Sunday 10-12-25 Back in Texas & New State Park

 

Cooper State Park

 

We spent five fabulous days at Turkey Track Bluegrass Festival. During the festival we listened to 11 different bluegrass bands and Roger Sparks' Ole Timey Fiddlin Session. We  attended the roasted pig pot luck, bought ice cream and homemade fried pies. It was time to move on.

We left Turkey Track at 5:40 am, it was still dark but we wanted to beat the crowd. I believe we were the first to leave but there were others starting their vehicles and getting ready. We had a quick breakfast before leaving. 

We drove 220 miles down curvy two lane highways and the interstate for about 50 miles. We saw a couple of deer. I dozed off once and awhile. 

Larry didn't want to drive all the way home, which was over 400 miles so he made reservations at Cooper State Park for a couple of days. This is our first time at Cooper Lake State Park. It is real close to Paris Texas. Larry bought the yearly day use pass for $70, it's good all the way through October of 2026. This pays the day use fees for all of Texas's State Park and we get a 1/2 price discount for some of our camping. The camping fee was $25 per night but with the pass it cost us $37.50 for two nights instead of $50. We were surprised that the annual fee of $70 for a day use pass hadn't gone up in years. 

We arrived at Cooper State Park at 10:30 and checked in. The lady who checked us in said there was someone on the site so we would have to wait. Check-out time was at noon and check-in time was 2:00. We just parked in a parking area near our site and waited. The family was gone by 11:30 so we moved in the site. The slab was very narrow and not level so we had to block the passenger side of the Minnie. We setup the Minnie for a couple of nights. It was 94 degrees so we relaxed with a book.

 

Reading is fun

For dinner we tried something new. We tried Beef Bulgogi Empanadas. They were small but the tasted good. They were made by Better Goods. Later on for dessert we shared the fried apple pis from yesterday.

 

Dinner
    

After dinner we walked around for a half hour to check out the campground. We walked for 1.5 miles.