Wandering Our Way Through East Texas

Our last few days at Clear Spring COE in Texarkana TX were spent relaxing around the campground. We did quite a bit of walking, not as fast as we used to be but Dave's tendonitis is getting better so we are able to do longer walks. Every evening we enjoyed watching hundreds of pelicans land on the lake, we really enjoyed our stay at Clear Spring and would return, just make sure you follow the park's online directions for entering otherwise you might end up at a raised railroad crossing that could wreak havoc on your rig.

During one of our many walks we met Gordon and Lorrie from NY, they spend their summers on their 44' sailboat which if memory serves me is on Lake Ontario. They spend the winters these days in their rv in the south, they are on their way to Rockport TX, just an hour away from where we'll be in Port Aransas. We found our paths will cross in a few weeks so have planned dinner with them at Lake Sommerville State Park where we both will be.

On Sunday we moved 3 hours down the road to Mill Creek COE on Lake Sam Rayburn, this is an older park and is showing its age. The individual sites have metal rail around them which makes getting into the some sites difficult but we managed, just hope we manage to get out with out an issue. This is probably our least favorite COE park so far, it doesn't look like much money has been spent on it in awhile. Some of the asphalt pads have huge buckles in them from tree roots, the general feel is kind of sad, so much potential and probably no money to update instead they close some of the sites. I'm sure when I was here 40+ years ago it had a better feel since it was a fairly new campground then, yep I've was here back in the 60's. Back then our family lived about 80 miles south of here and we came here with my folks youth fellowship group, back then lots of arrowheads were being found just off shore and that's what brought us here then.

Tuesday we took a ride looking for a spot to do a little paddling, we had hoped to put in at Village Creek State Park. Village Creek does have campsites but none of them looked like it would be good fit for our rig, alas Village Creek is very low, lots of real shallow water and we would have had to do quite a bit of  "helping" the canoe, didn't sound like how we wanted to spend our paddle. After talking with the ranger who suggested another spot to put in, we headed there and ran into Joe Lopez a local who has canoed the river. He suggested it might be better after the forecasted rain, he also offered to pick us up and drive us back to our put in spot if we decided to run the river another day. Joe if you are reading this thank you so much for your offer, hope our paths cross again, if you get down to Port Aransas look us up Dave would enjoy going fishing with you.

On the way home we took a ride through Martin Dies Jr State Park, their campground had lots of sites that would have fit us nicely with room left over. We found a great short trail and enjoyed an hour in the park, hope to get back there later in the week with the canoe.

Rain has set in, we're here until Sunday, hoping it goes away so we can get out on the water.

Until next time...