Day 16: Lake Corpus Cristi, TX: Feliz cumpleaños

T’was a dark and stormy night. Whoa! Pump the brakes and don’t pump up the jam! It was neither dark nor stormy. The cold front did go through, the wind did pick up, but there was no rain.

We slept in. And that ends our story. Obviously that can’t be the case as everyday needs a brief recap of the daily walk. Same route as yesterday. No wildlife of the mammalian kind. Did see a dog all alone at one of the trailheads. To me it looked like a pit bull. Not the singer. Perhaps the “I love Michael Vick” collar gave it away??? I approached with my best puppy loving voice and the dog greeted me with a wagging tail. We were all good. It followed me for a bit. It did not bite my extremely well muscled calves. I did not see humans for this dog. Rest of the walk was pretty good. Way cooler than yesterday.

We had a leisurely morning before we broke camp. We stopped at the dump station where we remained 100% faeces free!. The dude after us in line was doing that thing where he filled his water tank with the “don’t drink this water” faucet. Not really my worry as I won’t be drinking water from his RV. We don’t really drink the water from our tanks anyway.

We headed towards Lake CC but first a provisioning run at the H-E-B in Laredo, TX. Cake was procured. Cake has been sampled. Coors Light was procured. Coors Light has been sampled. Boiled shrimp were procured. Boiled shrimp have been sampled. We also obtained gasoline which has also been sampled.

We stopped at a park in Freer, TX. Yup, same Freer, TX as on the way west. If Freer was in Nova Scotia there would be a Freest, Lower Freer, Upper Freer, Lesser Freer, Greater Freer and Freer Bay. We had lunch which consisted of aforementioned shrimp and corn bread.

We arrived at Lake CC just after 1400. Checked in and got set up. This is also a nice private(ish) park. We are fortunate in that the weather is not nearly as bad as they had forecast. We are hoping that trend continues over the next few days.

After settling in we went for a walk down to the lake and then back along one of the trails. There were birds and flowers. Many people I care about love cardinals (the birds, not the Catholics).

Dinner was burgers cooked outside using the induction stove top. They were good. But we really need to look at an outdoor cooking solution that gives us a BBQ grill type experience. I really like the induction stove top. It has been a good addition to the van. We use it when we have electricity. Not worth running the generator to turn gasoline into electricity into heat when we can turn propane into heat. Dessert was cake. There is too much cake. Maybe we can share with our friends at Goose Island tomorrow?

Since it is chilly out, we hung out in the van mostly in the evening. I did venture over for a shower. Here is the good news. They are building a new washroom / shower house so by the time you get here, you may have a better experience. I rate this a 2/10. It had hot water. It looked like Norman Bates did the design back when the Bates Motel was a happening place and they had cleaners. For obvious reasons, the cleaners at the Bates Motel stopped cleaning in 1960 and that is potentially when they stopped the upkeep on this shower. Fortunately, I didn’t drop anything cause anything that falls on the shower floor is dead to me. Almost dropped my watch a few locations ago, that would have been dead to me. Post shower, I departed, looked over my shoulder for Norman and proceeded on my way. A State Park officer was chatting with another camper (dude from Wisconsin) and the officer commented that I must have Scottish blood to be out in the cold after a shower wearing nothing but a bathing suit. It was 12C and windy. First of all, calling someone of Irish heritage Scottish is pretty close to a fighting offence. I thought about giving it a go, but, well, he might actually be able to fight and he has fighting aids. Like guns and those retracting billy clubs and boots and stuff. So, I went the other Irish route and decided to use my charm. Sadly, I did not have any Lucky Charms with me. So, I just chatted with the nice fellow. We walked along the road together for a bit having a nice talk. I was grateful to actually see a park officer out chatting with people. In Ontario, they put blinders on and drive as quickly as possible around the park. “Did you make the rounds?”. “Yup”. “Did you see anything of note?”. “Nope”.

We have internet tonight mostly thanks to our Verizon device. For the best signal I could get I placed it on the bike rack outside the van. Please don’t let that be foreshadowing!

Mrs Milddogs noticed this little gem when we arrived.

Since our site has full hookups, I’m just going to use this otherwise forgotten stinky slinky rather than getting out our own. Why not use the gifts you are given? I will probably do a quick test to make sure it is leak proof before doing the critical part of the dump event. We do want to keep that 100% faeces free record intact. You may find this a juxtaposition to my fear of touching things in the shower. I have never aimed to appear consistent to the observer. Situations differ and this one is a potential bonus. Note we would never take it with us. But someone will. Somewhere there is a camper unable to dump their tanks. Dumps to be you 🙂

We are hoping the weather forecast keeps improving.

Damn, we may have to turn the furnace on tonight.

Hug a bunny!