Seven years ago, we were in our first year of full-time travel. We were learning what speed of travel we liked, and what kinds of places we enjoyed the most. We were also going through the process of becoming Texas residents. That would include switching our driver's licenses to Texas. In Oklahoma, anyone with a regular license can drive any size motor home. But Texas requires drivers of motor homes over 26,000 pounds to have a CDL Class B driver's license. Our diesel motor home tips the scales just over that limit. When we found that it would take three months to get an appointment for a CDL driving test in south Texas, we headed north to find a less busy DMV. We found one in the Hill Country of Texas. Then we found a park to settle into until we could take our written CDL exam, and get an appointment for our two driving tests. We were in the Escapees Co-op RV Park near Hondo, Texas, for ten days that first year during this rather stressful (for Denisa) driver's license fiasco. Did we mention that part of the CDL driving test is parallel parking our motor home?!?
During those ten days, we were embraced by the residents of the Lone Star Corral RV park, and we still keep in contact with some of them. They showed us the best places to eat, they took us to dances and church in the area, and they invited us into their RV homes to socialize. So when we got close to that area again, we messaged one of those friends that still owns a camp site there. Rich travels all over the world, but we were lucky enough to catch him in Hondo between trips. The campground has shut down activities because of several cases of Covid inside the park. So instead of camping there, we just met Rich for lunch. We are sad to report that we forgot to take a picture today. So we'll have to include a picture taken seven years ago. This is a group that took us dancing in 2015. Rich is the one of the right. (In case you're wondering, a younger version of Denisa is on the left.)
It was fun catching up with Rich's travels while we ate the daily special at the Lost Maple Cafe in Utopia, Texas. We sealed the meal with a slice of home-made coconut cream pie and a brownie. We're still kicking ourselves for not getting a new picture to commemorate the fact that it's possible to keep in contact with people that we met very long ago when we first started these travels.
Since we were out driving today, we decided to stop in at another place we visited seven years ago--Lost Maples State Natural Area.
We are glad to have our blog so we can look back to see where we have been and what we did. We saw that we hiked the East Trail seven years ago. Not that we would remember the details of that hike, but we decided to hike the West Trail this day for something different.
We had another beautiful weather day to enjoy some time outside in this natural area. It is named Lost Maples State Natural Area, because it has a group of maple trees that somehow found their way into this part of Texas that does not have the proper climate for them. However, this little grove of trees has managed to adapt and flourish among the mesquite and scrub oaks. It's the only natural splash of fall color in this part of Texas, and people come from miles around to see them in their fall colorful foliage glory. We have to admit that we didn't get to see these famous lost maples this day because they are on the East Trail, and we chose the West Trail. 
We're having a tough day of taking pictures! We went to Lost Maples State Natural Area and didn't get a picture of the lost maples! If it's any substitution, we did find this little red sapling, still showing us a tinge of fall foliage.
Things are quite dry here, but we managed to find a couple natural springs that brought some water to our trail.
We had hoped to see some wildlife in this state natural area, but we only glimpsed two wild hogs hiding in the brush. They were too concealed and too far away to get a picture. That's another picture that we missed today!
Because of our long lunch, we were late getting onto the trail today. The sun was already behind the canyon walls and we were hiking in the shadows by the time we got to the end of this 5.2-mile hike. We'll have to hurry to get back to our camp site at Garner State Park before it gets dark.
We still have another stop today, as we need to buy some groceries at the little town of Leakey, Texas, on our way home. We should have taken pictures, because this was the first grocery store we have ever visited that had no prices on the merchandise on the shelves. No, the guy behind the meat counter didn't know how much the sausages were either. It was quite uncomfortable to buy that little can of green beans, not knowing that it cost $2.06 until you checked out.
It feels like we failed today in our picture-taking. We didn't get a picture of our lunch date, we didn't get a picture of the lost maples at Lost Maple State Natural Area, we didn't get a picture of the only wildlife we saw, and we didn't get a grocery store picture. Sorry! We'll try to do better next time!
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