Texas - Days 5 & 6 - in the campground

Lubbock KOA, Lubbock
Saturday, 7 and Sunday, 8 November 2020

We stayed here last summer and I remember thinking then that our campsite was the best one in the park for our purposes.  So we stayed in that site again.  It backs right up to the dog park, so even when there are a lot of dogs in the campground, I can slip my dogs out of the RV and into the dog park without too much hassle.  Plus it has a fairly comprehensive view of the whole campground, which allowed me to have some warning if other people were walking their dogs, and I could delay walking mine, or take them a different direction.  And it's under a tree so there's some shade.

Speaking of being able to see other dogs, I watched a young woman walk her standard poodle and then put a diaper on it before putting it back in their RV.  I swear.  The diaper was clearly made specifically for a dog and didn't look disposable, which seems incomprehensible to me.  Just because the mothers from the Greatest Generation washed their kids' (i.e. our) diapers doesn't make it a good idea.  They had no choice.  I would definitely not want to wash diapers my dogs used.  I'll pick up poop from the ground, but that's as far as I'll go.

I tried something new.  I made a meatloaf in the slow cooker.  And, to my surprise, it turned out really good.  It tasted and looked just like a regular meatloaf.  And, for the first time, I bought some instant mashed potatoes.  I remember the kind we had in the '80s that didn't have much flavor, so I'd avoided them up till now.  But I wanted mashed potatoes to go with the meatloaf, so I tried Idahoan® Homestyle.  And they too turned out really good.  And I bought a packet of McCormick's Brown Gravy, because I like it and because I think mashed potatoes require gravy.  It was all wonderful and was a complete comfort food meal. 

I had it with a half-bottle of champagne that I'd bought in that odd little wine store in Colorado and been saving for something special.  I wanted to celebrate the beginning of the end of the election.  There are still plenty of ballots that need to be counted, but the states have figured there aren't enough still outstanding to make a difference in the result.  No matter which side you're on, I'm sure you're as tired of this as I am and are ready to see what the next chapter is like. 

During the night one night, Dext got sick.  I didn't hear that part.  What woke me up was the sound of his claws as he paced back and forth, and his occasional whimpers.  I figured he needed to go outside and walked across the floor toward the door.  That's when I noticed my flip-flops were sticking to the floor.  That was a pretty ghastly period.  I had to clean the floor just to get us to the door.  Then I had to put some clothes on - this was all at 2:00 AM - and take the dogs to the dog park, and thank goodness we didn't have far to go.  Sure enough, Dext pooped 3 times in the space of about 10 minutes.  I guess it was one of the things he'd nosed out on a walk and chowed down on before I could stop him.  He never seems to connect the behavior with the results.  

After all that, I just stayed up.  I'm not getting all that much sleep lately - I'm lucky if I get as much as 7 hours in a night.  It seems there's always something.  You know, "it just goes to show you, it's always something - if it's not one thing, it's another."  Roseanne Roseannadanna, aka Gilda Radner, may she rest in peace.

In these couple of days I got a bit more caught up on my blog posts and spent most of one day planning the next ports of call.  I didn't have even any plans, let alone reservations, after Lubbock. 

I soon discovered there really aren't many campgrounds in west Texas.  Lubbock is the farthest west KOA, and almost half the state campgrounds don't have facilities for RVs.  It turned out that Balmorhea State Park is closed altogether, until further notice.  I don't know why and I'm disappointed.  It has the largest spring-fed swimming pool in the state and I've heard it praised for years.  And the other state parks - Monahans Sandhills, Davis Mountains and Hueco Tanks - are all quite small so availability is limited.  I rearranged my ideas several times to try and accommodate these parks, and finally got a plan pieced together.  But it really took time.