Palmetto SP: God's First Draft for Heaven?

MONDAY, JULY 25th, 2011
Well this is my fifth trip this summer. I am alone and loving it at Palmetto State Park in Ottine, TX. Ottine is between Gonzales and Luling off of SH 183. More importantly, it is 5.1 miles south of Buc-ees on IH 10. I chose this park for several reasons. First of all, I remembered it having a lot of shaded sites. N2S and I camped in a tent here about six years ago. It was hot. We had a fan, but could have used a popup with a helaciously powerful AC like mine. I also wanted to stay fairly close to home. This place is within eighty miles. And, I wanted a place with some trails, but not killer ones like the ones at Lost Maples.

Anyway, I was packed and ready to go last night, wishing I had just gone ahead and planned on another day. For a while, my dad took my mind of waiting. He hadn't answered his phone all day. A friend went to check on him, and he wasn't there. Fortunately, he was only out to dinner with the only people who's number I don't have. Of course, if he had carried his new Jitterbug phone that I trained him on Saturday, we could of avoided all the stress. What the heck- it passed the durned time.

I tossed and turned all night like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I couldn't sleep a wink until about 5:00 AM. I wasn't leaving at the crack of dawn anyway. Check in time isn't officially until 2:00 PM. I did call, however, to see if I could show up early when it looked like I was gonna be ready to leave at 9:30 AM. That's when the reminder to call Dad's cancer doctor sounded off on my iPod Touch. I was checking on prescriptions only to learn that his appointment for Thursday, which I was planning to take him to when I got back, was actually today, Monday!

That threw my whole morning off considerably. I arranged for N1S to take him out there, but that meant going two hours earlier for a blood draw. All of the hows, wheres, and whats had to be explained to N1S. Plus I had tons of questions for the doctor that I had to go ahead and print out for N1S to share with her. After all that, I think I actually pulled out of the driveway at about 12:20.

As I was winding my way to the highway, a kid in the back of a pickup started waving exuberantly at me. It was Storm, N2S's friend who has gone camping with me twice this summer. He was on his way to band camp. He sent me a text that said, “Have a great time camping!” He is a nice kid.

Anyway, I had a totally uneventful drive all the way up here. The only thing remotely interesting is that I don't remember any of it except the actual camp sites. The drive into the park was really foreign to me. I almost wonder if they have made some changes to the park. I don't remember even seeing the lake last time.

The lady at headquarters let me choose my own site from her computer screen. I chose number 11 because it looked easiest to back in to. Ya'll know backing ain't my thing! She told me just to call her, if I wanted to switch. I drove past the road I was supposed to turn into because the park map is not to scale. On paper it looked like my turn would be about five miles up the road. It wasn't. It was about a half mile. I ended all the way up to Alternate 90 and had to turn around. That wasn't exactly easy, as there was no shoulder on the road. I ended up turning down 90, going another two or three miles and going through somebody's half-circle driveway. By the time I was finished finding the campsites, I had taken a sixteen-mile roundtrip jaunt in the country.

I found the site and didn't like the direction I was backing in from. There wasn't as much room for pulling forward to straighten out as the map had hinted. I drove around the loop to the parking area and came back going the other direction. It wasn't my best backing job, but I finagled it in. Then I got out of the truck and dealt with the deluge of text messages that were bombarding me during the trip. Somebody had created a text group for some of my friends that is sort of like a virtual party line. I took a moment to figure out how to opt out of the stupid thing. Then I realized my baldspots, freed yesterday with a super-short camper's haircut, were frying. Site number eleven was the only one in the whole danged park with not a tree in sight. I hadn't noticed because I was worrying over backing in without being the entertainment for the other campers.

I called the lady and asked to move to twelve. It looked like it wasn't ever going to see sunlight, it was so shaded. I pulled out of eleven, did a loop around the campsites, and backed in with no trouble at all. Then I got enough done on the popup to get the AC going. I went back out and finished everything else, and when I came back in, it was already feeling cooler. For the first time all summer, I had to turn the AC knob so it wouldn't cool as much. Shade makes all the difference.

I did my usual strip to my skivvies and worked inside getting everything where I wanted it. Then I sat down with a Gatorade and studied the park trails while I ate some instant noodles for lunch. I chose the San Marcos River Trail, because I could catch it right by the camper. It wasn't but about two miles all together, but I took about an hour and a half going down off shoots, stopping to take pictures, and finding a geocache along the way.

When I got back to the camper, it was really cool inside. I sat at the table and processed all the photos I took with my Flip video camera. Before I knew it, it was almost seven, and I was HUNGRY. I decided to go to Buc-ees and grab something since it is only 5.1 miles away. I decided to eat on this trip and diet at home. Seems to make sense after my near death experiences with Lost Maples from dehydration and Bastrop from potassium deficiency from sweating so much. I won't eat there again. The food is WONDERFUL, but there was not a healthy bite in what I got. I'm too ashamed of my bad choices to tell you what I ordered. Suffice it to say, it will take tons of willpower to pass it up tomorrow. That's okay though. I have plans to eat a vegetarian burger at Blake's Diner for dinner tomorrow. (Please, Lord. Don't let me get the chicken fried steak that people drive hundreds of miles for.)

I brought the food back to the camper and felt so guilty after eating it that I took another hour long hike before it got dark. Since then, I've called home, processed more pictures, written some of this, and cracked open a huge bottle of Shiraz. Right now, I need to make a trip to the dumpster and get rid of all the trash I have accumulated. Last thing I need is to wake up with a pack of racoons sitting on my belly eating leftovers!!!!!!!

TUESDAY, JULY 26th, 2011
One of the best things about being alone on this trip is that I get to have total control of my own agenda. I slept until almost 10:00 AM this morning. There was no teenager rocking the trailer and yelling while playing iPod Touch video games. There was no “crack of dawn Jack”. There was no “wanna go outside Nick”. There was only me and the sound obliterating hum of my awesome AC. When I did open my eyes, I lay in my bunk for awhile just basking in the glory of my aloneness.

Breakfast was nice. I had bought some jalapeno sausage kolaches at Buc-ees and put them in the cooler overnight. I'm not a fanatic about things needing to be heated up. Heck, one of my all-time favorite foods is cold pizza- right out of the icebox. Oh, I mean right out of the refrigerator. (That's for you younger people who didn't grow up calling a refrigerator an icebox because your younger than mine parents grew up with refrigerators, NOT iceboxes.) Anyway they were really tasty. Once again, not a good nutritional choice.

Today, I used my Mr. Coffee one cup coffee maker, which I had totally forgotten about. It was my one and only Quibids purchase about a year ago. I got it for something like $1.50. I was hoping to eventually get a camper, so I got it and put it in the garage. It brews a cup of coffee (about a 12 oz. one) in about two minutes. When I tested it back when I bought it, I didn't like how hard it was to clean the grinds out for camping. Today I used instant coffee. It was good. My favorite brand of instant coffee is Nestle's Dolca. I first found it in a grocery store in Monterrey, Mexico about thirty-three years ago. Now with that North American Trade thingy, I can get it, and a lot of my favorite Mexican products, at our local grocers.

After breakfast, I set out to explore more of the park. I went in a totally different direction than I had planned. Instead of taking the Mesquite Flats and Ottine Swamp trails, I crossed the San Marcos River at the low water crossing, passed through the other campsite area, and got on the Oxbow Lake Trail. It meanders around the whole lake and brings you back were you started. It was really nice, except that you can only see the lake about three times during the hike.
I had the GPS going during the hike (in case I got lost and needed to get back to the camper). It indicated that I was close to a geocache. I stopped and picked that one up. As far as I can tell, there are only two active caches here in the park. I might get some others that are close to the park, but I may just pass on that. I still have several trails to explore, and I want to pack up and get out of here no later than 11:00 AM tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, my life in the city needs me!

After my hike, I came back and processed videos. I had taken 47, so that took awhile, since I usually get anywhere from 1- 5 stills off a single clip. I also took time to write this. Now, I am cool. I am totally hydrated and ready to go. I think I am going to drive into Luling and enjoy a late lunch/early dinner at Blake's Diner. (NOTE- God has answered my prayer. Remember earlier when I wrote, “Please, Lord. Don't let me get the chicken fried steak that people drive hundreds of miles for”? Well, I just called to make sure they were still in business, only to be told that they close at 3:00 PM on Tuesday's. I won't be going there after all! I am now using Yelp! to find another place.)

Well I used Yelp! to find another place. The first one I thought about was the City Market Barbecue joint. I had heard of it before, and knew most people really like it. But, when I read some of the reviews, I decided not to go there. Evidently you have to go from place to place in the restaurant buying your items separately without much help from the people who run the place. I wouldn't mind doing that with a group friends, but, believe it or not, I am a little too shy to do something that confusing solo. Instead, I opted for The Coffee Shop. It supposedly has the best burgers in Luling. I don't care much for burgers, but figured they might have other stuff, also.

On the way to dinner, I stopped at the scenic overhang and took some pictures. I remember going there with N2S once, and even going over the edge to look for a geocache. Now, six years later, I looked at it with a rush of terror. I can't believe I let us traipse down there in the brush and boulders. That must have been before the time we saw the world's largest snake at O. P. Schnabel Park. That sucker took about three minutes from start to finish to slither across the danged trail! That was when we stopped doing a lot of caching in the summertime, and opted for virtual caches instead.

NOTE: I just decided to hike up to the bath house and use their restroom facilities. When I opened the camper door, I was surprised to see that it was still fairly light outside. My tinted windows made it dark enough to put the ceiling light on about 7:45. When it looked dark outside the windows, I closed the curtains. That was evidently way before it got dark for real. I just gained about 45 minutes. I thought it was about 9:30 when I went to the restroom, but it was actually only about 8:45.

The Coffee Shop is right down town in Luling near the railroad tracks. In fact, a train went by while I was eating there. It reminded of my days living in Waeldar, Texas. My little apartment was right by the tracks. When a train went by, I couldn't talk on the phone or hear my TV. For the first few weeks, the night trains woke me up. I got used to it though.

I am really glad I went to The Coffee Shop after yesterday's pig out session. They offered a vegetarian Reuben sandwich! It was served on homemade marbled bread, cut about an inch thick. It was very good. I should have passed on the fries, but they were really good, also. The iced tea had a touch of mint in it. When I asked what was in the tea, the server was all apologetic. She had given me the wrong one. I told her I liked it, and got my refills that way, also.

I spent quite a while at The Coffee Shop, because it is the only time on this trip I 've had WiFi. I forgot to check at Buc-ees. I had 17 Fac`ebook notifications that didn't come through to that sorry Blackberry app. I keep forgetting to use the plain old mobile Facebook, which is ten times better. And, NO, I do not want an iPhone right now.

After eating, I headed out of town the opposite of how I came in. There was a geocache popping up on my GPS called Mighty Oak. It was only a mile out of town, and was supposedly on the side of the road. When I got there, I pulled out my iPod Touch and read all the details on the geocaching app before getting out of the truck. Lucky for me, because all the people before me were saying, “Avoid the tree. It is infested with a bee hive!” One of them said, “Trust your coordinates and stay far from the tree.” That's what I did, only I couldn't find a cache. Then I noticed a rolled up piece of paper about an inch wide laying on the ground. To a cacher, that is obviously the log from a micro-cache. I picked it up and sure enough that was it. I noticed the white cap from a pill container laying near it and eventually found the container laying in the grass.

One of the fundamental rules of geocaching is repairing caches for the owner when you can. I usually have all the stuff you would need with me in my geocaching backpack. This trip, I didn't event bring it with me. Instead, I folded a gas station receipt and added it to the log so there would be more room for others and me to sign. Then I took some clothesline I had in the back of my truck and tried to hang it. Unfortunately, that line had been in there all summer long and just fell apart on me. I saw a strip of tire treads from a blowout and actually figured out that I could work a metal wire out of it. I used the wire to hang the cache on a barbed-wire fence behind a telephone pole. I don't know where it was actually supposed to be.

From there, I headed over to Buc-ees and filled up the truck. It was super busy, so I blew off the two caches that are hidden there. I didn't even go inside. I wasn't hungry, but that isn't always necessary there!

Back at the camper, I figured out a route on the trails that would get me on all of the ones I hadn't been on yet. It took me about two hours. One of the trails was cordoned off. The sign said, “This is not a thru-way. The next 2,000 feet of trail are closed.” I thought at first that they were talking to cars, since that stretch was a dirt road. I decided to go on. I figured I could just give that explanation, if anyone disapproved of my being there. There was no reason I could see for it being closed to hikers. There were some spots where they were replacing the crushed granite, but other than that, it was a perfectly good trail.

Since getting back to the camper, I have been sitting here at the dinette processing my photos and writing. I'm kind of tired this evening, so I expect I will go to bed a little early after I kill what's left of that huge bottle of Shiraz! I will definitely read a few chapters of my current book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I also might watch the rest of What's Up Doc? or some other movie on my iPod Touch. I don't know. I don't have to have a plan because I am by myself.

Tomorrow, I hope to wake up early while it is still fairly cool. I won't set an alarm, though. I want to pack up and put the camper down. I'll go ahead and hitch up, but if it is early enough, I'll take a nice long hike around the lake again. Then it's back to the real world, where I 'll mope around the house waiting for next week's trip to the Koyote Ranch in Medina, Texas. That place looks really nice online and should make a great last trip of the summer. Don't count me out though. I plan on going several weekends during the school year. There's absolutely no reason not to.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27th, 2011
Well, this morning will not go down in my camper history as the best, even though it started out really nicely. I woke up without an alarm at 7:30 AM. I was a little too cold, but hey, that's the price you pay when you have a sensational AC in your camper and forget to turn it down a bit before going to bed. I made myself a cup of coffee and drank it while looking at Facebook on my Blackberry. Then I started packing up everything in the camper. When it was all ready to go, I turned off the AC, took off the door, and went outside to loosen the tent areas and dry off any AC condensation. The AC kept dripping on the rear bunk canvas, so I decided to go ahead and push the bunk in. As I did, I heard a horrific crash from inside the camper. In what will live as one of my most bonehead mistakes of all time, I had forgotten to take the dadgum ice chest off of the counter and set it on the floor. Pushing the bed in had forced it off the counter and sent it crashing to the floor.

Now I have mentioned the problems I was having with mystery flooding on my camper floor before. Remember how I actually took it in to Ancira to get it checked out? Well that problem is solved. I took care of it by draining my tank and putting the plug in the sink after discovering another flood a few days back. I was going to go practice backing the camper at Elrod, but when I jacked up the hitch receiver, water started running out the back of the camper. It had been pooled on the floor since the last trip home, I guess. All of that was caused by not screwing a stupid little plastic plug in the drain. I didn't even know I had one until I was looking in the manual to find how to turn the pump on. It was just sitting in the box. I pulled it out and, sure enough, it screwed right into the drain. I don't know why Ancira never mentioned it.

Back to today. The water on the floor this morning was no mystery! As it crashed to the floor and broke in places, the ice chest emptied the water from 20 pounds of ice all over the floor. It all pooled under the dinette. It was at least two inches deep! I used one of those Sham Wow towels that I bought at the dollar store the other day. It soaked it up, I wrang it out. It soaked it up, I wrang it out. It took about 80 times!

I had to pull everything out of the camper and put it in the truck. Then I used some paper towels to dry it the rest of the way. I was worried about moisture where I can't see it, so I popped the camper back up here at the house to let it air out all day. I really don't think there is any damage. Nothing soaked up into the particle board walls like the other flood.

Since God is so good about answering my prayers and taking good care of me, here's a new one: Lord, please let next week's trip to Koyote Ranch happen without any idiotic blunders on my part. Come to think of it, how about making the whole trip blunder free on everybody's part. (I was going to say, “Let next week go off without a hitch.” Probably not a good wish for someone pulling a trailer!!!) Bye, ya'll!