Tuesday, 22 through Thursday, 24 June 2021
I think I've forgotten to mention that mimosas and magnolias have been blooming all during my time in Texas, and are still blooming up here in Oklahoma. It's really been nice to see them and smell them.
The non-toll route from Mt. Pleasant to this state park passes through a lot of rural area, which I was glad of. The Dallas area is so extremely urban it's almost hard to remember that there's countryside out there. So being out there was a nice change. I saw cows, green fields, ponds, trees, lots of small towns.
The Johntown Baptist Church had a sign reading, "The world needs godly fathers." At Bogata (pop. 1,153) I saw a sign advertising the Bogata rodeo this coming weekend.
All along the road I saw corn growing and fields of grain that had already been harvested. That seemed odd to me, because it's only June, but then remembered that the growing season in Texas starts early.
The Unity Baptist Church at Hugo (OK) had a sign saying, "Don't gamble with your soul." The sign was posted near a casino. Hugo, you may remember, bills itself as Circus City USA.
I saw miles and miles of Black-eyed Susans. I guess purple-flower season is done for the year.
Lake Eufaula State Park is where I spent a very pleasant night on my way south to Dallas in May, and I decided to stay there again on my way up to North Dakota. That was pleasant again in many ways, but it also turned out to be a HUGE mistake.
Bugs. Dozens of different species of flying insects. Spiders. And ticks. Enormous numbers of ticks. I finally called the park office and suggested they might at least warn people when they check in of the danger of ticks, because nobody said boo to me about them when I checked in. She said they'd put out a lot of tick-repelling granules (or something), but she figured the massive amount of recent rain had washed them all away. I told her I'd already gotten 10 ticks off me and another couple off my dog so, yeah, bad timing on that repellant.
But I'd underestimated. I lost count but got at least a dozen off me and 3 off Dext. And when you're traveling alone as I am, you find it hard to check some parts of your body to see if there are ticks there. I had to check my clothes, too, because I found one in the waistband of my shorts. And I kept on finding them as the day went on. It made me afraid to leave the RV, not that being inside the RV was any longer a refuge.
I'm willing to admit that much of this misery was my own fault: I took the dogs for a walk down one of the trails in the park. Since going there was a sudden idea, I wasn't dressed for it: I wore a tank top and shorts and flip flops. At least I didn't have many items of clothing to examine afterwards, but I also didn't have any protection.
The bit about the flying insects was also weird. At first I figured they were just attracted to the light, like moths, because of the way they'd swarm around us and my flashlight and the RV's outside light when we'd go out for our early walks. But then I realized they swarmed around us any time we were outside, unless there was a strong enough breeze to blow them away.
It was especially frustrating (besides the ordinary irritation of having them swarm around us) because Gracie is sometimes reluctant to climb the steps into the RV, and she'll stand at the bottom waiting. Apparently waiting for them to disappear so she doesn't have to climb them. There are only 3 steps, and when she tries she can climb them no problem. But here she was, standing at the bottom, standing, standing, while masses of bugs swarmed around us and flew inside while I waited, and Gracie would get more and more reluctant the longer she thought about it and finally try to back out of trying at all. She never thinks these things through. I mean, where is her alternative to go? So then I'd change from vocally encouraging to vocally frustrated, which would scare her into thinking I was about to beat her (never mind that she's lived longer with me, the non-beater, than she ever lived with anyone else) and then she'd really shy away. And it was all a mess.
I seemed to have my best luck with her when I'd insist on her getting into the RV first, and make Dexter wait. I don't know what it is with the other way around that causes her problems, but there seems to be a difference.
The one nice thing I can say about all those bugs is that I saw a number of species of dragonfly types, which was nice.
And speaking of wildlife, I think the squirrels were having a competition to see which one could throw acorns on the top of our RV the hardest. I guess it was acorns. They sounded more like coconuts. Really really hard and loud and scaring all of us. And I, at least, never got used to it.
I couldn't get an internet signal, which I'd expected, and spent 2 full days sorting through a year's worth of receipts and checking them against my VISA bills. I'm glad I did it and, as I always do, vowed to stay more on top of it in the future. Maybe this time I actually will.
We never actually saw any deer, though I'm sure they were around and a couple of times Dexter acted like he smelled them (it was pitch dark so he couldn't see anything). We didn't actually see any other critters besides the squirrels and bugs. I heard a Pileated Woodpecker and saw a nuthatch and several Cardinals and Blue Jays and Mockingbirds and crows. Mostly just dense mixed pine/deciduous-tree forest. But overall it was quiet and pleasant.
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