Finding entertainment when we have no television channels

As soon as Mark connects all our utilities to the motor home, his ritual is to come inside to tune the television and boost the phone signal. Since we usually move after several days, he's well practiced at finding the maximum number of over-the-air television stations. But here at Proctor Lake, the maximum number was zero channels. We don't watch a lot of television, but it looks like we'll have to find our own entertainment. How about sitting outside on the lounger, watching the lake instead of the television?

The windy weather has kept us from getting the kayak on the water, so it was nice to have some hiking and biking possibilities to entertain us. We had a steady stream of bluebonnets along the bike route to the dam and back.

After so many blue beauties, it's nice to see the sea of pink primrose just below the dam.

It's an aromatic ride, because of the wild garlic growing here. We enjoy the delicate flowers above the ground, and that tiny bulb under the ground smells just like garlic.

But the best find on the bike ride was a massive hill of Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets.

Excuse us for posting too many pictures, but this has to be the most spectacular hill of blooms of the entire wildflower season! We have come to love the sweet spring bulb smell that comes when sitting in the middle of a massive bloom like this.

We tried taking a panorama picture to capture the size of this hill overlooking the lake. Denisa is that tiny bump on top of the hill, with the flowers stretching as far as she could see. We have wandered into another of God's wonders today!

Instead of watching television, Denisa enjoys watching butterflies.

They enjoy tasting the same blooms that we enjoy seeing.

A walk down to the bridge is like changing the channel on the television. Now our nature show is tuned to the swallows that are nesting in double-decker mud condominiums under the bridge.

A nearby mud puddle is another great place for the swallows to gather.

It's entertaining to watch as they scoop up the mud needed to put the final touches on their nests under the bridge.

On a drive down the road we catch sight of something in the grassy bar ditch. Some would think this is a road runner, but Mark points out that it is a grass walker instead.

He struck this pose right after he plucked something out of the grass.

It looks like he has snagged a bit of lunch in his beak.

That reminds us--we also need some food. So we headed to make a grocery run to our nearest town--Dublin, Texas. They celebrate their Irish roots, with green cloverleaves throughout the town. But our main interest today was the Dublin Bottling Company.

They started bottling Dr. Pepper here in 1891, and they are oldest soda bottling company in the state of Texas.

We were disappointed to find that they only have tours of the bottling plant and museum on Thursday through Sunday, and of course we weren't here those days. So the best we could do was take pictures from the big windows on the street. We found out that they haven't actually bottled anything here for the last seven years. It seems that no one is making repair parts for an 1891 bottling machine.

They do however, still make use of their special recipe to mix up their special blend of several soft drinks. This mixture is now bottled elsewhere, but still gets the special Dublin label. While we were in the visitor's center, we were lamenting the fact that even the soda shoppe was closed so we couldn't buy a sample. That's when one of the workers disappeared, then reappeared with these two bottles of ice cold Dublin drinks. He handed them to us and wouldn't even let us pay for them.

That label touts the reason that Dublin's drinks are special--they are "always made with pure cane sugar." We found that other bottled soft drinks use the cheaper high fructose corn syrup.

We had to take advantage of the photo opportunity in the park out back. Here's Denisa holding her root beer that exactly matches its giant counterpart.

A little tour of an interesting little town like Dublin, Texas, is a great substitute for watching television any day. We found that Monday afternoon isn't a great time to visit, however, since the other two museums in town are also closed that day.

Back at Lake Proctor, we see that another favorite form of entertainment must be fishing from the docks. Every morning a group of anglers met to entice the crappie that are spawning right now.

But our favorite view of the lake was the evening, when we could watch the sun setting over the lake in brilliant colors. The fiery sky even turned the lake water red.

The sun setting in the west was turning the clouds in the east into tufts of pink cotton candy. Turning to the east we see that the brilliant pink was also reflected in the lake. With color and high definition like this, we certainly haven't missed our television. But this sunset signals the end of our stay here on Lake Proctor, as we have plans for another road trip!