Sunday 4-11 Back in Texas - Lake O' The Pines

 

Texas welcome sign

 After 18 outstanding days of camping it was time to head back home. We would have stayed out longer but we have a couple of commitments to attend to, one on Wednesday and another one Thursday. 

We spent two days at Tompkins Bend Campground. We left at 8:30, we weren't in any hurry because we only had 185 miles to go. We could have driven all the way home but we decided to stay one night at Lake O' The Pines Alley Creek Campground.

We mainly traveled on two lanes highways through small towns. The scenery was very pretty. We stopped right before we got to the Texas State Line to have lunch. It was by a railroad track, where we saw a train go by. As I was preparing lunch Larry saw a crop duster spraying the fields. He told me about it so I stopped making lunch to look at it. We watched it for a bit. Everytime it flew over the fields it scared the cattle so they ran away from it. I enjoyed watching the plane but felt sorry for the cattle. 

 

Crop-duster dusting the field

 

Cows grazing in the field the crop-duster was dusting

 After lunch we continued on to Lake O' The Pines. As we were driving the last 70 miles we saw lots of wildflowers along side of the highway. It was a very pretty drive. We arrived at about 1:00. Our site was still occupied but the two gentlemen were getting ready to leave so we parked the Minnie in the site right next to our site. While we waited we walked around, the group area had a big pavilion with tables and a grill and RV sites. It was very nice. Then we walked to one of the two boat ramps. It was busy. When we got back the gentlemen were ready to go and pulled out.

We moved the Minnie to our site for the night. As soon as we moved an RV pulled into the site we had just left, perfect timing. It was a warm 81 degrees so we stayed in the Minnie and read. I also did the Daily Challenges and the Event: Medium Mayhem Mini of 15 games. It took me 53 minutes and 27 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. The campground was busy with kids riding bicycles, people walking their dogs, people coming and going to the boat ramp and others enjoying their campsite.

After dinner I walked around the campground for about an hour Larry stayed at home relaxing under the air conditioner. As I began my walk I saw a few deer. I walked around both loops and the two tent loops and down to both the boat ramps. As I walked I said hi to people enjoying their sites. When I got back we continued reading. Then I completed doing 26,000 steps. This put me in 5th place in my group with total of 184,661 steps for the week. 

 

Camping at Lake O' The Pines

Boat ramp in Loop 1

Lake O' The Pines lake

One of the tents sites

The deer I saw while walking

Lake O' The Pines Alley Creek Campground is beautiful with lots of tall pine trees and the lake. It has two RV loops and two tent camping areas. The tent sites are separate from the RV sites and are surrounded by trees and have electric and water. Each RV site has electric, water, picnic table and fire ring. Loop 1 has trees surrounding each site and a one lane boat ramp in a protected cove. Loop 2, where we stayed each site had a concrete pad for your RV but doesn't have as many trees as Loop 1, it has a larger boat ramp with four lanes and plenty of boat trailer parking. This ramp is used most of the time by campers. The lake is beautiful. Both RV loops have sites that backup to the lake, they charge a bit more for them. There are restrooms with showers in each loop. The restrooms are individual rooms with shower, sink and toilet.