Day 21: Abilene State Park, Quion, TX: Bring on the heat!

I had a dream last night that I was a cowboy riding north towards the heat. My horse was grey, and ran all day and never was a quitter. But I drive a van, for gas I pay and I travel with a shitter.

Morning walk was deferred by the possibility of rain and, more importantly, the desire to get to Abilene SP as the forecast was for 31C and clear skies. Hell yes, get me to Abilene. It’s been days since the heat has touched our pearly white (with a few touches of pink) skin. Pack up, let’s go! “Should we stop and say goodbye?”. No way, might lose our place at the dump station. We arrived at the dump station as number 2 in line so we came alongside because I thought I had scouted a double holer. Nope. Single input on this one. But, it worked out. As Eustace was dawdling to put away his poo paraphernalia whilst stroking his admirable beard with pre-sanitized hands, I commenced to dumping. Good news team, we are still 100% faeces free, which may be more than we can say about Eustace’s beard.

We made two stops in Austin before heading out. Number one stop: Einstein bagels. Mmmm. Thank you bagel geniuses. Those bagels are going to make me relatively fatter. Number two stop: Costco. Found the little table I had been looking for. Also picked up a case of water. 32 more empty bottles to float around the ocean.

We stopped roadside for break and then somewhere for some gas. We did not see any notable wildlife. Plenty of huge ranches. Names like “Jumping Willy Ranch”, “My Beef Ranch”, “Dressing Ranch” and my favourite, “Hugh Hoofner Ranch”.

The wind was strong on this day. Mostly beam or broad reach. White knuckles required.

We did not see a single Buc-Ees, but did see plenty of Sonic, none of which were stopped at given yesterday’s sudden Sonic escape.

We arrived at Abilene State Park somewhere before 1500 after accepting Apple Maps in the GPS duel and travelling down many teeny tiny roads. I know, how can you have small roads in Texas?

Park seems really nice. Mrs Milddogs picked a good site. We are on a tent/ small trailer site and we parallel parked on the tent “pad”. First, I was parking with the sliding door facing the road. Mrs Milddogs admired my precision, but not my accuracy. So, we did it again and got settled.

The forecast was right. It was hot! 31C. Yay! There are a surprising number of home built vans here. None of which have A/C. The lady over there keeps emerging with even less clothing on than last time. She could sit outside?????

We opened up the van to air it out. Removed all of the wet stuff and hung it outside. Some sweeping happened.

After relaxing for some minutes, I suited up and went for the daily walk. I went the wrong way on the trail (this seems too common) so doubled back and went past our campsite again and walked over to the pool. It was a short walk at just over 3km, but I was weighed down by bagels and it was hot.

This is what relaxing can look like.

I found another bedazzled thing before we left McKinney. We now have 3.

Pre-dinner we all went for a nice walk along the trails. No wildlife was spotted but we had a good time. Mrs Milddogs forgot her phone at the van so I doubled back and grabbed it just in case she needed to identify some birds by sound. It was slightly reminiscent of the day before but it wasn’t pouring rain today. I did not take pictures of this walk.

Shower review. Pretty good. Might be some extra leniency given how bad the ones were at McKinney and that it had been 3 days since my last confession. Oh, shower, my last shower. Shower stalls here have slide locks. There is a small dressing area and then the shower stall. Pretty clean. Shower head was a bit too low for me. Water was hot. I’ll give them a 6/10. I almost set my foot down on the floor. That would have been a dilemma.

All things to be packed in the van tonight. We may get thunderstorms overnight and in the morning. We are trying not to run the A/C cause heat is precious.

Tomorrow we head to Caprock Canyon State Park. It’s the only one we have been to before.

Coke Zero seems to taste different here. I must compare ingredients.

Goodnight Elizabeth.