It really shows how much care the rangers put into maintaining the park. I can appreciate how all the buildings are fully lit up with Christmas lights. They didn’t have to put this much effort in for a handful of campers, but they did. With those tall buildings, it must have taken some effort, and it added another warm dimension to our stay.
In the morning I took a shower in the camp showers. It was a notable experience with the water flow akin to standing under a firehose. Coming from the West coast, land of droughts and a disappearing Lake Mead, it felt criminal to consume 500 gallons of pure gold on a shower. I still feel some residual guilt about it, to be honest.
Every day we end up leaving camp 10-20 minutes earlier than the previous day. Even a five minute head start feels like a win on these long driving days.
We decided that the three driving shifts aren’t really working for us. I’m most productive in the morning and frustrated that I can’t use that time to work, so with my hands tied to the wheel, I just end up micromanaging how Lisa does hers. Nobody wins.
Instead we decide to try one or two hour driving shifts, allowing me work when I’m most productive.
Lisa takes the first shift on this day.
The park is situated in a suburb an hour East of Houston, and as we get nearer the center of Houston the drive becomes more and more stressful.
Ef Houston, really.
I’ve had a strong dislike for this city and it’s residents from the first time we ended up here on a layover coming home from spending the best Christmas ever in super chill Costa Rica. What a miserable and angry people those Houstonians were when the plane doors opened.
Our drive through the city did nothing to dispel those feelings.
The intensity of the drive peaked near the center of the city, and only began to dissipate as we made our distance from it. By the time it was my turn to drive, I was just as stressed out as if I had done the drive myself.
We had lunch in the Love’s parking lot.
It was windy AF on this side of Houston. The giant American flag was flying so hard, it might as well have been made of steel.
With the plains of Texas ahead of us, this gale strength wind would later follow us all the way to New Mexico.
Rather than experience these winds on the freeway where we were not only pushed around by gusts, but also by passing trucks, we decided to take the back roads through the state, threading the needle between Austin and San Anton’.
Unwittingly, we ended up driving the same familiar roads that we took last year to visit with extended family near Austin.
Just like last year, we got stuck on the main drag of the same German themed town of Fredricksburg which seems to be perpetually filled with tourists.
Again, as we were busy trying to extract ourselves from tourist traffic, we forgot to fill up, and similarly got gas at the same one horse town gas station fifty miles away, which seems like the last gas station on earth when you’re running on fumes.
The Texas state bird should be the Buzzard.
Wakes of them were knowingly circling overhead just waiting for suckers like us to run out of gas, and begin walking to find an oasis, only to find our fate sealed by the craggy unforgiving landscape.
Once we filled up, it was time for us to find our next refuge.
We ended up at the Caverns of Sonora.
It was a beautiful spot. Miles off the beaten path, pitch black, there was nobody there.
Perhaps all the buzzards got them.
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