Texas 2023:
Day 10 - Falcon State Park


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Texas 2023: [Day 1 - Tulsa] [Day 2 - Lawton] [Day 3-4 - Lubbock] [Day 5 - El Paso] [Day 6-7 - Davis Mountains SP] [Day 8 - Big Bend NP] [Day 9 - Seminole Canyon SP] [Day 10 - Falcon SP] [Day 11-14 - South Padre Island] [Day 15-16 - Goose Island SP] [Day 17 - Houston] [Day 18 - Stephen F. Austin SP] [Day 19-20 - McKinney Falls SP] [Day 21 - Arlington] [Day 22 - Cooper Lake SP] [Day 23 - Crater of Diamonds SP] [Day 24 - Nashville] [Day 25 - Heading Home]

Monday, January 30, 2023: Debbie awoke at 4 AM to rain coming in through the open top of our tent. Tom dashed to the van, got the rainfly, and hastily put it up. Debbie dried up the very little water that was on the mesh, and there wasn't much that made it through the top. We went back to sleep, and when we got up at daybreak, we noticed that the beautiful clear skies of the day before had given way to rain carried on a stiff breeze from the north and east.
We had oatmeal for breakfast, and then packed up, loading our gear into the van as fast as we could while it continued to rain. We left the park around 9:30 AM, ...
... and passed a Customs and Border Protection inspection station on the other side of the road leading west from the nearby border town of El Mirador, Mexico.
Just before 10 AM, we drove through the Amistad National Recreation Area, ...
... and onto the bridge over the Amistad Reservoir.
The old trestle bridge, named the Governor's Landing Bridge, was visible in the rain just to the west of the newer bridge.
We stopped for an early lunch at Bush's Chicken in Eagle Pass, Texas. We had seen this fast food chicken chain earlier in our trip, and it is our goal to always eat someplace that we don't have at home.
Debbie ordered the two tender roll combo with fried okra, and Tom ordered the six tenders combo, also with fried okra. We'll always order fried okra as the side if it is available. Always.
About halfway between Eagle Pass and Laredo, we passed another Customs and Border Protection checkpoint, this time on our side of the road. There were no signs instructing us to stop, so we drove right past.
Around 1:30 PM, we'd made it to Laredo, Texas, ...
... where we decided to try to get food from the Loredo Taco Company, not because we were hungry but because we were in its namesake town. They appear to only be in gas stations with Stripes convenience stores. While Tom filled up the van, Debbie went inside to get the tacos. Once inside, the taco counter was unattended and there was no obvious person responsible for working the counter, so Debbie gave up.
While we sat at the light to turn onto the frontage road, we checked out the Texas emblem embedded in the wall of the overpass surrounded by birds mounted just above the wall, which gave the display a very 3D feel.
Check out this super fat iguana a little farther down the frontage road.
Debbie saw a sign like this one (which was taken the next day) as we got onto the highway, ...
... so we got right back off again and headed to the nearest Whataburger for Dr. Pepper Shakes. They didn't taste very much like Dr. Pepper, but they were very delicious.
We drove southeast on US-83 along the US/Mexico border, and when we came to the town of Zapata, we took a quick detour to drive around this beautiful government building for Zapata County.
Just before 4 PM, we arrived at Falcon State Park, which was our destination for today.
It's at the southern end of a huge lake formed by the Rio Grande River, but we only saw the lake while we were driving toward the campground.
We set the tent right on the pavement, which we like to do since it is usually flat and less bumpy than the rocky scrub. We had finally out run the rain, but the wind was still pretty strong so we used the van as a windbreak.
We were in the Mesquite Camping Area, just about the mid-point of the peninsula that forms Falcon State Park.
In most of the other campgrounds we had stayed in on this trip, we had been warned about the various wild animals in the area. There were no warnings given when we checked in here, so you can imagine our surprise when Debbie just happened to look out of the tent while making dinner and saw not one javalina walk through our campsite, ...
... but two. They hadn't even looked in the direction of our tent, but we were very happy that we had set up on the pavement, otherwise we would have been right on their path.

The excitement over, we settled down for a delicious dinner of our favorite camping meal ever, spaghetti with meat sauce from Mountain House. We settled down for a quiet evening, working on our laptops briefly before playing our nightly games of Scrabble.

Day 11 >


Texas 2023: [Day 1 - Tulsa] [Day 2 - Lawton] [Day 3-4 - Lubbock] [Day 5 - El Paso] [Day 6-7 - Davis Mountains SP] [Day 8 - Big Bend NP] [Day 9 - Seminole Canyon SP] [Day 10 - Falcon SP] [Day 11-14 - South Padre Island] [Day 15-16 - Goose Island SP] [Day 17 - Houston] [Day 18 - Stephen F. Austin SP] [Day 19-20 - McKinney Falls SP] [Day 21 - Arlington] [Day 22 - Cooper Lake SP] [Day 23 - Crater of Diamonds SP] [Day 24 - Nashville] [Day 25 - Heading Home]

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