Lake Tawakoni, Texas

2012 Mar 30

We arrived at Thousand Trails Lake Tawakoni, later than we had planned, due to poor directional skills, some on my part, some on the part of various locals. We had a reservation and an itinerary number. What we didn't have was anyone to meet us. Nor did we have any information left for us. There was a phone at the entrance, but no one answered when when Raymond called the number beside it. There were, however, some campers very nearby, who hollered over to us that we should just pick a spot and see the manager in the morning. That sounded like a plan.

                                                            OUR VIEW

From right

to middle

to middle

 to left.

This is our "yard".

The park itself was huge, total of 480 acres!  In the center was an open field, which was apparently used for a driving range. We drove around, through mature trees, along the lake shore, and back toward the center again. Let me just say that neither Raymond nor I are very decisive people. Consequently, we drove around again.  We considered the lake front, but were concerned about mosquitoes, since lake front in MS had been infested with them. And since we didn't have a map of the facility, we really weren't sure where anything was located. We ended up basing our decision on where R could set up the satellite dish for best reception, and turned out to be wrong, anyway! The park seemed very empty, and many sites had their hook ups wrapped in plastic.  Later we learned that the "official: season for this TT starts on April 1. I guess that would explain the swimming pool being locked, the general unkemptness of all the grassy areas, the dirty floors in the laundry facility, and the general lack of staff. The TT app on our phone says they have cable and WiFi, which they do not.

The morning after our arrival, Raymond walked up to the office to firm up our arrangements. Turned out that the site we had chosen was just two sites away from the camp host's RV. Since we were only staying three days, we owed $9 for the resort fee, which R was unable to pay, due to their computer being down. In addition, the woman was training a new employee, so she told Ray they would come by later to collect the money, when they made their rounds of the park. 

About this time, I started to feel funky. I was having some abdominal discomfort and felt a 

bit puny. As the day progressed, the discomfort bloomed into pain. It was all left sided, middle and upper quadrant. Eventually, R suggested that I just go lay down and try to rest. The pain seemed to be affected by position, and when I found a way to lay that limited the pain, I feel asleep. When I got up, I was still painful and remembered my last doctor visit when I mentioned a "tightness" in my left abdomen and Dr Ebbert thought that it may be diaverticulosis. The pain was the energy sucking kind, that makes you feel like all the energy in your body is being sucked into this black hole of pain. 

Needless to say, I did not get our massive amounts of dirty laundry washed. Thank goodness my husband is a patient man. We had a quick and easy dinner, and before bed I decided to take a couple ibuprofen. That was a good decision, since it killed the pain, as well as allowed me to sleep all night.

Today I finally got around to the laundry. Yeah! Four loads, but now it's done and we have a good idea of the maximum amount of time that can lapse between laundry visits, which, amazingly enough is about four weeks! Granted, that means wearing nearly everything we own, and NOT changing shirts daily. But, a lot of that time was spent in state parks, which is different from RV resorts. And we're not nearly as active as we were in, say, our forties. Plus, we do monitor each other for bad odors :)

As to the abdominal pain, it is much less than yesterday and I am checking out what measures I should be taking to curb this from happening again. Seems that high fiber in the diet is helpful. As if I needed yet another smack upside my head regarding changing our diet! More fiber, less junk, more fruits and veggies, less processed food. The good news is that Raymond is all for changing our diet if it will help me. If, however, I suggested changing it to help him, he'd be all, "No, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."  So, with this episode, I can change our diet, for both of us, and he's onboard because he doesn't want me to have any issues. I guess that's a win/win.

We will be moving on tomorrow, headed to another Thousand Trails, this one in Bridgeport, TX. I hope it's in better shape than the one we're currently in. I'm thinking we got spoiled at all those Encore Resorts we stayed in in Florida, as well as the great state parks in Mississippi and Arkansas. We'll soon get a better handle on whether the Thousand Trails membership was a boon or a bust.