Texas Vacation - Day 3 - Relaxing

Do you know how hard it is to keep this blog updated in April?  The weather is so nice and there are so many things I need/want to do in the garden. So yeah, this blog has been a little neglected. Which is a shame because I do want to record all the little details of our vacation to Texas. 

So I'm committed to sit here and write about Day 3. Let's get going. 

We'd driven over 1500 miles to get to Buescher State Park in Texas. So we didn't feel like driving anywhere that day. We just enjoyed being in Texas all day. 

I'm sure you are wondering "Why Buescher State Park?"  Why did you pick that place?

Well I'll tell you. We'd been talking about going to Texas for this eclipse for years, but actually planning this trip didn't really start until October 2023. And by then every hotel, air bnb, vrbo, and really any private rental in totality was already booked. Thankfully the State Park Campgrounds weren't available for reservation until 5 months before the date. I realized that a State Park was probably going to be my only chance at getting somewhere to stay. 

So I set alarms on my phone for the day that the reservation opened up. But even on that day the campgrounds within totality were booked. (People had reserved them for several days in advance of the eclipse.) I just wasn't quick enough. 

Fortunately, I had a few back up parks that were close to the totality zone. Buescher also fit my criteria of being within a decent driving distance from Houston. I didn't want Lindsey to have to drive hours and hours to meet us at the campground.   

So I booked three nights at Buescher state park. Saturday night, Sunday night, and Monday night. I'd never heard of this state park before, but I was so happy to have a place that was close to totality. 

The park was lovely. And the weather was great too. I was kind of surprised when I got up in the morning and was comfortable in shorts right away. There was no early morning chill. It was already warm. But the day didn't get crazy hot either. It was just kind of perfect all day. 

Lindsey had brough two hammocks and the kids loved playing in those. 

Here are Derrick and Veronica.  I think they were talking to me while I was taking some time to clean all the garbage out of the car. We'd had a garbage bag hanging on the back of a seat during the trip. We'd emptied it a lot, but there was still a lot of random trash all over the van. It was good to get the car kind of reset. 

Lindsey had brough big costco muffins for breakfast. Veronica has never seen a costco muffin before. She looked at it and said, "Mom, you are right, everything is bigger in Texas!"

After breakfast we went on a hike to try to find the lake. We'd seen the lake when we drove in, but the roads had been a little twisty and turny so we weren't exactly sure where it was. So we just kind of followed a trail in the direction we thought it would be. 

We found this cool lodge.

And flowers. 

And a playground. 

And then found the lake!

And I was finally able to get a decent picture of the Blue Bonnetts!

Rocky loves catching little critters and soon he was showing everyone how to catch frogs. 

Veronica fell almost as soon as we made it to the lake. She scratched up her knee pretty bad. So Brandon went back to camp to get the first aid kit. He drove back with the car. That was good because we hadn't brought any water on our hike. (We'd been a little desperate to get the kids moving.)

We patched Veronica up and then she sat with me for a while. I pointed out the Spanish moss on the live oaks to her.  

She noticed this big furry caterpillar. 

After a while Veronica got up and was also catching frogs.

Here it is up close. 

Here's the lake. There was no swimming allowed in the lake. But Lindsey could see some boats on the other side of the lake. So she and a few of the kids walked over there to investigate. They ended up calling park headquarters and learning that the boats were $15 to rent. 

At some point Derrick asked me, "can I go back to camp."  And I absentmindedly answered something like, "Okay."  I meant it like, "Okay, we'll go back soon." But he took it as, "Okay you can walk back by yourself right now."

So he started walking back to camp and I didn't notice. I thought he was still down by the water catching frogs. 

Lindsey and her posse came back and we decided to go back to camp to have lunch. So we gathered up the kids. But we couldn't find Derrick. Lindsay started walking back to the campsite with her kids, but my family stayed to look for Derrick.

Brandon followed a trail near the lake to see if Derrick had gone down it. I stayed by the shore in case Derrick showed up. Veronica worried. I was also worrying, so I was telling her all the stuff I was telling myself to reassure myself. Things like, "Derrick knows my phone number. If someone finds him he can call me." Or "Derrick can swim, he didn't fall in the lake and drown."

Meanwhile Derrick, who was just fine, had followed all our meandering trails back to the campsite. He later told me that he kind of hung around the campsite for a while. Then he got bored and decided to come try to find us. So he started walking back. 

He ran into Lindsey who called me. I was so relieved when she told me "We found Derrick,"

We all got in the car and drove to where Lindsey was. I got out and walked with Derrick. I was trying to piece together what exactly had happened. I thought he'd just followed some random trail. I was surprised when he told me he'd gone back to the campsite. I was like, "Oh you were gone WAY longer than I thought."

Anyway, all was fine and we went back to the campsite and Lindsey made macaroni and cheese for lunch. 

After lunch we were just kind of hanging around. I was sitting in a camp chair, but every bit of me wanted to lay down. I told Lindsey that I was trying to figure out how to lay down on the ground. She went to her car and got a lightweight tarp and laid it down. I laid down with our travel pillows and blankets. It was so nice to just relax like that. 

Lindsey and Brandon decided to take all the kids to the lake and try out the boats so they went and did that. Veronica stayed with me and collected rocks. I took a nap.

Here are pictures that Lindsey took of my kids on the lake. This is Derrick and Brandon together. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia taking their turn.

Here's all four together. 

And here's another one from Lindsey. My kids had a great time. 

Lindsey and her kids had a good time too, but she said that she and Rocky had to work some things out in order to paddle well together. 

Everyone came back to camp. We'd dug out our hammocks and so there were more places for the kids to lay. 

Here's all four hammocks. 

I went for a walk around the campground. This place had been full of people on Saturday night. I'd assumed they were all there for the eclipse, but on Sunday morning they had all packed up. The campsite had been mostly deserted all day.

Here I am hanging out in the chair. 

Lydia has been collecting patches. She used to have some of them sewn onto her small adventure bag. But she'd outgrown that bag. She wanted all the patches sewn onto the new backpack that she got for Christmas. I'd brought stuff to sew them on and had planned to do it in the car while we were driving. I hadn't done any sewing then, but this was a good opportunity. So Lydia got her bag and I found the needle and thread. I spent several hours sewing these on.

Derrick really wanted to do fire so even though it wasn't cold we decided to do one. Lindsey got out her walkie talkies and led the kids in going around to campsites looking for any wood that was left behind. The kids had a lot of fun with that. They found a lot of wood. Here's Derrick with the fire that Brandon helped build. 

Lindsey made Philly cheesesteaks for dinner.  She was really spoiling us with this trip.

After dinner we cleaned up camp. We were hoping to be on the road early the next morning so we got everything cleaned up that we could. 

Brandon and Lindsey went to a nearby town to buy gas. We didn't want to waste any time in the morning with things like gas stations. Brandon bought bread, peanut butter, jelly, and Nutella to have for the next day. We had a lot of snack food, but he wanted to have something on had to make a meal. 

When they came back most of the kids went to bed. The evening was a little cooler than the night before had been so the kids actually slept in their sleeping bags this time. 

I went and took a shower in the bathroom. I wasn't worried at all about sleeping with wet hair. Then Lindsey, Brandon, and I stayed up talking around the fire place. 

This day had been a nice pause, but we all knew that the next day was the whole reason for the trip. We were going to get up early and drive to Temple. Temple was going to be in the totality zone. 

There were a lot of unknowns for the next day. Would traffic be bad to Temple? Would traffic be bad back to Houston? Would it be cloudy? Would we find a nice place to hang out during the eclipse?

All these thoughts were going through my head as I fell asleep.