Well, I’m finally getting over the withdrawals from the lack of internet. We are now back in civilization and will resume posting our trials, tribulations and excursions. Judy, as before, will be posting our daily lives and family “stuff”, while I will continue posting the excitement of the bounties of nature.
There is no way we can go back and post all that has happened since last July, but let it be said that our sojourn at Fort Parker State Park near Mexia (pronounced “may-hay-ya”) was great. Fort Parker is a beautiful, small state park that I would recommend to anyone looking to get away from it all.
Judy has been assigned to work in the headquarters and I am in maintenance doing everything from cleanups and patrols, to building fire rings and picnic tables. Once again, we feel fortunate to have made a great choice in accepting this volunteer host position. So on January 1st, we said our good-byes and drove down to Brazos Bend State Park, located on the Brazos River near Needville and Rosenburg, Texas. Brazos Bend is in many ways the opposite of Fort Parker. It’s huge, containing over 5,000 acres with 36 miles of beautifully maintained trails for hiking and biking. There are numerous lakes and oxbows that contain myriads of waterfowl, gators, wild hogs, bobcats, otter, fox, and deer.
This posting will be centered on what we have been up to since we arrived and the weather has cleared.
We arrived with the advent of the rains. I say “rains”, because that’s what it did for the first two weeks we were here. Our saving grace is that we both purchased Frog Toggs last year and with muck boots, stayed dry and warm. The weather did keep us inside, getting settled in, and I turned our dining table into a workbench while working on a guitar, ordered by Tom, Judy’s brother. Because we are close to Houston, Logan, our grandson, has been able to visit for two weekends and spend some thoroughly enjoyable time with us.
On the weekend of the 7th, the weather was still pretty cool and the fauna were not moving about too much, but we did manage to get a few decent pics.
Our first stop was the Brazos Bend Nature Center maintained and run by the volunteer organization, “Friends of Brazos Bend”.
We attended a seminar on BBSP Owls where Ranger David dissected an owl pellet as Logan and others watched in fascination
Next, we took a very short walk about a half mile along Elm Lake to begin to acclimate our “park legs”.
The following weekend, Logan returned (he’s really liking this place) and Saturday evening, as soon as it was dark, we made our way over to George Observatory where the Houston Astronomy Club had a number of their privately-owned telescopes (Big Bucks) as well as the university “Big Boys”. We have no pics for this but loads of fun memories and vows to return. It was definitely a class act as they allowed us to gaze on more close-ups of celestial bodies.
Judy had to work at the office on Sunday, so Logan and I took off on our bikes for what he called “male bonding time” to see what was out and about on the trails and get more pics. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the wilds beckoned.
Yesterday, both Judy and I were off, and decided to get out early in the morning so I could show her some of the trails I had become familiar with. We left our home at 10:30 A.M. and, before it was over, we had biked over 5 miles and we saw some awesome sites. The sky was clear, the temp was mild and we had a blast. Granted, we didn’t see a wide assortment of wildlife, but we did see A LOT of gators. At one point, we arrived just in time to see a big bull tearing into a younger male trying to invade the big guy’s space. At another point, we counted almost a dozen gators within a hundred yards. Judy had her first experience going around some gators sunning alongside our trail.
Hope you enjoyed the pics…see you soon …
~dick~
