Week ending December 5, 2013

Black Friday was not nearly as hectic as we thought it might be. In the morning we went for a walk around the "Gun Club Road” next to the campground.   It had a fairly well worn sign that said NO SHOOTING. We didn't ask any questions as to why the gun club area didn't allow shooting, but there must be  good reason. The walk took us along the edge of Nasworthy Lake. What a pretty lake and certainly more water than we have seen since we have been in Texas.  

We thought we would brave the "Black Friday" sales in the afternoon. We stopped at a little strip mall, us and 3 other vehicles, not exactly busy.   We then headed to the only mall in town.  It didn't appear to be any busier than we would have expected on a weekend day.  While John  made a few purchases, Joan didn't find anything to her liking.    Back at the trailer, in the storage area under the trailer John found the part we needed to repair the door handle  (good thing the rv shop didn't have the part) so we reattached the door handle.   Early in the evening, there was an incredibly long line of black birds that flew into the RV park, and settled on the trees in the area for a while before continuing on their way.

Saturday morning as we were packing for our move to San Angelo State Park we chatted to our next door neighbours, who had come for Thanksgiving with their family.   They raise goats for meat.  Meat goats are white with reddish heads.    They were leaving as they had to make a goat delivery the next day. Their thanksgiving meal was turkey and roast goat.   When they were packaging up the leftovers, the left the turkey with the family and kept the goat, since they think it is much better than turkey.   We have been keeping an eye out for goat meat, and although we have seen many farms with the meat goats, we haven’t seen any goat meat in the grocery stores.     After getting the trailer ready to leave, we drove to Fort Concho to see what they had at the farmers market.  Nobody was there, so we hooked up the trailer and headed for the state park.   When we arrived  at the park we discovered we have 4 discounts included in our park pass. We can only use one per stay. We also found out that this park has wi-fi. Now it's not the greatest, but it is wi-fi.  Apparently most state park camp grounds have wi-fi now, as most campers are now insisting on having it.   I guess if they want to have the campgrounds used they need to compete with the the private parks. After lunch we sat in the sun for a while.  It’s nice to be able to sit outside without a coat on. Our pre-dinner  walk took us through some of the areas we wanted to explore in more detail later in the week. The park seems to be teaming with deer, but they are very skittish, maybe because at certain times of the year the park is closed to the public to allow hunting.

Sunday morning found us doing a quick run back to San Angelo (only a half hour drive) to pick up groceries we forgot to get before we came out to the park. After returning to the trailer we went for a walk, looking for the longhorn cattle exhibit herd that are housed at this park. We found the plains buffalo herd they have here instead.  After our walk we spent the afternoon watching the first draw of the Roar of the Ring. The rest of our time in San Angelo State was spent watching the curling and taking 2 hour walks between draws.   During our walks we saw glimpses of many deer just before they dashed out of sight, the buffalo, a skunk, an armadillo and part of the herd of Texas Longhorns that this park is known for.  

 We also saw the occasional golf ball in a tree along one trail.  It looked like someone must be leaving 'crumbs' to mark their path. 

  

The other thing we found was sunburn, since each afternoon was in the mid to high 20's, with a blue sky. Feels like summer.

Thursday we headed for Kerrville to the Triple T RV resort. Nice place, good wi-fi, hot tub, (the pool is closed), laundry room and a games room. On our drive here we were surprised to see that the trees are splendid in their fall colours, reds, oranges and dark greens.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse today with a high of 5 instead of 26, but the low is predicted to be above freezing.   Another arctic low is pushing as far south as Texas.  So far there have been stretches of weather with temperatures significantly lower than the seasonal averages.