Getting caught up

Well, I haven't posted in a bit because I dropped off Nancy back at her home, and traveled to my home town.

Here's the Update:  I left Nancy's place and headed north through eastern Texas, and then through the hill country of Oklahoma.  I got to say I never new how beautiful part of Oklahoma was, but the part I drove through was nothing less then breath taking in spots. I even got to drive through a tunnel  (I freaking love tunnels)!

I camped in a couple of different places, and it was pretty cool even though I was alone. The first place I stayed was in Oklahoma and was impressed with the campsite, but thoroughly unimpressed with the late night shenanigans of two suped up cars racing in the campsite area...but I did have the place to myself after they were gone, so it all worked out. In the morning, I got up at 5am to have my coffee, and took some really nice pics of the sunrise.

When I got past Oklahoma, I ended up in Kansas and needed to find someplace to camp cuz it was getting late.  I used Google to search for campsites and found Crawford State Park. What a cool place, very clean and very well maintained.  I didn't have a fishing pole, but I should have got one because the lake looked really good, and I was only about thirty feet from the bank.

Just like when I choose a  parking spot in a Walmart parking lot, I choose a spot that had several open spots on either side of me...well, after I paid to camp their and fully set up my tent and started a fire, that was when a family with 2 boys and 4 girls and the Mom and Dad decided to camp right next to me.  Well, after I stopped being pissed that they camped right next to me, I cleaned out my truck bed box, and found some hot-dog cooking forks that I didn't' need anymore, and offered them to the family. They took them and we had a nice talk.  Turned out OK.

It rained on my all night, but I stayed dry in the tent.  The next morning, I woke up to my new neighbors cleaning up one of their tents that they had their food in.  He told me that they woke up about 3am to fight off over 10 coons that broke into their tent of food, and stole everything they had. I sure am glad I pack up my trash before I went to bed.

Well, it didn't want to stop raining, so I showered and tried to wait it out.  After checking the weather, I saw that it was going to rain all day where I was, but north it was dry so I packed up in the rain and headed north. On the way out, I snapped a few pics of some birds just chilling in the rain.

I arrived at my next destination in Missouri around 1pm after going to Walmart and buying a new fishing pole.  I wanted to fish this time and see if I still had any skill. The park was great, and the host of the campsite were a really nice couple that stayed there for the summer. Like most campsites it was $13 for a primitive site (no electric or water,) and they also sold firewood for $4 a bundle...but I didn't need any...still had some left over from my last campsite.  I set up my tent and then walked down to the lake to fish.
It was a long walk to the lake, and by the time I got there I was sweating buckets because of the humidity, but I didn't mind to much.  I used plenty of bug repellent so no mosquito were biting me.  The fish were biting, and I even hooked a few, but they were so small they would jump out of the water and come off the hook before I could get them reeled in.  That was OK with me, cuz I wasn't going to keep any of them anyway.  Got to say it was just a great day there.

 That night I had a fire, cooked some Brats with mustard and had a few beers.  Life is good.  Got up the next morning about 5am again, went and took a shower (really nice facility,) packed up and left out about 9am for my home town.  Got to say as far as campsites go, this is a good one.  I can't wait to get back out there.

 Well, I think I'm all caught up now....hopefully I wont get this far behind again.

Quick update from then to now...I got to my hometown a few days ago, and I'm staying with my Mom.  I decided that I really enjoy the water, so I bought a Kayak to take on the water when I go to these places.  I'll try to get some pics of me on the Kayak on the water...and maybe some of my shooting my new rifle too.  Picked up a 45-70 a few weeks ago, and loving it.

That's all for now.







My first camp site was in Kansas