Lake Bruin State Park, LA

Saturday, 3 March 2018

Lake Bruin State Park, Louisiana

When I walked the dogs this morning, the frogs were singing loudly, and in surround-sound. It was great. It was the first clear night we’ve had in a while and I could see there were lots of stars. But first the tall tall trees blocked my view of almost all of them, and then when the trees thinned out the brightness of the full moon blocked them out. Ah, the drawbacks of scenic beauty. Fortunately, this won’t be my last chance to see them.

Martin Dies, Jr. State Park (TX)

As you can see from the trees in this photo, the dogs were bringing in 6" pine needles instead of oak leaves as at other parks.  It made a nice change.

This park is on one small piece of B. A. Steinhagen Reservoir, which I found this morning when the dogs and I were out.  It's huge.

So I got another lesson as I was leaving.  I stopped to dump the tanks, and as I was getting ready to attach my new hose, another guy pulled up on the other side of the dump station.  He told me not to rush, but I told him to go first because I was new and slow at this.  So instead of going first, he offered to help.  And he walked me through everything step by step.  Very nice young guy named Andrew with 2 young boys ("Can I have a lollipop?"  "No, we haven't had breakfast yet.")  So thanks to his tutorial, I feel much more confident about doing it on my own next time.  I needed some success after that last disastrous time.  Of course, Andrew must be a good country boy because he said yes, ma'am every other sentence.  I kept reminding myself that I'm now old in the eyes of most of the population.

We drove past the town of Jasper, "Jewel of the Forest" according to their sign.  We drove past a home with a large sign in the front yard that said, "You are here."  We drove over the Sabine River, which is the border between Texas and Louisiana in this area.  The river was obviously full.  In fact, I saw standing water everywhere we went today.  It was in all kinds of pockets in the campground and in fields we passed and in drainage ditches - everywhere.  They clearly got the same storm that drove through Texas earlier.

I saw many trees beginning to leaf out, with that lovely spring green color.  I saw white flowering trees and forsythia climbing up other trees to spread lots of yellow.  I saw fields and fields of yellow - it looked like some kind of grass that has yellow flowers.  I saw increasing numbers of magnolias, not yet in bloom of course.  I saw one home that had in its front yard a magnolia that was twice as tall as the house, next to a pine tree that was nearly twice as tall as the magnolia.

I saw an insurance company in Alexandria, LA, with a sign in front saying, "This business proudly owned and operated by God-fearing Americans."  

I've now been to Waterproof, LA.

I'm glad I enjoy most country music, because that's about all I can get on the radio in this part of the world.

I had to stop three different times to ask for directions and talked to some very nice, accommodating people here in Louisiana.

Because of that experience, and the extra hour or more of driving time my lack of directions added on, the first thing I did, after we stopped and I took care of my top 6 priorities, was get on the computer and get detailed directions to my next stop.  Turns out it'll take about double the amount of time we drove today.  I'm definitely staying more than one night there, if they'll let me.

This is a very helpful period.  I'm learning what I can and can't do - physically and mentally.  If what I want to do is see things and talk to people in each state, I obviously can't be doing a lot of driving.  This is good information to have.  I only went about 230 miles or so today, but it was more than enough to make all 5 of us tired.

Lake Bruin State Park is really out of the way but is obviously very popular.  I know this is a Saturday night, but I wouldn't have expected as many people in early March as they have.

My view at Lake Bruin (LA) State Park