Heading North to Oklahoma

Sunday morning, we had another camping style breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, plus some cereal for the kids....maybe a banana too. The deer were wandering through the park so I brought out the food I still had for them from the last trip. Before anyone wonders about this, we do not feed the wildlife at public campgrounds but, in this particular private park, feeding the deer is the accepted practice. This little deer walked right up to Cameron and nuzzled the food from his hand before he could throw it out which is what one usually does. The kids were thrilled. This is Morgan's "I think it's my turn" stance.

Well, the little deer was more than happy to nuzzle her too. I had some really excited grandkids. And yes, they did wash their hands with germ protecting soap after the deer feed.

The kids are also fastinated by dung beetles and how hard they work. They push the "pile" with their hind feet and check their directions frequently.

We had to check out by 1:00PM even though we didn't need to be at Marble Falls until 6PM for the handoff. I sure wasn't looking forward to spending time in the Walmart parking lot in the afternoon. Our normal spot for the return is a nice park so that the kids can play if someone is late picking them up but I knew there was no place large enough there for the RV. Then it suddenly came to me. Years ago we used to stop in Marble Falls on our way to or from San Antonio. There was an RV/Mobil Home Park in town near the city swimming pool. It was great because it felt like you were in the country but you could walk 3 or 4 blocks and be right on Main St. The city got the property and cleared it all out. I had hopes for a long time that they would set up a city run RV Park. It would have done great but, alas, nothing has been done at all. We headed there to see what it would be like. It was a perfect place to spend the afternoon. There was lots of shade and just a few people fished along the river which is on all sides of it. You can't boondock there but I figured we should be okay just for a few hours. I pulled out the Lawn Darts and we had a great time.

This lady floated by with her two dogs. Once she was standing up on the paddle board but on the return trip they were really relaxed. That is someone's private landing on the other side of the river.

At 5:30PM, we packed up and I texted XDIL to meet us at Walmart instead of the park because I had the RV. She was only 10 minutes late so I was on the road north at 6:15PM with several hours of daylight left.

I had several possible overnight stops in mind but when I came through Hico TX, an idea popped into my head. Hico TX is the home of the Koffee Kup Family Restaurant. They are famous for their homemade pies. From the front of the restaurant, it doesn't look like the parking is overly abundant but when you go around the side to the back, they have a very large lot for RVs and ranch trucks with horse trailers, etc. There were a couple of ranch rigs there so I went inside and asked the manager if it would be okay to spend the night. She said "absolutely" so that's what I did. There is a house which blocks noise from the highway but right across from that is a big gas station for cars which is open all night so it seemed like a pretty safe bet to me. We spent a quiet and comfortable night awakened by roosters in the neighborhood behind us.....it's a small town you know. I repaid the hospitality by having an early breakfast there and was on the road by 8AM.

I arrived at Lake Murray State Park at 12:15PM. The lady at the gate even knew I was coming. I told her I knew my way but by the time I drove through Elephant Rock Campground, Dawn was waiting in her car to lead the way to Cedar Cove Campground where Deb was waiting on us. It sure is nice to be welcomed by friends and those friends just happen to be camphosts here. Dawn and her brother Paul host at Elephant Rock and Deb hosts at Cedar Cove right next door. I had my choice of several campsites and was soon settled into a nice spot.

We used to camp at Lake Murray about thirty years ago but I haven't been back here since before we moved from Wichita Falls to San Antonio almost 10 years ago. It will be nice to see it all again.