TEXAS
Our next destination was to another city-run park in Lamesa, Texas. We crossed the state line, entered the Central Time Zone and just like that, it was lunch time. As we entered Brownfield Amanda pulled off onto a side street of the town plaza. She had found a pizza place. I don’t know how she does this so easily but it is always a pleasure traveling with her for she’s pretty good at using the cell phone in finding things. I just tag along. The place was named Mad Hatters Pizza and had an Alice in Wonderland theme going once you stepped inside. The art, collectables and weird unusual things inside was a mind-blowing experience. And the pizza was excellent. If you are ever near Brownfield, go to this place. The visual feast alone is worth the stop even if you choose to pass on a pizza which will be your loss.
We got a late start leaving Coleman Park in Brownsfield, possibly due to the pizza carbohydrate coma we were coming out from. Our goal for the day was a small free camp near the shoreline of Lake J.B. Thomas near...well nothing really; maybe the little no-stop-light town of Ira would be the closest. This day we fought headwinds for all of the ninety-six miles until the turnoff onto a graded gravel farm road. I stopped and asked Amanda if this was correct for I couldn’t always trust Claire with her directions. Amanda consulted her phone and said “I think so”. I continued down the single-lane track. A couple miles in lay Bull Creek Park. A steel cable drooped low across the entrance between two rusted poles. There was not a sign of anyone around. I texted her I would go further on to see what was around the bend. I came back after finding nothing but farm and ranch homes. There she stood by the entrance hands thrust up skyward in frustration. I stopped behind her van barely off the gravel road and stepped out. A metal sign attached to the cable laid flat on the ground: PARK CLOSED. “I’m going to walk on in” I told her. It was peaceful and quiet in the vacant campground except for the wind clang-banging the loose tin roof on the women’s pit toilet. The grass had grown high and the sites looked as if they hadn’t been used in months. A sign stood down at the end of the short campground road; another one of those roads that wound up being a boat ramp. The sign warned against swimming anywhere near the boat ramp. Well that wasn’t going to be an issue; there was no water anywhere near− just a forest of scraggly dead trees. Off in the distance I could make out a brick-red streak of water, the remainder of the Lake J.B. Thomas. The water was indeed red from the soil all around being rich red clay of some sort. I walked back to the vehicles. Amanda said she’s having lunch. Good idea. While eating a few locals drove by, slowing down to get a good look at the two squatters parked at the campground entrance no doubt wondering if we were going to stay, parked like that. We joked about how long it would be before the Sheriff arrived. After an hour we got tired of waiting for Sheriff Andy Taylor and decided to move out. Twenty-some miles down the highway was the Walmart Motor Lodge in Snyder that would be our home for the night. Beans and I stayed at this Walmart before just two days off from it being exactly three years ago.
The next morning Amanda wanted to take me to the nearby Whataburger for breakfast saying their breakfast is really great. By the time she got going to be there in time before they stopped serving breakfast (eleven a.m.) I had already eaten my normal breakfast, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. We walked in and with the noise from the high-stress confusion going on in the kitchen, music blaring, and the young girl at the register wearing a mask trying to communicate to us I could make out absolutely nothing she said. I had to go through Amanda to order. I all but gave up but sort of got what I wanted having already prepped myself by viewing their menu online the evening before. A breakfast platter with eggs, bacon (Amanda rolled her eyes as I didn’t choose sausage), hash brown sticks, and a biscuit (I thought I was getting a pancake) and a drink where I was handed a large Styrofoam beaker when I thought breakfast came with a cup of coffee. Who drinks soda with breakfast? Texans evidently. At the table our orders were delivered. Amanda wolfed down her biscuits and gravy while I took some time with my meal being as this was my second breakfast for the morning. I will say it was good. I’d definitely go with a Whataburger breakfast before even considering a McDonalds. Okay truth is I would never consider McDonalds for anything. Well maybe their free wifi.
Back in our vehicles the drive-up line extended past where we were parked. I’ll never get out of here. A gap opened and I texted her I am getting out while I can and succeeded in doing so. She soon joined me at a empty parking lot for an Italian restaurant up the street. After a bit she came over to give me the other half of her cinnamon roll which I tried to decline. I couldn’t imagine eating that feeling bloated as I did. “You keep it” I said. “No, I don’t need the carbs” she came back with. “Eat it later.” Then she said she felt it best we go our separate ways now. She had a summer job to be at by the weekend and “I have to be putting in some long days, a lot of miles and probably fast driving to make it in time. I don’t think you and Beans will want to do that.” She was right. We would tend to slow her down, so reluctantly we hugged and parted ways. Amanda is a good person to travel with; the best I have had the experience with. We would miss her and Louie for sure.
Under dreary dismal looking cloudy skies Amanda and Louie pulled on out barreling east while I consulted my maps as to where we would go. I decided southeast to a camp area at E.V. Spence reservoir near Robert Lee. I would miss Amanda’s decision making on places to go as she is good at. Yet now I was free to take what comes as it usually does without feeling responsible for dragging someone else into our misadventures. She’s never complained about them though.
We arrived at Wildcat Recreation Area not too sure where to go but being alone now I didn’t feel obligated to confer anymore. I’d deal with it on my own. Beans has no input ever. I turned in on the first road; saw a picnic table by itself sitting out on a point overlooking the water and felt that’s good enough. And it was. For the first time we were at a spot we had been seeking for weeks−a nice place with easy access to clear water, not cold, was inviting for swimming with a nice clean solid rock shoreline and no mud. Amanda would have loved it. Now I really missed her.
To keep my mind busy and not think too much about being on our own I decided to clean house. Rain was in the forecast. Being cooped up inside with a clean house is much more pleasant than in a dirty house. At some time while busy cleaning a middle-aged couple pulled in across the cove from us and set about fishing from the rocky point twenty feet above the water. I wondered if they ever hooked anything how they could get the fish up to where they sat on the cliff. The lady was a heavyset woman who simply sat flat on the rock slab with her legs straight out in front of her. I wished I could sit like her. After a couple of hours fishing and no catches they left in their little compact car. It was perhaps an hour later two cars and a pickup truck arrived at the rocky point. When everyone piled out I realized two of the people were the fishing couple. They had brought the whole family back with them? Everyone except a couple of young kids walked down the slope to the fishing spot then continued down to the water’s edge. They made their way around the point along the shoreline out of sight from my view. Shortly they all returned got back into their cars and left, except for the fishing couple. They toured around the area, even drove right through our camp as if looking for something. They did have a little dog with them. I wondered if there had been another dog that ran off. Eventually they left. Maybe another hour passed then here comes the pickup truck again this time with the county Sheriff following. Okay, this is getting interesting. They park and the heavyset fishing lady steps out from the truck. The Sheriff puts on a pair of gloves and the two of them make their way down the slope to the water and around the point. A bit later they come back. The Sheriff is carrying what appears to be a large clump of wet dead lake grass in his hand. He lays the clump over the push-bar bumper of his patrol car then walks around back to the trunk. There he digs out a large plastic evidence baggie and places the clump inside and then into his patrol SUV on the passenger side floor. He confers with the lady a little and then the woman leaves. The Sheriff hangs around as it begins to grow dark. Soon a large white pick-up truck arrives and parks next to the Sheriff. It is too dark to see clearly in my binoculars but the driver appears to be a slender built woman with long dark hair. They stand outside and converse. Shortly thereafter a second Sheriff’s SUV arrives. He looks like sheriff Buford T. Justice played by Jackie Gleason in the movie Smokey and the Bandit. All three make their way down to the water with flashlights bouncing around light beams. It is now too dark for me to see anything and I go to bed. As I lay there I recalled when we first pulled in to our camp spot there were a dozen or so turkey vultures hanging around on the rocky point fishing spot. They wouldn’t be there had there not been something of interest to scavenge nearby. Was what appeared to be a clump of wet dead lake grass perhaps a head of hair? Whatever was going on it was worth having nearly half of the Coke County Sheriff’s department show up for they have only five fulltime officers. The next day I walked on over, down to the water, around the point which I could only go for about a hundred feet where the lake water was right up against the cliff wall. I found nothing. I made a blog post of this affair soon after. One of the comments was from Amanda: “Why does all the excitement happen after I leave?!!” I checked online for days for any news but never found anything.
I had made arrangements to have a package sent general delivery to a small post office. The post office was a hundred fifty miles away. I’d cover that with a couple of overnight stays planning to retrieve the package on a Thursday or Friday figuring two to three-day delivery for priority mail. Well that must be ancient history for the post office tracking revealed the package would arrive Saturday. Priority mail now is five days or maybe the same week with any luck? This threw a wrench into my planning as I was only going to stay at Wildcat for two days. What to do? After a couple days Wildcat proved itself to be a nice place to stay for aside from the police action on the first evening no one ever came by. The weather improved meaning the sun was out from behind clouds and the wind chill factor no longer mattered. I went down to the lake to soak my feet. The water felt nice. I went back to the RV and prepared myself to go in all the way. I can do this. The shoreline was composed mostly of solid rock (no mud) and the water was clear, free of debris, weeds and sediment. I eased myself in on a submerged rock shelf. There wasn’t that ‘take your breath away’ moment as the water was just right. It really did feel nice to swim around a bit. I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to swim in lake water. My best guess was around the fourth of July two years ago. So thanks to the inefficiency of the U.S. Postal Service I had that pleasure of swimming in a lake.
Things were looking up. I could see staying put on through the week just fine. Come Thursday morning (swim day) the package was still scheduled for a Saturday delivery. Then all of a sudden that afternoon it showed it had been delivered! What the hell? It had made it in the historical two to three day time frame. Well I was in no mood to neither leave that afternoon nor make a one day hundred and fifty mile banzai run to the little town of Lometa the next day as the office was closed on Saturdays. I could just as well had the package sent here to Robert Lee had I known I would be staying put. This is just one of the few inconveniences of full-timing on the road: judging where you will be at a certain time to pick up mail. Oh well, the swim was well worth it.
Friday was a do nothing day as I had already hiked an explored around all there was to explore. I was ready to leave Saturday. I planned to drive to Ballinger only forty miles away poking along enjoying the drive, then Sunday do the same routine to Brownwood. There seemed to be some issue of rising gasoline prices and even a gas shortage that transpired while we were isolated at the lake. When I started up the motor home to leave Saturday I had a quarter of a tank left. Hmm...maybe I should deal with that before leaving town. There were two stations in Robert Lee. I pulled into one, they had diesel and it was at $2.99 a gallon. Oh well, at least they have fuel. I looked on my notes and saw I paid $3.25 the last time in Roswell, New Mexico. I sure do love Texas! The highway to Ballinger had little traffic so it was nice to dawdle along under fifty miles-per-hour at times stopping at historical marker sites along the way.
I could do with some clothes cleaning and had checked out online laundry places along our route. The first one would be in Ballinger. I scanned the reviews:
“This place is horrible. The owner is honestly stealing from customers. Today six washers took my money. I could not find one working machine. I know stealing is a bold statement, but the machines are taking money from the customers and the customers are getting no product. I bet the owner is enjoying the income and lower utilities due to his machines not working. Would not recommend.”
“Most washers are broke, vending machines empty, but it's open and has a bathroom and isn't trashed. Clothes are clean, so problem solved.”
“Over half the machines don't work and they're not even posted as being out of order. It's like playing Russian roulette at your laundromat, this is ridiculous. To top it all off there's no way to get your money back once they've taken it. The owners of this property should be brought up on charges of theft and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and this place should be closed down.”
“This is the worst laundry. Machines not working, dryers snag clothes, floors dirty, no washing supplies or coin changers. Plus runners on floor are buckled. Caused me to fall today in laundry.”
“Only one in town that I know of so it’s the best lol.”
I had to see this place.
Inside it didn’t look as bad as some of the photos I saw online accompanying the reviews. Maybe the owner fixed some things. I asked a lady (not a local) about the machines noting some of the awful reviews I had read. She agreed saying she lost four dollars one time but was lucky in the owner was there and refunded her money. She said you just have to know which machines NOT to use. She took me on a tour pointing out a few sure-fire machines that worked. The two on the end were good. I could remember that. Two-fifty for a load. I went back to the RV and gathered up my dirty laundry. When I came back in with my arms full a guy had just pulled in and beat me to one of the machines the lady had pointed out. I asked him about the reviews and learned he was a local. He vouched for the criminality. He also showed me around saying the four large machines (five dollars each) “steal your money”. I had already chosen a winner on the end but was concerned about the dryers now. “Just use the ones on the top row and you’ll be fine.” He was right−fifty cents for thirteen minutes. Never had doing laundry been so exciting! Now I understood why people like to gamble.
I fixed lunch before pulling out having a nice feeling about getting laundry done. My stash of quarters was running low and Crapshoot Laundry didn’t have a change machine. I went down the road to a do-it-yourself carwash but the machine rejected my five dollar bills. Having the rest of the day to kill we went to Ballinger City Park along Elm Creek. It was a nice park which even had a traveler’s campground complete with hook-ups at fifteen dollars a night. We could stay there or do Walmart at the other end of town for free. Tough call. After dinner I drove to Walmart. It was of the smaller variety open only from seven to ten p.m. There was a spacious dirt area set off to the side of the parking lot. This would do fine although rain was forecast over the night. I might find us in a muddy mess in the morning. Aside from the annoying music out of the garden department (which was not turned off when the store closed at ten) we had a peaceful night next to a field of bright yellow wildflowers. It never rained.
I reflected back on how the previous day went. It was nice not having a particular place to be at any certain time. It was a joy to just take my time, seeing what there was to see along the way with no long hours of driving putting in the miles. This is what I enjoyed and would strive to travel this way for the remainder of the summer season.
The next morning in no great hurry we left All-Night-Radio Walmart passing through downtown Ballinger for probably the fourth time to access Highway 67 for Brownwood. It was approaching lunchtime when we passed through the small town of Santa Anna thirty-two miles later. The main street through Santa Ana had a Sanford and Son look to it. I have never seen so many junk shops, excuse me, “antique and rare collectables” dealers in any town of any size in all of my travels than did little Santa Anna, population slightly over one thousand. There were well over a dozen shops scattered along the highway littered with filthy road-dirt covered rusty “antiques” piled high outside store fronts. I wanted to see the traveler’s campground at Gary James Park. There were a couple dozen sites laid out in a grid fashion each with a water faucet spewing rust-colored water in the first few moments. Each site had an electrical hook-up box of questionable safety hanging askew from a weathered wood post appearing decades old. Most sites had a scrawny little tree casting a small shady spot. The park requested a ten dollar fee “if you can afford it”, otherwise you were okay to stay for free. There was a heavily rusted steel drop box for your fee attached to a telephone pole. It looked as if no one had stayed at Gary James Park in COVID times at the very least.
I let Beans out for a walk which she wasn’t all that thrilled about. I went for a little walk myself and soon returned for lunch. I got involved reading an article online then began to get dozy thinking I might lie down for a nap. Then I heard it coming. The earth shook and the RV vibrated. Beans was on high alert. A massive train was barreling down the tracks a hundred yards in front of us. It was approaching a cross street a couple hundred yards further on and the engineer let loose with the air horn. Oh sweet Jesus! Beans bolted for her hidey-hole up front. I’m sure my ears were bleeding. I imagined this going on in the middle of the night IF I had any intention on staying. How on earth can the people in the homes all around the park live with that? It was time to move out. Before we got underway another train blasted on by. I drove out the dirt road, turned right where I would cross the tracks. As I turned I noticed an old guy sitting in the shade of his front porch enjoying the day less than fifty yards from the train crossing. He had to have been deaf. His home was made of brick. Anything less would have crumbled by now.
In another twenty-plus miles we arrived at Brownwood a town proving to be much larger than I expected for it had all of the retail stores imaginable of a big city. A huge Superstore Walmart appeared with an equally huge parking lot. That in itself was good. I could park far and away from all of the ruckus. Sirens blared, loud exhaust pipes roared and cars passed by blaring God-awful noise that these days is being passed off as “music”. Welcome back to big city life. The parking area did have large shade trees, the only plus feature. I had to move from our first spot for the row of trees was loaded with grackles, one of most constantly noisy birds existing on this planet. Nevertheless we slept well. I didn’t bother going into the massive store for anything.
The next day was Monday. The post office in the little town of Lometa would be open. I could finally retrieve my package. It was an hour drive mostly into wind and rain. We arrived before their closing time for lunch. I dashed inside. No waiting in a line. This is why I choose small towns to have mail sent to. The lady at the counter commented about my little package being there. “I was just looking at it again this morning.” I guess she didn’t ever get much general delivery mail for travelers. I was relieved to get my package for it contained pills for my newly acquired affliction I contracted last winter (all the traumatic details are in that Pandemic Year eBook previously mentioned). This is the only medication I have to take and it made me wonder about those who travel as I do and have to take a handful of prescription pills everyday for a long list of ailments. I needed to learn to plan better and worry less about running out. I decided to stop at a so-called RV stay in their regional park on the edge of town for a bit just to unwind from the drive. It was a nice place situated on rolling green hills complete with hook-ups. Only thing was it looked as if everyone there−a dozen or so−had been there for a long time. One trailer even had metal skirting installed all around its base. The prices on the board showed one could pay $350 for a month. That is cheap rent which included water, electricity and sewer. Just then the skies opened up; it poured rain with all seriousness. Lightning flashed all around providing a wonderful show. We remained parked there for a couple of hours until nature settled down and we could move on.
We pulled out for Lampasas twenty miles down the road to their Walmart, a smaller one that was much more peaceful than Brownwood. A couple hours later relaxing and reading inside under clear blue skies a tornado watch alert came over the phone for Robert Lee. My goodness, we just spent five days there two days ago. The watch included a long list of other towns including Ballinger (two days ago) and Brownwood (last night)!
Our goal was a point of interest around a hundred miles to the east in the little town of Hearne. Long ago when my previous cat Sinbad traveled with me, before I went full time on the road, we would take yearly trips cross country seeking out the weird, unusual and oddball sites that were to be seen in the country. The online app Roadside America has thousands upon thousands of these oddities listed state by state. Tracking down those of interest placed us upon many back roads in America allowing us to see much more we would normally not have seen traveling highways and interstates. Now I kind of wanted to get back into doing that albeit to a lesser degree that Sinbad and I used to do. This was why Hearne was on our agenda. Ideally it would be best to split up the drive into two parts but the halfway point would place us in Killeen and Temple, Texas, the home of Fort Hood, the world’s largest army base. Nope, don’t want to stay there, so we pressed on through to the farmlands east of the mess. We stopped for lunch at a scraped out patch of state property (about the only place for miles just too simply pull off the highway) that sat alongside the narrow highway. Being less than thirty miles from Hearne we might as well continue on.
In the town we found what we came for−the grave of Hollie Tatnell. Her gravesite rested on a small traffic island in the middle of Wheelock St. Both traffic lanes skirted around the island which also had a large beautiful oak tree. This was once all a farm or slave cemetery dated in 1879 until 1912. In 1947 developers purchased the land and descendants were forced to relocate their buried kin. Hollie Tatnell, a former slave, died in 1911 and her two surviving children refused to reinter their mother forcing the developers to build around her grave. The single grave now serves as a reminder of the area’s African-American community who once lived here and of the sanctity of burial grounds.
There was no place to stay in Hearne except the Loves truck stop and truck stops are not all that great for getting a restful night’s sleep. We were only thirty-some miles from a place where Beans and I stayed at in April of 2018, Lake Limestone. May as well do it. I had in my notes it was a great place that we had all to ourselves for five days. We pulled in. It immediately all became familiar. Yeah, I remember this place. Someone was in the spot we had stayed at. We parked elsewhere. In the late afternoon a police officer patrolled through stopping at the van parked in our old spot. He talked with the young woman. He left, drove by us, looked and moved on. I found out the next day while visiting with her he was warning her of the severe thunderstorms with possible tornados to roll through during the night. Why didn’t he warn us? Could it be that I wasn’t a young slender single woman with long dark hair have anything to do with that? Naw. The storm did not disappoint. Winds howled, rain poured and lightening flashed all around us. Quite exciting. The next morning was peaceful. Courtney left around eleven a.m. We rolled on over to claim our old spot.
We stayed at Lake Limestone for an entire week. Most everyday was cloudy with scattered showers but nevertheless warm, the just right kind of warm. The temperature of the lake water was ideal. When no one was around I would go down to the short pier, slip off into about four feet of water onto a sandy bottom and take a lake bath. Fishermen came everyday to launch their boats and wouldn’t be seen until they returned. Occasionally a few day users came by but never did any overnight campers such as us. I had mixed feeling about leaving when Monday rolled around a week later. Tempted to stay longer yet feeling the need to see something new and different won out so we left under gloomy skies.
Our destination for the day was an hour drive to Crockett, about fifty miles due east. In Crockett was one of those points of interest listed on Roadside America –David Crockett Spring. So goes the legend, Davy Crockett and his Tennessee boys stopped there to camp and quench their thirst on their way to the Alamo. I’ve been to a lot of these sites where so and so did such and such long long ago. I have grown skeptical over time. How do they know? There were no witnesses, no written documentation and of course no photographic evidence. In this case though it most likely might have occurred. This was the route to San Antonio. Everyone who traveled this road would naturally have stopped here to rest. We found the small park on the outskirts of town. The spring was now a developed stone drinking fountain which did not work. This is another issue I have with many of these sites−they become “developed”. Just leave them alone to be as they were when whatever happened there happened.
We went a few miles further to the other side of town and another Walmart Camperland. This was one of the smaller Walmarts and that made me curious. I had seen Walmarts of many different sizes. Just how many sizes of Walmarts are there? I looked it up. It seems they come in six different varieties. I also discovered in reading about them that collectively Walmart stores bring in 1.2 million dollars of profit every hour! Think about that for a moment.
The next day would lead us to another Walmart in the town of Lufkin. There were no places to be had for camping without putting in several hours of driving which I was trying to avoid. Lufkin proved to be a much larger town (over 35,000) than we were comfortable with so I consulted the Allstays app on my iPad to see what the Walmart at the next town, Center, was like. By chance, and somehow I had missed it in my earlier searches, there was a Forest Service campground along the way to Center. Well it was early in the day and having nothing else to do I decided to check it as it was only around ten miles out of the way. A concern I had was the approaching Memorial Day holiday weekend in a few days. This is one of the few bad points about this lifestyle−three day holiday weekends. I don’t want to be someplace where the hoard of merrymakers will descend upon like a swarm of locust.
We turned off the route to Center onto a paved “farm road” (a lot of highways in Texas are termed “farm road”) that went through the small town of Shelbyville. A few miles further we came upon Boles Field Campground, the highway running right through the middle of it−odd. There were supposed to be twenty sites at six dollars a night, half that if you are old and have the Interagency Pass. “Old people’s card” as I call it. For that you get electricity and water but no sewer dump. There also were restrooms with showers. We pulled in off the road. No one else was camped there. Nice.
Then I met Billy
I selected a spot I thought would do. Next I had to let Beans out for her exploratory walk. A few minutes later a white pickup barreled in from the highway, swung over through the muddy campground road and stopped near the RV. No doubt, the camp host I thought. Beans and I were about fifty feet away. A grizzled old heavy set guy climbs out and walks up to the RV.
“Hello” he says.
“Over here” I reply. Negative contact.
He knocks on the RV.
“Over here!” I yell waving my hand. Nothing.
He goes back to his truck and toots the horn. Good grief! I yell for all I am worth. Still he doesn’t respond. I drag Beans back to the RV while he climbs back into his truck dumbfounded as to where the owner could be. He now finally sees me through his bug splattered windshield. I put Beans in and walked up to his driver side door.
“You deaf? I’ve been yelling at you from over there.”
“Yep, I don’t hear too well.” No shit!
“Can you hear me know?” as I stand next to his truck door.
“Yeah, I watch your lips.” It must be hell for him talking to someone wearing a mask.
He just wanted me to be sure to pay or the Forest Service could come by and fine me a hundred dollars. I tell him we just got here and I’ll pay; “I am not a freeloader”. All the while I am yelling he is watching my lips as we visit. All I can focus on is the dark brown patch of nicotine stain on his bushy grey mustache and beard. I can’t help myself but stare at it.
Billy drives off across the highway/farm road to his trailer. We got settled. I walked across the highway/farm road which had little to no traffic to get a pay envelope. I sure do not want a hundred dollar fine. This would be the only negative aspect about staying at this campground−cars whizzing by if and when they did. There wasn’t anything to do or see around the area. Why would anyone want to come here for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend? Therefore I felt pretty good about weathering out the holiday weekend at this campground. The weather, well that was one thing I hadn’t taken into consideration. The humidity was on the rise. By later that first afternoon I was uncomfortably hot, sticky and generally miserable. The humidity wrapped me like a warm wet wool blanket. And here I wanted to tour the South this year. I began thinking of possible failure before even getting out of Texas.
The next day we moved down the row of campsites. I had parked in the open for the solar rather than the multiple shady locations Billy tried to recommend to me. I also was running low on propane. The refrigerator was running almost constantly in attempt to keep the heat at bay. As I lay on top of the bed that second evening sweltering as if in a Finnish sauna I thought Hell, I could plug in to electric and run the refrigerator off electricity and save propane. Idiot! Also I could hook up a hose to the faucet and hose myself down to keep cool. Yeah, this will all work. Keep in mind I do not stay in RV parks so plugging in to electricity is a rarity, not commonplace for me. That is why I was a bit slow on the uptake.
I went across the you-know-what-kind-of-road to pay for two more days leaving the pay envelope in the steel pipe. Billy was outside his trailer so I wandered over. I knew what I was going to be up against now so was better prepared. Billy was giving his dog Lucy a bath on the picnic table. She was a little brown long-haired mutt of some indefinable lineage. He said he got her when she was six months old and she was now fourteen years old. The dog didn’t pay me much attention. No barking. Good dog. I focused on its inch plus long toenails that curled around and so badly needed clipping. Poor dog. I didn’t mention it. I talked loud which is a difficult thing for me to do. I made sure Billy was looking at me when I spoke. I found out he had been a camp host at Boles Field for five years. He does have a house in a nearby town which he lets a lady stay at for free; she just pays for utilities. He has also an RV in another town somewhere nearby. He gets free water and electricity being the host. I didn’t check about a sewage connection. There must be one but he has so much junk strewn around his trailer it was difficult to see. The campsites themselves do not have a sewer connect. The Forest Service pays him two hundred dollars a month which he says he doesn’t need because of his pension. He is here all year long. This past February when an abnormal snowfall happened in Texas (a record) he got over a foot of snow at the campground which broke his trailer awning. He had removed the awning and tossed it in amongst all the other junk.
I would have asked more but it was too exhausting. I was distracted anyways. A cute little blue-eyed lynx point Siamese wandered over to me. “Oh you have a cat!” She wasn’t too sure about me at first until I gave her a few behind the ear rubs then she was all purrs and rubbing up against my legs. Billy said someone dumped her here a year ago when she was a kitten. He was going to turn her in to a shelter but instead let her stay. “She’s been catching mice” so Billy was happy with that. I made sure he was feeding her and caring for her. He said she won’t him hold her. I picked her up and held her. Big mistake! I was in love and wanted to keep her. I need to learn to not hold cats. It’s a weakness of mine. As I walked away the cat started following me. Damn. I was afraid of it crossing the highway. I was finally able to get away without it following me much further.
A bit later I saw Billy leaving so now was my chance to answer the question about the sewer hookup. I walked on over and looked at all the crap he had strewn about. I noticed a blackened scorched square piece of grass. Odd. It looked like he burned something or the nearby stone fire pit/barbeque had got away from him. I walked around behind his old Holiday Rambler, a two-door travel trailer heavily encrusted with dirt and mold. I see the burnt remnants of a bedspring mattress. First thought: Billy fell asleep smoking a cigarette. He somehow got the smoldering (nothing can really burn here because of the eighty plus percent humidity) mattress out of the trailer. I went back to look at the fire pit/barbeque again. Draped over it was a half-burnt carpet. Okay, that had to have been an interesting event.
I then remembered why I came over and looked about for the sewer connection. There was none. He had the valve open on the sewer outlet of the trailer. The grey water (gracious be, I hope that was all it was) drained right out onto the ground. What about his black water, waste from the toilet? I had earlier found the restroom facility with the reported warm showers but it was locked up. While Billy was giving Lucy her bath I asked why the restrooms were locked thinking it was some government COVIDiocy decree. Billy told me they were broke and they are supposed to make repairs but haven’t got to it yet. Hopefully Billy, who must have the keys, was going over there to poop. It is too far for him to bother with a walk (I had seen him drive the truck over several times) to pee so he must have a favorite tree nearby. Hopefully I hadn’t walked by it. I mentioned to him how I was so looking forward to using the showers here. “Oh I just go around behind the trailer and hose myself down.” By now I had seen more than I cared to see plus I was concerned about the cat following me so I got out from there. I never went back to visit Billy again.
For nearly the entire week we were at Boles Field Campground I had this headache that wouldn't seem to go away completely. After a couple of days of this I realized it wasn’t a simple headache; I had wrenched my neck somehow and had nearly a stiff neck going on. I began wearing my old neck brace and using Ben Gay ointment. As annoying as it was, I was getting off easy for a person my age so am not complaining.