Mineral Wells trip part 1

I wrote this right after arriving at Mineral Wells State Park a couple of weeks ago. I thought it wasn't ready to publish but just now when I re-read it it seemed fine to me. There aren't any pictures with it. But I'll try to post those soon. Most of them are on my husband's camera which I think he has with him at work. If I post this it will be a reminder to him to give me the camera tomorrow so i can download them, hint hint :-).

8/10/18 3:38 p.m. – Mineral Wells State Park, Space 64

We arrived a couple of hours ago. It’s still cloudy. But you wouldn’t guess by looking that we went through torrential rain to get here. I even wondered for a while if we might need to stop somewhere along the way and wait for it to ease off. Or if we would just have to turn around and go home.

More rain is expected throughout the weekend. I didn’t know when I reserved our place for this weekend that it might be the wettest weekend of the summer! I know we have been praying for rain. But I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful for the answer to our prayers on the way here.

The skies don’t look like they’ll be clear for star gazing. But the best night for the Perseid meteors is supposed to be Sunday night according to the lady at the office here. So that is still a couple of days away.

This park may not be in the list of top 8 places in Texas, (or was it 10) for star gazing, but that hasn’t stopped them. They seem to really know their stars and planets and are doing their best to encourage it. There is even a star party scheduled tonight, complete with telescopes, in the rv camping area near ours (Post Oak? We’re in the Plateau loop). It starts at 9:30. I want to try and do that.

Our site has lake access but not much lake view. There are a lot of cat tails blocking the view. But someone cleared a narrow passage through them. Unfortunately it looks like who or whatever it was also killed and demolished a large section of them in the process. But the access is just right for launching our canoe so that will be nice.

We do have quite a lot of trees around us. Some branches overhanging our roof too. Hopefully the possums or whatever wildlife lives around here won’t wake us up like at Joe Pool lake in June. Of course, we will want to wake up to see the meteors one or two nights. So if we can get them to jump on the roof at the right time that might be helpful.

An unusually brave and curious cardinal came to greet me just after we arrived. I’ve never had one come that close. He seemed remarkably unafraid. I wished I had my camera handy. But that might have scared him away. Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy nature and not feel like I have to "capture" it.

I was reminded right after we arrived of another benefit of being here--an hour and a half away from home. I got a text from my neighbor E asking to borrow $20. She assured me she would pay me back when her dad is out of the hospital tomorrow. She has done that before, pay me back I mean. But I was thankful that I wasn’t there to have to wrestle with the decision of whether or not I should give it to her. It was nice to be able to say no and know that she could not argue or cajole.