Lake Whitney Thousand Trails

2012 Apr 6

Our time here at Thousand Trails in Whitney, Texas, so far has been wonderfully relaxing, after the excitement of our travel day. The park has lots of amenities, like a basketball court, tennis courts, a pool table, library and computers. There are some things that aren't open yet, like the pools, and hot tub. WiFi is available at most sites in Sections B & D. There aren't many people here; quite a change from Florida where we were sometimes too close to our neighbor. We love hearing all the bird song and the coyotes. According to the map, there is also a horse corral, but we haven't seen it yet, nor do we know if there are resident horses, or if some folks actually bring their own horses. That's on our list of things to find out. One really nice feature here that we have only seen at one other campground, in a small "supply post", a little store. This one happened to have the sewer hose connection piece that we needed. YEAH! 

The only negative we've encountered is very, very tiny, but only with regard to its actual size. The negative is the lone star tick! It is a very tiny tick, approximately the size of half a rice crispy kernel. I'd give a size in millimeters, but my metric recognition is poor. They are reddish colored and the females have a white spot of their backs, hence their name. They are not indigenous to Texas, but do live as far west as central Texas. We have, so far, removed three of these creatures, with great difficulty. None appeared to be female. All have seemed to be immature. They have not been found on Greyla, nor on me. For some reason, they have all been on Raymond. Two have been on his neck, just below his hairline and last night, on was removed from his underarm. That one was the most difficult to remove.

They are carriers of lyme disease, as well as erhlichiosis, and STARI(Southern Tick Associated Rash Infection).

My concern now, is to communicate to Raymond how important it is to track his physical reaction and any symptoms he may develop in the next 2-14 days. His initial reaction, after being grossed out that he had been tick food, was to say, "I'll be fine", as if by shear power of will he could avoid any ill effects! This is his response to most illness, even his bouts of pancreatitis. (Well, during pancreatitis, not so much, but after and before, always!) I have read him information from the CDC, NIH, and a couple of Universities. They all say the same thing: monitor reaction, save the tick in alcohol, see a doctor. We flushed our dead ticks, but only after fully identifying them. Now we have the dates of the bites on the calendar and I am trying to monitor Raymond. There is a medical center in Whitney, and I would like him to see a doc before we leave here next Thursday, just for peace of mind (and maybe prophylactic antibiotics), but so far, he's still in "I'll be fine" mode. I pray he's correct.

For information about the various types of ticks and the diseases they carry, check out the link below.

tickinfo.com

From One Thousand Trails to Another, Texas Style

2012 April 03

Today we drove from Bay Landing Thousand Trails in Bridgeport, Texas to Lake Whitney thousand Trails in Whitney, Texas.  Both these TT are located just outside what they refer to locally as the "metroplex". That's a Texan way to say, cities (Dallas/Fort Worth, as well as Frisco, Plano, Garland, and Denton, Arlington, Irving) with sprawling suburban bedroom communities. 

We drove from Point, Texas to Bridgeport on Saturday around noon. We chose to drive along their freeway, at the mid-ring of their beltway, because it was Saturday and we mistakenly assumed traffic would be lighter than during the week. Big mistake! Construction abounds! There was massive funneling from four lanes, to two, which then merge with an entrance ramp. The whole thing was nightmarish! And, as if all that weren't enough, it turns out that all those Texans who heretofore have been so friendly, have transformed when behind the wheel, into a combination of New York and Virginia drivers, whose response to our lane change indicator, is to speed up. And no one was getting anywhere, anyway! We were crawling along at 2 miles per hour. When we finally did manage to get over, we got honked at! I was very proud of my self control; I simply ignored them, although I did mention to Raymond that it was a good thing I didn't have a gun :)

Our "yard" at Bay Landing Thousand Trails

The Thousand Trails in Bridgeport, Texas, Bay Landing, was off the beaten track. And in true Texas style, it was HUGE! Very spread out, and none of the campsite were near the Ranger Station, which would've been a problem if we had stayed for an length of time. When we arrived we spoke with a woman in the Ranger Station who explained which areas had water, sewer and electric, which had no sewer, which were near the recreation hall, and which were near lakefront. She wasn't sure which sites were available, as it was first come first served, but wanted us to call her when we picked a site so she'd know where we were. Well, if everyone before us called, wouldn't she know which sites were occupied? Or at least which ones were unoccupied?  Oh well…off we went in search of the perfect spot. After much riding around, we decided on a spot very near the recreation hall, bath house, and lake, with full hook ups. Site number 110. 

Our view at Bay Landing

It took a little doing to get backed into the site and get the motor home level, but we did it. Then we got the water, electric, and finally started on the sewer when we made a horrible discovery. We had thrown away the sewer hose that I had inadvertently run over way back at Cedar Pines, in Pace, FL, in mid-March. We have been using only one section of hose since then, even though we have a second section. Our horrible discovery was that when we threw away the crushed sewer hose, we also threw away the connector! We were the proud owners of two sections of sewer hose, but no way to connect them. After a call to the Ranger to find out if they perhaps had one for sale, we decided to move our site. Really, thinking about it now, we should've simply stayed put, because the site we moved to was in another section of the park without sewer hook ups. Sometimes I am amazed by how stupid we can be! As it turned out, the winds were very strong, and we decided that three days there was our limit, anyway. So it wouldn't have mattered if we had stayed at site 110, even without the sewer. Maybe it was all the Dallas, excuse me, metroplex traffic and of course, the heat. We really weren't thinking clearly.

Pretty little wild flowers

Wild stuff :)

Wild succulents

On the plus side, I will say that the night skies were amazing. Also, the wild flowers were prolific. Even though the mid-days were incredibly hot, the mornings and evenings were perfect. Thank goodness for air conditioning in the afternoons!  For our last two nights in Bay Landing, the winds were howling and rocked our motor home, while we tried to sleep. We decided to move on to a Thousand Trails south of the metroplex, about halfway to Waco.The TV weather guys were calling for rain and storms, but as we prepared to leave Bay Landing, the sun was shining. We took this as a good omen. As I mentioned, we weren't obviously thinking clearly. More about that later.