We arrived here at Choke Canyon State Park on Tuesday afternoon and immediately met two of the park rangers here who were very, very kind to us. Cody who was one of the two people Michael interviewed with met us and took Michael on a tour of the South Shore Unit where we are staying as well as the Calliham unit where the camping is in this State Park. The South Shore Unit is day use only with a picnic area and a very large boat launch area. Part of Michael’s duties here include hanging out at the gate headquarters to ensure people are paying their day use fees or at least checking in with their park pass information so the park can receive credit for those entrance fees. Just having that presence there in the early morning hours when the serious fisher-people are coming in, may help the park with some revenue that can help with improvements to the park. He also will be cleaning the restrooms and the fish cleaning stations in this part of the park. For 24 hours a week (4 days 6 hours each day) we have a full hook up campsite in a part of the park where the only other person in here at night time is the park police officer and his family and us. It’s quiet, remote, a bit isolated and beautiful.
We’ve seen so much wildlife in the first week we’ve been here. Within a few hours of being here we’d seen road runners, deer, bunnies, cranes, various other bird species and Michael has seen one of the Javelina wild boars. We’ve seen some wildlife around before but never this many in one place. There is also a chance of gators and mountain lions though as far as we know neither have been seen in a while.
The closes town – Three Rivers – is very small. The population of Three Rivers is around 1800 people – the only fast food places are a Subway in a gas station and a Dairy Queen. There are about 5 Mexican restaurants and a few bars as well. We ended up going to one of the bar/restaurants on Friday night and enjoyed visiting with a few locals and some time out among other people. While Michael has some interaction in person with people with what he’s doing for work – during the work week I’m fairly isolated in the RV with the dogs and Michael when he’s not working. I interact with others virtually for work and on Twitch when I’m streaming but it’s not the same as seeing people in person and having that connection.
Now that some of the cold weather has moved out, it was a bit chilly here this week, though we didn’t get the ice and snow they did more north of us in Texas – we had the windows open today and even had a fire in our propane firepit tonight. It was a lovely night for a fire and a bit of time just relaxing the two of us. We took the dogs on a walk to the boat launch Sunday night – it’s about 1.75 miles there and back for us to walk and was good for both us and the pups.
GnomadicLife 