Retro51

Here’s a report on my camping trip, which I enjoyed. I had a walk-in tent site for July 3 and July 4.

The Good:

Less than 200 miles (from Granbury), a nice drive, easy to find.

Big lake, several different “parks” for camping, tents, trailers, etc.

Lots of wildlife, many deer around campground, pretty tame. Saw armadillos at night coming through my camp, one skunk, a couple of raccoons, saw a possum on the trail during my early morning run.

Several nice hiking trails, much under canopy of low tree branches, for shade. Same trails used for biking. Some parts were a little hard to peddle through, but otherwise, fun for biking. You can bike on the roads too, if watching for traffic.

There is a 26-mile round trip trailhead connecting this park with one on the other side. It is also an equestrian trail, and much of it is soft dirt or loose rock, that is hard to peddle on. I did about 4 miles of it, then turned around and came back. It was just too hot in the middle of the day to do the whole thing. It would be nice in the fall.

The Bad:

Way crowded on 4th – all the camping with multiple families. All the day-use (pavilions and tables) very crowded with multiple families. All the parking used up, double parking along roadways. All trash overflowing.

The first night, people partied all night long, making it hard to sleep. There is supposed to be a curfew. There is a burn ban (I saw open fires, especially at night), a fireworks ban (heard fireworks at night), and a curfew (ignored, as I said).

The boat ramp area was very crowded, especially on Sat the 4th, especially later in the day, as people were still putting in boats for the evening or night, and people were taking boats off the water if they were leaving. It looked to be a 30-60 minute wait to get to the ramp. There were two ramps where I was, and of course, there are multiple parks around the lake, so there are other ramps too.

I put the kayak in at the beach, but rode my bike around the ramp/fishing pier area just to watch what was going on.


Island exploration: There are two large islands – Snake Island is the closest and Deer Island is further out in the lake.

It was a little windy the first afternoon, but I put my kayak in around 2P and paddled over to the opposite shore, beached the kayak, and swam a little. I thought it was the island I wanted to explore, but it wasn’t. I wish I had gone on the island (further to the East) because the way it worked out, I never got there.

I got up early Sat and did a nice trail run – jogging on one of the hiking trails. I saw a deer or two and enjoyed the run very much. Then I took the kayak on the trailer around to the beach by the fishing pier and boat ramp, because it was much closer to the island than my beach/camping area.

(More report in the Sailing/Boating Forum)