12 - LOST MAPLES - VANDERPOOL, TX

Wednesday 5/23, we continued our journey across western and into central Texas.  It’s amazing how the landscape changes after you cross the Pecos River.  On the west side of the Pecos is desert – once you cross the river, the landscape changes to hills with a lot greener vegetation and trees.  The trees start with scrubby Mesquite, Cedar, and Juniper, then you start seeing some scrub Oaks. They use the phrase “Trans-Pecos” here which is usually referring to the west side of the river.  It definitely is a big dividing line for the landscape.

Our destination for a couple of nights was the Lost Maples State Natural Area (really a state park) near Vanderpool, TX.  We got off of I-10 just east of Junction, TX and then it was a little over 60 miles of not really smooth two-lane to the park (Hwys 83, 39, & 187).  This is what is called the Texas Hill Country and we passed a lot of exotic game ranches with high fences.  Exotic game hunting is a big business here and folks pay big bucks to come and hunt big-rack deer, various kinds of antelope, sable, and who knows what else.  We saw some of the antelope and a couple of zebras.

We arrived in the early afternoon, got all set up with a couple of birdfeeders and some feed & seed on the ground.  It didn’t take long for the birds to come – sparrows, cardinals, hummingbirds, and finches. There were also a lot of Black-crested Titmice. We don’t have this species at home, but they are native to this area. We also had a couple of Western Scrub Jays that came for a visit or two.

Thursday was a complete day of rest which we were needing.  We slept in a little, had a nice breakfast, and did a lot of shade-tree sitting & watching the birds. Also of note, we were completely electronic free.  There is absolutely no cell service at Lost Maples, no internet service, no Wifi, no nothing. I guess it’s OK to get away from it from time to time, but there sure were a few things I thought of that I would have liked to ‘Google’, but nope!!  We did have the satellite dish set up for TV, but even the Braves were off.

Today, Friday 5/25 – we made the short drive (50 miles) through the hill country over more two-lane highways to our place for Memorial Day Weekend – Kerrville-Schreiner State Park in Kerrville, TX.  Due to the short drive, we got here fairly early (in fact, had to wait a little bit for the previous tenant to leave).

Here’s a tale of how God will take care of you.  I noticed while we were at Lost Maples that the tow hitch base plate on the Jeep had worked itself a little loose. No way to fix it there, so we prayed God would get us to Kerrville without the Jeep coming loose going down the road.  After we got here and got set up, we found the local Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealer and went to see about getting it fixed.  NO HASSLE!!  The service manager worked us right in! To get to the bolts that hold the base plate on, the grill & bumper had to be removed.  Found that there were three loose bolts, and one broken off!  Got it taken care of in about an hour and we were on the way - was billed a whopping $33!  WOW – God is Good!

AS mentioned above, we are here for the weekend, so will post more later.