Three States and a Hidden Reservoir

We got on the road before 8 AM, and left the beautiful Caprock Canyon State Park. We headed West, and watched the Sandhill cranes fly in the distance.

After refueling in Amarillo, we continued north, towards Oklahoma.

The area is pretty empty, with small towns 20 miles apart, and not much else. The winds were bad much of the day, including some heavy buffeting from passing Trucks. We drove across the panhandle of Okahoma, about 50 miles, and then entered Colorado. We took the opportunity to take photos of the signs greeting people crossing the state line. The roads in Oklahoma were terrible, very bumpy, while the roads in Colorado are new and smooth.


Our destination was Two Buttes reservoir, a Colorado State Wildlife Area between Springfield and Lamar. After stopping at the Thriftway supermarket in Springfield, we drove 18 miles north, and then turned East. We turned south at the first State Wildlife Area sign, which turned out to be a mistake, as the road got pretty bad. We were able to get turned around and ultimately found the reservoir. We camped next to a pool surrounded by cliffs. Although there were fire rings and some beer cans, no one was here, and our rear window faced the pool.

Late in the afternoon, a flock of more than a dozen turkeys came by and drank from the pool. Pretty cool.

All in all, a kind of magical place, at least when no one else is there.

When we got up on Wednesday, we were surrounded by turkeys, around 30 of them! Nice.

We drove home without incident. We saw some snow in the shade as we got closer to Denver, but the roads were dry.

Caprock Canyons State Park

We decided to get up early on Monday morning, so we were on the road before 8 AM, good for us. We got through rush hour smoothly, with minimal delays. We made it to Caprock Canyons State Park mid afternoon, so we got to see a bit of the park, very quiet and beautiful.

The stars at night were beautiful

We plan to drive hard to get home Wednesday to beat the weather.

Dallas Art Museum

On Sunday, we decided to head into the Denver Art Museum. We especially enjoyed "The Mourners", small medieval tomb sculptures. Amazing work. The photo is of one of the sculptures that we liked.

Tour of Dallas

We drove to Dallas on Friday, and settled in at Cedar Hill State Park.

On Saturday, we drove into Dallas to meet Susan and Mark at Fair Park. Fair Park is where the Texas State Fair is held. Fair Park is a Texas size facility. We went to the African-American museum, where we saw an interesting exhibit on the Freedman's cemetary, which was recently rediscovered. A large group of motorcycles drove up to visit the Vietnam memorial wall at the fair. We received a detailed tour of the Texas building from the proud guard.


Most of the buildings were built for the 1936 Centennial, in which Texas commemorated the 100th anniversary of the independence of Texas from Mexico. The buildings are, as one would expect, in the Art Deco Style, and have been restored in recent years. Susan says that this is the largest collection of monumental Art Deco murals in the world.

After the fair we went to an excellent Mexican restaurant in a funky neighborhood. Then we headed out to White Rock Park and Lake, a beautiful area in the big city.

We ended the day in Downtown Dallas, where we saw the monumental bronze herd of longhorn cattle, as well as a group of young people dressed up for a quinceanera.

A long day, but a good day.

Houston Quilt Show

Wednesday morning, Michael went out and bought Kolaches. Kolaches are sausages in a bun, not health food, but they are tasty. We then hit the road towards Houston.

I had clipped a sewer drain on a corner with the trailer, and damaged a tire. We needed new tires anyway, so we stopped in Rosenburg to get new trailer tires. Good to get new tires on the trailer, the old tires were made in 2003, and becoming questionable.

The rain continued most of the morning, sometimes raining hard. We arrived at the same campground in Houston, but unfortunately did not get a great campsite. Our campsite is on a busy road, a far cry from the lakeside campsite we had last time.

Thursday, we headed into downtown Houston. We drove around near the conference center, and luckily got into a parking lot a couple of blocks away. The parking was only $7, better than the $20 right 100 feet away.

As we walked to the convention center, we joined a sea of women quilters. There were a few men, but not many.

The quilts on display in the show were amazing, incredible workmanship, great designs, the best of the best. Good to see quilts from Colorado and Wyoming. We walked past some of the hundreds of booths. Marianne managed to spend less than $100, buying a few things cheaper than she could buy them at home.

We sat down and watched Eleanor Burns, the quilt for a day lady, give an entertaining talk on her barn quilts. A good chance to get off our feet. By five PM, we were ready to go. The photo was of one of Marianne's favorite quilts; she bought an autographed book from the quilter.

The Houston Quilt show is amazing. Attending it was a dream come true for Marianne. Tomorrow we head out towards Dallas.

Goliad and Bay City

We started Monday by walking on the beach, and then headed inland. Our destination was Goliad State Park. Goliad is famous for the massacre that occurred there during the Texas war of Independence. It was extremely hot, so we mostly stayed in the air conditioned camper.

Tuesday was a much cooler day, so we toured the restored Bahia mission that is part of the state park. After that we headed over to the Presidio, the nearby fort, which is where the Goliad massacre took place. For those of you not knowledgeable about Texas history, more than 300 Texans were executed at Goliad after they had surrendered to the Mexican army, more than were killed at the Alamo. A sad story. The Presidio had also been restored, and had a good museum explaining the history.

We headed into the town of Goliad for lunch. The town has a historic courthouse and other buildings. We had a good lunch at El Empressario restaurant on the town square.

We proceeded on to Bay City, where we went to Michael and Kathy's house. Unfortunately, we clipped a sewer drain on the way there, damaging a tire, so the first order of business on Wednesday will be replacing the trailer tires.

We waited for Kathy to get home from work, and then we headed to an excellent seafood restaurant. The fried pickles and jalepenos were especially good.

Port Aransas and Paddlefest

On Wednesday we left Austin and headed for the Aquarena in San Marcos, a natural spring, previously a theme park, but now an environmental education center. We took the glass bottom boat ride, seeing the fish and the springs. The low pressure springs were like a mini sand geyser, while the high presure springs were more like a fire hose. A very pleasant stop.

However, it did put us somewhat late arriving at the beach in Port Aransas. We usually stop around 4 PM, but ended up driving almost to 6 PM. The I.B.MaGee beach park was pretty basic, but really OK. We were there because the paddlefest is there.

Thursday was a relaxing day, doing laundry and visiting the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

The paddlefest started Friday with an 8:30 AM meeting. We headed out to the old lighthouse, in what turned out to be a long paddle, about eight miles round trip. Richard was lagging behind, but did get some tips that helped him keep up on the following days. Richard and his sister Diane went out to dinner in the evening. Saturday we paddled out to Shamrock Island, a bird sanctuary, a shorter trip. Sunday we did a variation on the Saturday trip. Richard enjoyed taking demo rides in various kayaks.

Sunday evening we went to mass with Diane, and then went out to dinner with Diane and Patrick. We had a nice visit.