Creatures at Choke Canyon State Park

The animals and birds at Choke Canyon are just amazing. A slow day is seeing only 5 deer. Sometimes we see 6 rabbits along a single trail. We’ve heard a Great Horned Owl.  We've seen armadillos, Audubon Orioles, juvenile Ibis, road runner, and Mexican Eagles (Crested Caracara). John saw a couple of coyotes plus we hear them at night. Oh, and John saw these turkeys and a deer along the road.

 There were 12 javelinas (collared peccary) that walked through our campsite that included 2 babies. I was trying to get a little closer to one of the big ones to get a better picture when he started moving towards me in a menacing manner (or that’s what I figured). I ran! But here’s a picture with John and one of these visitors.

   

The absolutely coolest visit was a bobcat walking through our campsite. Maybe “sauntered though” is a better term. It looked calm as if it owned the place like a cat does. The problem is that by the time you see it, realize how cool it is, and grab your camera, it’s already in the trees. However, a few days later a bigger bobcat came by and John got these terrific pictures.

We’ve seen all kinds of birds. A regular visitor is a Western Kingbird that shows up at our RV. Which sounds nice except that it goes to the back window and flutters and pecks, then to the side window and flutters and pecks, then to the front…., and then to the car windows. Then it does it all again maybe 15-30 minutes later. Oh, and it leaves “presents” dripping down the sides of our windows!

Choke Canyon State Park

Choke Canyon isn’t a canyon, but a lake. Apparently they choked off three rivers to make a lake and somewhere on the lake it formed a canyon-like formation. Anyhow, the park is great!  There is lots of wildlife here. Every morning I see over 20 deer, a few rabbits, maybe some turkeys, and lots of types of birds. We just saw several javelinas go past our window. We’ve seen scat or prints from coyote, bobcat, feral hog, and raccoon. I’ve seen pieces of turtle shells where the alligators broke their shell and ate them. It’s a busy state park!

I’ve been going to more of the park programs. The ones here have been funny. The ranger is VERY enthusiastic about the subjects and knows a lot. The issue is that he starts to tell you something, breaks into a story, then part of the way through story #1 he goes into story #2. Somehow he finds his way back through the levels and teaches you the original fact, but it takes time. I went to a one hour bird walk. He taught us about plants, animals, scat, history…and birds. After over two hours I left. I got back to the campsite and John was going crazy wondering what was happening. The 1-hour program took almost 3 hours including time riding my bike back and forth! The vermillion sapsucker and the scissor-tail sapsuckers were the most interesting birds that I saw. No photo since they were pretty far away.

Turkey Vultures

Lots of vultures here.

Black Vultures

Deer everywhere!

John came with me for the skins and skulls program. The same ranger was there. This time it was only 1.5 hours instead of the scheduled 1 hour program. But again, very interesting! We found out they found a dead alligator at the park yesterday that may have been 25’ long!

More Whining about Thor Freedom Elite

I mentioned earlier that we bought a new 2016 RV and it had all sorts of problems. The parts that were supposed to take a month instead took two months to arrive. We have now spent four days in the Camping World lobby as we wait on repairs with more days planned.

Additional problems have included:

  

• Screw heads popping off inside the RV. Scared us the 1^st time, but 8 heads popped so far. The inside ones are mostly fixed.
• Since the last repair visit, we had screw heads pop on an external bracket. John’s trying to come up with a fix on this. It’s scary how poor quality the screws are. Or did the engineers design the fasteners without the proper safety factor? If these are popping on brackets, what about the frame?!?
• The mattress has failed. I’d say it conforms to your body, but it’s not supposed to. So you roll into a low spot. The manufacturer was refusing to replace the mattress because we took the tag off (the one that consumers are allowed to take off!).
• Another rain leak, this one under the mattress. The leak is fixed but things molded so parts have to be replaced. Actually, this is lucky for us since the mattress is moldy too. They are replacing it.
• A water pump failed. Replaced.
• The TV antenna doesn’t work as well as the last one. We may be buying a new one.  There are other parts of the RV that aren’t as good as our old RV like the oven, vent, and fans. It seems they went for cheap, not good.

We naively thought buying a new RV would mean fewer problems. That hasn’t happened so far. We’ve heard horror stories from other who bought new RV’s. One couple said they had their RV in the shop over 30 days in the first year to get things fixed. That doesn’t work if you are living in the RV!

Do’s and Don’ts of RV Living

Here’s my very personalized list of do’s and don’ts based on things I’ve seen.

Don’t bring a dog with you that barks at anyone who passes by the campsite or when they are left alone or for no reason at all. If you have a dog, make sure they are trained. You may love your barking dog, but your neighbors don’t. Also, keep the leash short when you are passing someone while walking your dog. As many times as you tell me your dog is safe, I really don’t want him jumping on me. (Recently we had a dog in the next site that howled every time the owner left the RV until he came back. Not fun!)

Do take walks and enjoy your location.

Don’t keep lights on outside your RV all night. I’ve heard that lights around your motor keeps mice from climbing up and eating wires so that makes sense (though we’ve never had a problem). Otherwise, you’re shining lights into your neighbors’ windows and preventing us from seeing the stars.

Do go outside at night and watch the stars, planets, meteors, and satellites. There are some great apps out there to know where to look.

Don’t spend all your time in the RV.

Do go to the activities at the park. There are lots to learn and lots of people to meet.

Don’t monopolize your fellow campers’ time. Make sure you aren’t the only one talking. And stop talking when they are trying to walk away.

Do be friendly and spend time comparing stories.

Don’t drive your RV away from your campsite without going through a checklist. My checklist is unwritten, but I go through a list of 10 things I need to do inside the RV before we leave so things won’t shift as we drive. John has his things-to-do outside.

Do laugh at yourself when you make a mistake. It happens! (We recently lost the outdoor temperature sensor when I forgot to bring it in.)

New Years Eve in San Antonio

It is said that the New Year’s Eve party in San Antonio is the second biggest in the country. I don’t know how they measure that, but it is big with maybe a quarter million people and LOTS of fireworks downtown.

The thing is…I’m a wimp about crowds. Much better yet was a party at the RV park. If you drink too much, you can just walk back to your RV. Lots of people were there and you didn’t have to know anyone to get into a conversation. It was just like a high school dance in that the girls (now grandmas) all fast danced together. At midnight, there was a balloon drop, champagne, and just walk outside to see large fireworks exploding all around the town.

Happy New Year to you!

Riverwalk Downtown

We spent yesterday afternoon biking to downtown and walking around Riverwalk. It was 5 miles to downtown, which wasn’t bad. However, once we got there we were stopped by the police. At a certain point Riverwalk changes from a bike and hike trail to only walking. Luckily the officer just gave us directions. We had to climb the stairs with our bike. We ended up leaving our bikes locked up near the cathedral with the hope that no one would steal a bike near a cathedral!

We walked from there along Riverwalk to the Alamo. The problem with all of this is that the whole area is full of tourists for the holidays and for an upcoming game. Most of Riverwalk was walking in a straight line passing a straight line of people going the other direction. The lines for the boats were long too. However, we found a restaurant and enjoyed lunch.

The Alamo was also too busy. The line to the ‘shrine’ was too long. We’ve seen it before and it certainly isn’t worth the wait for a second time. But we wandered around the courtyard.

Too many people, but the bike ride was good.

Morning Walks in San Antonio

I still love my morning walks / bike rides. There are two missions within a few miles of the RV park. The interesting part is that they aren’t really open this early in the morning. But the lighting is so great I can’t resist getting some pictures.