The trip to Hord?s Creek Lake went smoothly and we arrived approximately 4 hours after leaving- although we did go to the wrong park entrance originally. Apparently the park has several entrances, but in the summer months they shut the connection between the Lakeside Park and the park across the Dam ? Flat Rocks. Not knowing this, we entered at the first Hord?s Creek Lake COE entrance we came to and had to U-turn and drive another mile west for the Lake Side entrance. This is obviously a common issue since we have seen a few other campers doing the same thing- even today when we visited Flat Rocks. The Lake Side park is nicer in our opinion ? sites are larger and completely paved parking where Flat rock still ahs some gravel parking sites- more for smaller campers and tenters I think. Also, the rest room facilities and showers are not as up to date- although we did discover that there are sites at both parks with full hook-ups ? news to us. Since the cats are traveling in our shower- we prefer to use the campground facilities when available. The park is a COE park like most others- although I am at a loss at to why there is one in this area. I have not been able to get online here yet (we are in a hole surrounded by hills and ranch country) so haven?t done all the requisite research to provide any real historical info on this park. Maybe it is like Optima Lake in OK ? there was a flood once, someone put the creek on the list for control and the Corp had money and built a dam. Not the first time things like that have happened- the bureaucratic train is hard to stop once it has started, even if something may no longer be really necessary- but who knows until I can look it up.
Speaking of facilities here -this is the first set of showers I have experienced that have motion detector technology running the shower water. You had better be standing in front of that little gizmo or you have no water. I realized very quickly that by using the handicap stall with the bars all around and propping the shampoo bottle on the bar in front of the sensor I could pretty much circumvent that system. Bruce on the other had did not have a large enough bottle so he had to make do with staying in the sensor?s path. The little things we have to deal with.
We spent today touring the area and then the park across the small lake. I found a nice Quilt Shop called the Quilting Patch in Santa Ana and Bruce found a wonderful military surplus junk yard. I can already tell something new will be coming to our house in the next year. He will just have to decide which something and when to come and get it I guess. He told me that I just needed to shop at 3-4 more Quilt stores and he could get a new to him jeep ? I think he is dreaming. I haven?t spent that much money.
I am pretty sure this is an area where there are plenty of Winter Texans each year - that translates to snowbirds for us Floridians ? based on the size of this CORP park, the new pull-through and 50 amp service sites they have added and my real observation , there are too many antique malls for a small place like Coleman, TX to support. I guess the hunters could be avid antiquers- but I really can?t see them spending a whole lot of their hunting season in these places. Prices were pretty high too, so the locals wouldn?t have been their support either and the area does not seem to be unique and/or picturesque enough (German towns, rafters, hill country, etc.) for the yuppie crowd. Unlike Canyon Lake, the CORP owns the whole thing and all of the surrounding land- so there are no waterfront homes, and no thriving downstream river (Hord?s Creek) community that we could identify. The area seems to be mostly farming and/or ranching (Show goats, cattle, horses). Guess us oldies (traveling retirees) are the ones buying their wares- but obviously oldies with more money than Bruce and I.
Bruce is currently observing the activities on the opposite shore- it is always fun to watch new people arrive, set up and get themselves situated. The weather is wonderful tonight, about 78 and clear. Yesterday it was a scorcher for May- in the 90s when we arrived around 2 but the breeze made it bearable. Later that evening we had an awful thunderstorm ? I thought I might need to watch for Tornados since most of it was lightening, thunder and wind. The rain that fell was not enough to materially raise the level of the Lake. I am sure the Texas drought is affecting this area also. We woke to clear skies and 65 degrees with a breeze that required a sweatshirt be donned for morning coffee. It was so beautiful that we moved all of our various cooking utensils outside and hope to keep them there for the duration of this stay. We are really roughing it- we had the electric frying pan and the electric griddle out for breakfast and used the Air Baker convection oven to cook a wonderful Tex-Mex casserole for dinner. We used one of the bags of pulled pork we cooked Sunday (last of the defrosted pork). Mix cooked pork, green chili sauce, tomatoes, cheese and flour tortillas together in any dish and it tastes wonderful. Jeremy- I will have to send you this recipe I made up - it is fast, easy and tastes great. Bruce doesn?t think I can duplicate this and that it was just dump and mix but I am going to show him, the recipe will be in an email to you tomorrow (or whenever I get service) The same outside area (picnic table) is our library and office too- as long as the weather holds.
Tomorrow is laundry day- so I will take this with me and hopefully finish posting and adding some of my pictures. Then we are off to Brownwood for some junking, camping world if available for some various needed items and lunch out. Will be adding more later.
Addendum: No Verizon connection in Brownwood and have not called them to see if there is a problem. When this posts it will be because I went to the public library in Coleman on Friday. Pictures will come later.
No comments:
Post a Comment