Day 11 – Barnyard Fauna, LBJ Ranch, Spanish Moss

Today’s update is being typed within our new ‘bug room’ next to the campfire, but more on that later.

We woke up before dawn this morning to the soothing call of the KOA rooster. When we stepped out of our Aliner, we were greeted by a group of hens gathered in our campsite. This was a considerably more domesticated form of nature than the one we had yesterday.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch is a National Park now and features a free driving tour of the grounds. Since it was just down the road from our camp and it was on the way to our next stop we took a look. The visitor center has interesting information and a short film about LBJ and Lady Bird. The ranch has its own airfield, complete with the presidential plane used to bring the president to the ranch. The plane is called ‘Air Force One Half’ because the air strip could not handle Air Force One (it had to stay at a larger airport while the smaller plane came to the ranch). The ranch is where LBJ was born, and it’s where he is buried.

The ranch is still a working cattle ranch (the cattle have LBJ engraved on their horns) and we had to stop the car for them a few times as they crossed the road. After our tour, and while we were traveling down the highway, we saw the effects of Lady Bird’s efforts to beautify the roadways (which was part of her larger project to ensure environmental protection nationwide) embodied by the many wildflowers in bloom.

Just outside of Houston, we left the highway for a couple of miles and arrived at Stephen F. Austin State Park. The humidity and the Spanish Moss hanging from the trees let us know we were now getting into The South. The park is green and lush and not crowded at all.

Karen checked out the wildlife bulletin board and came back with this report: beware of coral snakes, copperhead snakes, brown recluse spiders and black widows. Hey, I guess we really are in the south now! There’s lots of bugs here, too. So, we’re sitting in our new Coleman screen room. It’s a good thing we practiced setting it up before we came – it only took about two minutes to get it ready. We are also having a big campfire tonight. There were ‘burn bans’ at the previous two campsites and we want to use all the wood before we get into Louisiana. Also, this is the first night in nearly a week when the wind has not been blowing.

Tomorrow: Galveston Island

Addendum:  Cell signal was too weak last night to upload. We saw fireflies come out in great numbers right at dusk. The light show continued well into the evening. The ‘3-D’ effect of looking out into the woods and seeing the flickering lights from the grass up into the tops of the trees was amazing for those of us not used to seeing such things.