2006/01 Southwest USA trip (MN-TX) - Lake Brownwood |
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Friday January 6th
We had a cool night, but a sunny morning, with blue sky. I was limping, so I guessed I was not ready for running yet. Our next stop was going to be at a ranch in Texas to go mining for topaz, but it was too far to reach in daylight, so I’d chosen Lake Brownwood state park partway for a first stop. We drove back to the freeway and then south towards the Texas border. This took us through the Arbuckle Mountains, which turned out to be the hills left over when the mountains eroded down to almost nothing. I guess after you’ve walked hundreds of miles across flat prairie then these hills could look like mountains.
We crossed the Red River into Texas, and stopped at the Welcome Centre to pick up a lot of bumf on the state, including the location of all the public campgrounds. Interstate 35 splits into 35E and 35W, just like in our Twin Cities, and the eastern fork goes through Dallas and the western through Fort Worth. We took 35W and then headed out west on I-20 towards Abilene. The countryside was brown of course, but with small hills, good ranching country.
After a couple of hours we left the freeway and took off south to Lake Brownwood state park. There was a big sign at the 
entrance “Park closed – state hunt Monday-Thursday”. This was Friday so we carried on in. We almost left when we saw what it would cost us for a night’s camping plus entrance fees for two people, but the sun was setting, and the view over the lake was pretty, so we paid our dues and stayed.
Saturday January 7th
Another blazing blue sky. We walked the Texas Oak trail along the cliff above the lake and then back just above the waterline. This was different scenery for us: cactus, yucca, live oaks, even great clumps of mistletoe and its white berries on the regular oak trees. We found out later in the trip that there are thousands of species of mistletoe in the south and it grows on many types of tree. At lunch time Sandie called the Seaquist ranch to make arrangements and found that they were closed for the whole week for deer hunting season. I guess topaz hunters and deer hunters don’t mix well.