Kerrville Schreiner Park: June 2015

June 16, 2015, 8:32 PM

It was only a few weeks ago that I was here for Memorial Day. That was the weekend that most of Central Texas flooded. I was in the same site. Today was another rainy day. A tropical storm is hitting the Texas coast. I hope this isn't going to be a flood-filled time. There was already too much damage from the last one.

I woke up yesterday morning with one goal in mind. Get to Kerrville and work on cleaning out the fresh water system of the Colby T. On  and off for the last few years, the water in the fresh tank has had a really foul sulphur odor. This summer, however, the smell has been non-stop! I have only myself to blame. You are supposed to sterilize the tank every year at a minimum. Since I don't drink the water, I never bothered. It sounded like a lot of trouble just to make water safe to drink, especially since I had no intensions of drinking it. I am  strictly bottled water when camping.

I skipped breakfast and rushed to get ready. As usual, everything had been packed, except a few lastt minute essentials, beginning the day I returned from the last trip. I through it all in the truck, kissed Rachel goodbye and went to Packrats.

I arrived at the park around 9:30 AM. I got to pick site 129, which is now my favorite. It is level, heavily shaded by giant pecan trees. has decent phone service, and when wanted, gets all of the Kerrville over the air channels. (There aren't very many.)

I did most of my usual set up stuff, but completly postponed my inside work. I had to take everything out of the bathtub and put it on the bed during the process, so there wasn't room for much indoor activity. I mixed a half cup of bleach with a gallon of water and used the hand pump I normally use to add potable anti freeze in the fall to get it in the fresh tank. I had hooked up the sewer pipe and run the tank dry using the fresh water pump. I filled the tank the rest of the way with the hose, ran all the faucets and the toilet for about two minutes each, then turned them all off and let the bleach water sit in the system for four hours.

Whille I waited for the four hours to end, I brought my stuff in and fot as much of my inside stuff done as possible with a bed full of extra stuff. I took the three handme down throw pillows Rachel gave me a few weeks ago when she changed the den from maroon and forest green to teal over to the picnic table and got rid of all the dog hairs that were on them. 

Then, I decided that I wanted a cold drink, so I hiked the two-mile round trip to the convenience store across from the park and got a Powerade Zero. On the way back, a strange deer and her fawns walked across the street. I didn't have my stinking camera with me. I knew they were some kind of exotics that had escaped from one of the area exotic game ranches. I was bummed to not have the camera with me, but hoped to see them again. When I got back to camp, I sat under a tree and read for an hour or so. 

There was still some waiting time left, so I got the bright idea to go to HEB and buy some tripas. For those of you who don't know, they are beef intestines. They are one of my favorite foods, but I am not allowed to cook them at the house. Every once in awhile, I cook them while camping, since I know I can hike and burn the calories. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) HEB didn't have any. I spent about an hour walking around the store putting things in my basket and taking them back out. I just couldn't bring myself to any agreement on what to buy. I decided to just go back to camp with nothing and eat dinner at Brewdawgz later.

By the time I got back to the Colby T, it was time to flush the system. I ran each of the faucets for a few minutes, then let the kitchen faucet run until the pump started to stress at empty. I filled the fresh tank with clean water, ran all the faucets again until the bleach smell was gone, then turned them off, shut the sewer draiin valves, and did a little victory dance around the trailer. No more nasty smell!

I celebrated by taking a nice five-mile hike on the trails. Before I got to the trailhead, I saw two of those exotic looking deer across the field from me. I used the camera to zoom in close. They had spral horns! I managed to get a picture of one of them that is pretty clear. Later, I looked them up and saw that they were actually blackbuck antelope!

The rest of the hike was pretty nice. It was a gorgeous sunny day. There were lots of rabbits and deer along the trail. I didn't see any humans whatsoever. Yesterday, there were only three trailers in Deer Field Loop. Nobody else arrived during the day. I had the trails to myself.

I just had a minor panic attack. I am using my bluetooth keyboard to write this on the Google Blogger app so I can upload it to my blog tomorrow when I get home. I just hit save and got a message that I was offline and could not save. I knew I was offline, but I thought you could save on the device. I cut and pasted what I had to far into the Notes app. Then I totally closed out of Blogger and opened it up to see that it was all still here. 

Anyway, I got back to the Colby T from my hike and took one of my at the sink baths. Then I sat in the AC and read for awhile until I was cooled off enough to dress for dinner. As I opened the door to leave, I saw that there were two deer in my yard, so I took some quick photos before going. Then I went on over to Brewdawgz, which is just outside the park gate.

I hhad planned on havinng a few beers and eating fish tacos. They were out of Mahi Mahi, but said they could substitute salmon. I just wasn't feeling that, so I ordered an oyster poor boy instead. It was really good. It wasn't until I paid that I realized it was the special. That made me a little nervous. I don't usually eat oysters in the summer time. I got a bad one in New Orleans a few years ago and squirted bright green liquid for nearly a week. I know- TMI. If they had oyster poor boys on special I figured they were tryig to use up their oysters. Fortunately, I dodged the bullet on that one.

Just as I left Brewdawgz a down pour started. I was glad I had driven over instead of walking like usual. It rained on and off the rest of the night, so I didn't get to take a late evening hike. I went on the internet and estimated my caloric intake. I figured out that all told, I had about 1800 calories for the day. I have been sticking to 1500 for the last six weeks, losing 23 pounds in the process. It was a good thing that I had skipped breakfast and eaten a very light lunch. I had only just undone the damage from all those kolaches on the last trip!

I spent a quiet evening reading and playing a game on the iPad. I wasn't in the mood to watch bad TV, which is pretty much all I can get here. I never even brought the TV out of the closet and hooked it up this trip.

I woke up this morning a little after 8:30. It was raining a bit outside. I spent a lazy morning reading, playing the game, and texting Tara Mastin, the TSS at my two schools. She was working her last day and was having a hard time finishing her inventory. Several items that we knew where disposed of during the 2012 deployment were suddenly back on it. She couldn't fiind my records. I told her that they were in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet in the lab. She said the file cabinet was gone. Sometime during the school year, it was taken somewhere else. Neither of us noticed. We think they did it to make room for the extra furniture they brought in for the teachers to use when they brought their classes for math. She finally found it somewhere on campus, but my folders were all missing from it. The only things in it were from before 2010. We must have texted back about 50 times trying to figure something out.

I also spent some time on a survey for the Lower Colorado River Authority about my trip to Oak Thicket  Park. I only had one bad thing to say. That was about the poor condition of that three-mile trail I hiked on. It was so overgrown I could barely see where I was stepping. That's no fun during the summer when the rattlesnakes are active.

At around 11:00, I decided to get my ass in gear and take a hike on the park roads. It was threatening ran, so I didn't want to be deep on the trails if it came. Just as I was bout to go, it started raining. That lasted for about two hours on and off. I ate lunch and read some more until I finally didn't hear anyone dancing on the camper roof. I went out and the sky seemed pretty clear, so I grabbed my hiking stuff and a gallon-size baggie for my camera (just in case) and headed off. I walked through all the camping loops along the way. Just as I was leaving one, it started to sprinkle, so  stood uner a tree to wait it out. After about five minutes, it stopped, so, I started hking again. I got about two hundred yards before it started pouring really hard. I ran to the bath house and stood under the overhang for about thirty minutes. Then I stuck the camera in the bag and went back to hiking in a light sprinkle.

I saw a lot of deer on the way. The rain didn't seem to phase them. I got shots of three different kiinds. I hope they turn out. The white tailed deer are not as skittish as the others. They are escapees from nearby exotic ranches, and have experienced being hunted. The white tails are like boardwalk pigeons- nearly domesticated. They only run off if you approach too agressively. Notmally, they stop, assess the danger, and go back to grazing.

I went throught the other RV loop and was amazed to see the red Winnebago again. He has been here the last two times I came, also. He was walking to the dumpster so I asked him if he comes every two weeks like I have been. He told me that he had been camping here for ten weeks and was finally leaving tomorrow. He hadn't planned on staying so long, and ended up at one point getting a new reservation, which forced him to change sites. I wanted to ask him why he was here for ten weeks, but didn't. All I know is that I am jealous of him. That is one sweet rig, and living at this park for ten weeks must have been freaking awesome!

It was raining pretty bad by the time I got back to the camper. I used some of the bleach in a spray bottle and gave my awning a good scrubbing. The part that shows when it is rolled up was filthy from exposure, and some of the underside when open had some moldy spots. I guess I didn't dry it as well as I thought during the floody Memorial Day Weekend trip. I didn't use it at Oak Thicket. I was too busy taking day trips around the area.

The rest of the day was spent reading, facebooking, and playing that game on the iPad until about 7:00 PM. I had just finished eating dinner when I noticed that the sun was out a bit. I quickly donned my hiking duds, grabbed my camera, and started walking on the roads again. I got about a mile in with no rain in sight. Then I sat outside watching the deer grazinng for an hour or so utnil the gnats started bothering me too much. Ever since then, I've been sitting here writing this.

I'm going to read for awhile now before crashing early. I want to get a head start on departure procedures in the morning. With that tropical storm, Weatherbug is predicting a lot of rain tomorrow. I need about 30 - 45 minutes of outdoor time to drain the tanks, get my gear in the truck, and hitch up for the trip home. I figure that by starting early enough, I can get it done in increments whenever the rain stops for a few minutes. If it doesn't rain, well lucky me. I'll just get home earlier than expected.

I am going to post this to my Hot Air Depot blog site tomorrow. I won't add anything more unless there is something out of the ordinary tomorrow morning or on the way home

Happy Trails!