Harvest Host--Our First Year Summary

Last spring we paid for an annual membership into a camping option called Harvest Host. If you aren't familiar with this concept, it provides descriptions and directions to businesses that allow self-contained RVs to stay overnight on their property. We paid the annual membership of $67.15, and even upgraded to include golf courses for an additional $19.95. We thought it might be helpful in finding camping spots when we headed west during the busy summer 2021 camping season. Almost all of the camping options provided by these businesses have no hook-ups, but they are free. But you are only allowed to stay for one night, and you should request permission to stay in advance because many of the businesses have limited parking options. Also, Harvest Host asks that campers spend $20 for merchandise from the businesses that provide a night of free camping. We were excited to use this new camping option last spring as we started our trip north from south Texas. Our first overnight stay was at a winery in central Texas. We were granted a reservation, and had a beautiful camp site beside a lake with views of the vineyard.

Because the winery was closed the day we visited, we weren't able to make our $20 purchase. We were relieved, as we aren't wine drinkers and we weren't sure what we would buy. So it was an over-all positive experience. The only negative was having to drive several miles out of our way on dirt roads to get there.

Our second Harvest Host experience was at a tiger refuge in eastern Texas. This was a huge parking lot, and we could hear the wild cats roaring overnight. Instead of purchasing merchandise, campers were required to buy tickets to the zoo-like refuge. It was interesting, and we enjoyed our day seeing all the cats. But it wasn't a cheap camping experience.

When we traveled and camped in Alaska, we looked at some Harvest Host options. But that state has so many beautiful free places to park, it would have been silly to camp in a business's parking lot. So it was useless to us in Alaska. We didn't use it again until the summer, when we used it twice in Colorado. Our third Harvest Host experience was in Pueblo, Colorado. We lucked into a cool front that allowed for a cool night stay at this lower elevation stop. Our hosts at the Trolley Turner welcomed us as soon as we arrived, and invited us to a wood lathe demonstration later that evening. It was fascinating, and we enjoyed it and learned a lot! We even got a turn at the lathe during the demonstration. We don't have room in the motor home for one of the lovely wooden bowls that we saw created, and they are quite pricy. So it was harder to find something to buy at this stop. But the hosts were great, and they invited us into their home for coffee and conversation that evening.

This is our windshield view of their yard where we overnighted, as well as the wooden mallet that we helped create on the lathe!

Our fourth Harvest Host stay was at a golf course in Colorado Springs. This was great because we couldn't find an open campground space on the weekend anywhere near this popular tourist city. This golf course didn't require you to golf, but we learned that most of the Harvest Host golf option do. To show our appreciation, we picked up trash around the parking lot.

We tried and tried and use our Harvest Host membership during our busy summer travel season. We looked forward to staying at farms or orchards where we could buy fresh produce to fulfill our $20 commitment. But when we contacted several different ones that were on our way, they were all booked up. Other times during the summer it was just too hot to spend the night in the motor home without electric hookups to keep it cooled. When we got closer to the cooler coast, we found a great vineyard in a great location. But to spend a "free" night they required a minimum purchase of two bottles of wine per person. After looking at their price list, it would have cost us over $100 (of a product that we didn't want) for this "free" night of camping. Sheesh! We also found that all the golf course camping options near the coast required that you make a tee time reservation before camping. Since we don't even carry golf clubs with us, that wasn't an option. We had read that eating at the golf clubhouse could count as your purchase, but we didn't find that to be true most of the time.

So we are at the end of our year of our Harvest Host membership, and it doesn't feel like it was a good value for us. While the summer was too hot to get much good from it, our winter trip was too cold. But as we neared southern Texas, we found a good option. Boykin Pecan Farm is on our way, and is 102 miles from last night's stay at Choke Canyon State Park. They accepted our reservation request, and Mr. Boykin met us at the road to lead us down the lane between his pecan trees. We didn't even need to unhook the pickup for our one-night stay.

He planted this pecan orchard many years ago, and has been harvesting them and selling them in bulk to grocery stores in southern Texas. But now his biggest grocery store clients want the pecans shelled and vacuum sealed, and he doesn't have the equipment to do that. Selling them to Harvest Host campers is a good option for them.

He and his wife invited us into their home, and we had an hour-long visit around their kitchen table. We learned about growing pecans in this southern climate, and new problems of selling them. Because we just picked up free pecans to shell a couple weeks ago, we really didn't need any more. But we needed to make our required Harvest Host purchase. Their minimum-size bag is two pounds, so our purchase was $30 for this overnight stay.

They gave us one of their pecans still in the shell and it was huge! We compared it to the free pecans we picked up not long ago. Wow!

This fifth Harvest Host stop was a success. We had a good sleeping temperature, a good visit, and those big pecans are quite yummy. The timing was also good because we needed to exercise our generator before we pulled into our next full hook-up site where we'll be staying for a while. The other good news is their orchard is only a mile off the highway that we were traveling down. Sometimes Harvest Host camp sites are out of the way on questionable roads for big rigs like ours.

So we have mixed reviews from our first year using Harvest Host. It was not a bargain, since we weren't able to use it as much as we would have liked. It also puts you in an awkward position to have to make a purchase. We don't have much room for anything new in a motor home. But it did give us some unique experiences that we thoroughly enjoyed. Will we do it again? We're not sure, as the price has gone up. But we're always looking for unique experiences as we continue to wander God's wonders.

Serendipity brings us to interesting places at interesting times

Sometimes we plan carefully to be in a specific location to attend a special event. But more often, we just find neat things strictly by serendipity--"the occurrence of events by chance in a happy way." In other words, being at interesting places at interesting times. For example, we were on our last day of camping at Choke Canyon State Park when we noticed the parking lot by the lake's boat launch suddenly had a bright display.

Some people would notice the kiosks and ride on, but not Mark and Denisa. We found someone that looked like they were in charge, and started asking questions. We learned that they are setting up for a big bass fishing tournament that starts early tomorrow morning. We also found out that first prize would take home $20,000!

Today's preparation included setting up the tents and trucks, and pumping lake water into the truck holding tanks. This is a live release tournament. So all the bass that are brought in will be returned back to the lake at the end of tomorrow. (We thought it might be a great idea to go fishing tomorrow evening near the release site, but we were told that just-caught fish with sore mouths wouldn't be interested in biting again for several days.)

Knowing that the big tournament was the next morning and that the stakes were so high, we just had to stop by the area to see the mayhem. We have never before seen so many pickups with empty boat trailers in one place. We just happened to count them--206! They were parked in every nook and cranny of every parking lot near the boat launch site. We found out that they started arriving at 4:30 a.m., so the guys organizing the event were here very early as well.

Teams of two pay $300 per person to enter and fish for the next eight hours. Even though it was nippy when they started, it turned into a beautiful day to be on the lake.

It was interesting to watch the process after we learned how the tournament was scored. Each boat can bring in their best five bass to be weighed. Those can be very valuable fish if they weigh the most so they win that $20,000 first prize. The tournament pays declining amounts for the top 30 sets of fish as well. One thousand dollars is also paid for the single biggest bass of the day. We talked to fishermen that reported that the fishing wasn't great, and we saw several loading up their boats without even going to the weigh-in station. But we were glad that serendipity brought us to this lake on this day to experience something that is so big for these competitors--and we didn't even know this existed.

We found out that 191 of those pickups and trailers were here to deliver competitors for the bass fishing contest. The rest of those boats were taking duck hunters out for the last weekend of duck hunting season.

We hope they made it, as the back of the boat was barely above the surface of the water when they took off.

It was serendipity to be here accidentally when so many duck hunters carefully planned their time to be here at Choke Canyon State Park on this last weekend of duck season. One of our campground neighbors had piles of plastic duck decoys ready to go in the water. This was just half of the decoys at his camp site. When Denisa exclaimed at the number, he said that he only brought three dozen. He has around twenty dozen at home. Just like bass fishing, duck hunting is huge for some people!

Our neighbor needs to get these plastic duck decoys out on the water so Denisa can take some pictures of them. Oh wait, she already made that mistake a couple days ago! Our time at Choke Canyon State Park has come to an end, and we were once again blessed by serendipity that brings us to interesting places at interesting times.

Kayaking in the Middle of the Winter?

We haven't had the kayak out for months. When we put it away last summer, we thought we probably wouldn't need it again until spring. But when we found out that motor-less boats are now allowed on the smaller lake within Choke Canyon State Park, we decided to go for a little boat ride. We seldom have a picture of the two of us kayaking, but we got a rare treat this day. A couple that was bird-watching from the shore took this picture of us across the lake. When we met Ken and Liz later, they offered to email the picture to us. Thanks !

Unlike the big lake in Choke Canyon State Park, this is the smaller "75-Acre Lake." It has the advantage of being more protected from the wind. We also don't have to worry about the large boat traffic that makes big waves on the big lake. So we had scoped out this lovely area yesterday, and now we're ready to see it from water level today.

In the winter, thousands of ducks call this little lake their home. From a distance, we could see flocks that included many different types of ducks enjoying the warm weather.

But as soon as we got close enough to try to take a good picture, they took to the air! It was amazing to see and hear hundreds of birds take off at once just over our heads!

We are used to being quite stealthy in our inflatable kayak, and being able to float very close to water birds. We used the same tactics that have worked in the past to creep through the grass and let our momentum carry us closer without the movement of rowing.

But then one bird would spot us and the whole flock would relocate to the other side of the lake! You can see the ducks flying away in the distance while the cormorant on the tree branch was less skittish.

So as bad as Denisa wanted to see the ducks up close, she only got the profile of the less jumpy cormorant.

We went all over the lake, even to the shallow end where we floated among the young trees. 75-Acre lake might be a few acres bigger this year, as these trees aren't always in the water.

That's where we could sneak up on this vermilion flycatcher sitting in a thorny bush in the water.

Those thorns are almost as big as this little bird!

We also found evidence that the park deer wade through this section of the lake. Our sea eagle can float in just a few inches of water, and this is very clear water so that we can see any snags below us. We weren't expecting to be snagged by a deer antler.

With no wind, and temperatures in the 60s, it was a great winter day to be on the water. We had a great time kayaking, even though the duck views were limited. We tried the tactic of hiding in the brush, hoping the ducks would swim our way. That didn't work either.

With thousands of ducks on this lake with us, the best picture we got with our little camera today were blurry from being so far away. 

We assume that all this skittish behavior has something to do with the fact that we are in the middle of duck hunting season. While the high-speed duck hunting boats are limited to the big lake, we're hoping that their guns must stay there as well. We feel a little vulnerable out here in an inflatable kayak among all these ducks during duck season.

It obviously isn't egret season, as this big bird was intent on hunting, rather than worried about being hunted.

These birds weren't worried about duck season either. We prefer to call them "birds-with-the-candy-corn-beaks" but we think their more official name is Common Moorhen or Common Gallinule. 

After a couple hours on the water today, we'll be packing up the kayak again. It might be months before we get to kayak again. But Denisa has a big smile on her face from this great day of getting to kayak in the middle of the winter!

Chasing the Animals at Choke Canyon State Park

It was time to roll on down the road, so we packed up the motor home and drove 141 miles to our next Texas state park. We had a nice parking spot close to the large lake at Choke Canyon State Park.

We camped here last winter, and we learned that this is a great park to find birds. In fact, it was here that we chased after the "rare spotted rail" that we didn't even know existed before we arrived here a year ago. That one spotted rail was the first ever seen in the United States, and caused quite a stir among birders. He didn't return this year, so it was much easier to get a camping spot at the state park. It didn't take Denisa long to visit the bird blind near the campground as she started chasing animals here again. We see a lot of cardinals, but these were especially good at posing for the camera. While their back feathers are more muted . . .

their breast feathers are brighter. It's fun to chase them up in the branches.

We are far enough south now to start seeing and hearing the noisy green jays.

While green jays obviously get their name from their back feathers, their colorful blue and black faces look like they are masked.

This Golden-fronted Woodpecker usually feeds on insects it finds on the trunks and limbs of trees. But today it came for an easy snack and drink at the feeders. 

This Golden-fronted bird actually has three colors on his head--bright yellow above the beak, red on his forehead, and golden orange on the back of his head.

It's fun to watch the birds up close at the bird blind, but Denisa walked down to the lake to snap some pictures of the ducks in that bigger habitat. She was lucky to spot this pair of ducks in the distance. The male has some unusual markings, so she decided to sneak closer to the water's edge to get a better picture. She was so sneaky that the ducks didn't notice how close she was getting. What luck--they stayed perfectly still so she continued to snap pictures.

Man, Denisa is really good at sneaking up on wildlife! They were still in the open and only moving enough to gently bob in the waves. It's about that time that Denisa realized that she had been sneaking up on plastic duck decoys. Sheesh! She looked around to see who was watching (and laughing) at her.

Maybe Denisa would be better at sneaking up on mammals. She saw this rabbit heading into the brush.

She was pretty sneaky, and this rabbit isn't even made of plastic!

We found that Choke Canyon State Park has miles of trails and nice flat paved roads for biking. We also found that they have a geocache along one of those trails. It's a microcache, and Denisa was the one that found that little turquoise tube hanging in the trees.

She's the leader in our game of finding geocaches, as Mark couldn't even see that little tube from his side of the row of trees.

We remember seeing a great egret hanging out at the fish cleaning station when we here last year. It looks like the same bird is hanging out in the same location a year later. 

We biked all over the park, and then stayed at the boat dock to watch the sun set over the lake. We're going to like it here! But now we're in a hurry to get back to the motor home before it gets dark.

But Denisa had to stop and take a picture of this caracara, checking out the possibilities for a twilight snack.

The light was getting low by the time we saw this buck out for an evening stroll.

We are hurrying toward our campground, when a flock of turkeys showed up beside the road. That delayed us again, as Denisa had to chase them down to get a picture.

We continued to bike further down the road, right beside the entrance of the nature loop named the Owl Trail. Denisa put on the brakes hard when she saw a large bird at the top of the tree next to the trail. She was taking a picture of that dot in the tree in the upper left corner of the picture below.

It was almost dark by the time this picture was taken. We lightened it up to better see the big owl hiding in the branches.

It should be called the Owls (plural) Trail, because there were actually two different birds at the entrance of the trail tonight. They were both happy to pose for a picture in the twilight.

It was a slow ride back to the campground this evening. But we love taking life slow when it allows us to see more of God's wondrous animals. It was the end to a nice day of chasing the animals at Choke Canyon State Park.