Texas - Days 91 - 93 - in the campground

Village Creek State Park, Lumberton
Tuesday, 2 through Thursday, 4 February 2021

For some reason, I wasn't expecting much out of this state park, but it worked out very well for us.  We had 2 different spaces, both of which had a distinct slant to them.  But other than that, we were comfortable.  I could get an internet signal on my hotspot, there was a phone signal, and I could pick up the Beaumont CBS station for the morning weather report.

This is a small campground - only 25 spaces, one of which is taken by a camp host.  More than half the campers seemed to have dogs, but our location let me see if any were out walking before we left our RV, which helped avoid problems.  

Trails
There are a number of trails in this campground, and though I don't usually want to risk taking the dogs down trails - for fear of running into wildlife or other dogs and lose control of one or both of them - I didn't have that worry this time because of the layout.  What I did have to worry about at first was fear, induced by this sign:

The fear wasn't so much for me but for the dogs - I kept expecting any minute that Dexter would eat some ghastly plant or Gracie would nose out some scary snake.  Fortunately, none of that ever happened.

One of the trails was only half a mile long, though it wasn't a loop so we ended up walking about 3/4 mile altogether.  The trail was a fitness trail, laid out by a Girl Scout who was working toward her Gold Award, which is a rank I hadn't heard of.  It sounds like it's something like the Eagle Scout award for Boy Scouts.  When I looked up this Gold Award, I found a number of stories of projects Girl Scouts had put together, and this one in particular surprised and touched me.   https://www.girlscouts.org/20-national-gold-award-girl-scouts 

The Girl Scout who laid out this trail included exercise stops along the way - but I was impressed to see that she hadn't used fancy equipment that would become nonfunctional without maintenance.  Instead, she'd used pieces of wood, like 2x4s, to build stair steps or balance poles - items that blended in very well with the heavily wooded area the trail ran through and yet were perfectly functional.  She also created signs showing how to use these items for 3 different levels of difficulty, and the signs included photos showing actual girls performing each of the tasks.  It was very well done. 

We found another trail that was intended for little kids and is only a tenth of a mile long.  The signs along the path originally explained how the Big Thicket came to be, how the variety of plants that would normally be found in other parts of the US came to be here.  Sadly, the signs had badly weathered so they were scarcely legible.

This first one is called How Are You My Neighbor?

Below this was an outline of the Lower 48, showing various plants and animals that ordinarily belong in other climates but are found here.  I can't make out any of the animals except White-tailed deer, though I can't tell where they're usually found.

Arid Sandylands from the western US
& plains from the central US

Swamps from the eastern Gulf Coast
and Longleaf pine forest from southeastern US

Hardwood forest from the eastern US

This next sign was titled Life In the Sand:

Explaining that this park gets far more rain than some of these plants and animals
usually want, but they're able to thrive anyway because of the sandy soil here.

Bear Grass Yucca & Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus

Reindeer moss & Six-lined Racerunners

The next sign was titled Swamp Things, but the only creature that was at all legible was the River Otter.  I'm sorry that I didn't see one of them while I was here, though I saw them often enough in Alaska and it's just as well that Dexter didn't see one.  Still they're neat animals.

Then there was this sign about the different kinds of pine trees here:

Longleaf pine - best pine for building and are more
resistant to fire than other pines, but they need full sun and,
because they're much slower growing than other pines,
can be blocked out of an area for lack of sun.

Loblolly pine - prefer a more moist soil than other pines
and are very fast growing, but are more vulnerable to
fire than other pines

Shortleaf pine - can grow in drier, sandier soil
and in colder areas than other pines and
are found as far north as New York state.

On one of our walks around the park, we met a ranger and I asked him about a large burned area nearby.  He said it had been a controlled burn and that the park was about to plant a bunch of Longleaf pines there.  He said the area had been full of Loblolly pines, which grow much faster than the other types.  Longleaf pines need full sun to grow, but the faster growing Loblollies blocked out the sun and they ended up taking over the area.  The park was working to correct that little mistake by Nature to restore the ecosystem as it had been.

Another trail we walked . . .

. . . in the Big Thicket.

Wildlife
As it happened, the only wildlife we saw were some birds and a few squirrels.  But I know there were deer somewhere in the vicinity because the park had one of those leaping deer signs that warn drivers to slow down.  And I saw plenty of signs of moles in the area, just not the critters themselves.

I did learn a new bird species while we were here: the Hermit Thrush.

Hermit Thrush

The one I saw looked just like its picture, including the eye ring, the reddish tail, and the way it raises and lowers its tail from time to time.  It sat on a railing right by my window for several minutes, giving me plenty of time to get a good look.

The best part is that I think I've finally figured out that it's this bird that's been making that wonderfully sweet song I've heard occasionally during this trip.  I remember hearing it for the first time up in the northeast somewhere.  A song so pure and sweet it makes my heart swell almost to breaking.  And the bird book says the Hermit Thrush has a song that's "a serene series of clear, flutelike notes."  Serene.  Clear.  I'm betting it's a Hermit Thrush I've fallen in love with.  

Texas and the southern US is part of its winter range.  They seem to live year-round only in parts of Arizona and along the far western coastline.

Miscellaneous

While we were staying in this campground, I heard that Hal Holbrook died.  In his memory I watched not only All the President's Men but also the episode in Season 4 of NCIS titled Escaped, which has Hal Holbrook guest starring, and McGee helps solve the crime by what he learned watching Antiques Roadshow.

We went into town one day - well, actually, the park is already in town, so I mean I drove out the park entrance, down the street, and turned the corner.  I wanted some groceries and I thought I'd try to find some place new for the dogs to walk.  That last turned out to be very difficult: schools were in session, churches had tiny parking lots or forbidding signs, shopping centers were too small and too busy.  I guess the folks in town use the state park as a park, since I never found a city park.  I was finally so frustrated, I did something I'd thought of for a long time but hadn't done in years, which is to stop at a Southern Maid doughnut shop for a cinnamon roll.  Considering its size, Lumberton sure doesn't seem to have much going for it.  But the cinnamon roll was good.

And the campground was comfortable.  We all enjoyed staying here.