town of Oatmeal, Texas.  This town is very small, and about the only things around are this oatmeal (?) tank and the town cemetery.  I don't think they raise oats around here, so don't know how this town got it name.  I'm thinking it took us less than three minutes to go through there.  :)

After I dropped Peggy off at the Flying X, I decided to take the more scenic route back to headquarters. 

BEEF....If you were reading my blog last year at about this time, you will recognize that I was traveling down aptly named Cow Creek Road. 

I just love looking at these Texas longhorns.  There's such history in their breed.  Cow Creek Road doesn't have a lot of traffic, and I'm happy about that.  These longhorns wander along the road, and there is great birding along this ten mile stretch of back country as well.  Last year when I was here during the drought, there wasn't much water in the creek, but today, the creek was rushing along and there was water crossing the road at several places.  I'll be sure to go back down this road again when the rain stops to take some pictures of the scenic areas the creek has cut through this canyon.

What an enjoyable adventure today was despite the rain.  I'm looking forward to leading that bird tour on Saturday!

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later,  Judy