Sunday, May 9, 2021

We would recommend a Texas State Park pass

From Tyler, Texas, we made the 63-mile drive to yet another Texas State Park. This is our last one of the season, and our park pass is well worn. We signed up for another two night stay (so we got the second night at half-price) and settled into Daingerfield State Park in the northeast corner of the state.


Even in the middle of the week, there weren't many camp sites open for multiple days that would fit our rig. We ended up staying in the less popular Mountain View Campground. Having fewer camp sites available makes choosing a site during the on-line registration process much faster. But it also illustrates that camping is more popular than ever here in Texas. We were lucky to get such a nice, reasonably level spot here where the tall pines make our motor home look tiny.

It was a cool morning when we set out on a hike on this 3.6-mile trip around the lake. We started in the trees on the Mountain View Trail, and then headed downhill to the Rustling Leaves Trail.

Shortly after we got started, we got a report of a copperhead snake that was on the trail ahead. The four children in the group that made the report were quick to tell us that Mom almost stepped on it. This cool morning it wasn't moving very fast. Before the parents could get the children's stories shut down, they also reported that Dad had killed the venomous snake. It might be strange that we were a little disappointed that we wouldn't see the copperhead this morning.

But it wasn't long before we did have our first snake sighting. We found a bright lime-green snake on the trail.

Because it was cool, this little guy was barely moving. He didn't mind a close-up picture, and we were glad to see from the shape of the head and the round eyes that this was not a dangerous snake. 

We were especially glad because we would see three more of those little lime-green snakes scattered on the trail during our hike today.

About half-way through our hike, the trail took us close to the water of Little Pine Lake. Wouldn't you know it, we looked down in the water at our feet and saw another snake! 

Scaly hiking companions don't usually bother us, but one thing that really scares us is poison ivy. We found that staying away from this nuisance can be very difficult in the Texas state parks we have seen this spring. It's a banner year for growing this itchy plant with its mitten-like leaves. We found it growing in healthy clumps, and even crawling up tree trunks. We try to stay away from these "leaves of three," but it is tough around here. This is our fourth state park in our recent travels that has done a recent controlled burn, so they are trying to control this pesky plant.

We did find cuter, less itchy park residents when we circled near the covid-closed nature center on our loop trail. The swallows are preparing their nests for a new family this spring. This multi-colored mud nest looks like this mother collected building materials from several different locations.


Our two days went quickly, and we didn't even put our boat in the lake here at Daingerfield State Park. We wonder if that had anything to do with all those snake sightings on our trip around the lake?

On our last morning at the park, a constant rain kept us in the motor home. It was a soggy view out our wind shield. Even though all the camping sites had been reserved, obviously some people changed their mind about coming when they saw the rainy forecast.

We hoped the rain would quit by check-out time, but it did not. Mark's raincoat was buried in the back of the pickup. To find it meant opening the back, and exposing everything to the rain. So instead, he suited up in a trash bag to dump the tanks and unhook the utilities.

It was still raining when we hooked up the pickup and pulled out of our camp site. Even with his make-shift raincoat, Mark was soaked. He had to change to dry clothes before we made our drive today. Before he drives the motor home to a new location, Mark always checks out the roads on google maps, looking for low overpasses, or bridges with small weight limits. He'll have his chosen path running on the map of his cell phone, as well as the Garmin big-rig GPS on the dash of the motor home. At the same time, Denisa has a paper map on her lap "just in case." She keeps all the paper maps, as we are often circling back through the area. About five years ago, she started using highlighters to mark our path on those state maps. The Texas map is well worn, and has many routes highlighted on it. She learned to use a different colored highlighter for each moving day, so it shows how far we usually drive at one time.

Texas is a big state! This trip from the southern tip through east Texas took us to 9 different campgrounds over 24 days of travel. Of those campgrounds, three were Texas state parks, so we got our money out of those second half-price camping nights! We also stopped at four other neighboring state parks this spring, and our Texas state park pass was good for free entry into those places as well. So we would definitely recommend the $70 purchase of a Texas state park pass for anyone traversing the length of this very big state.

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