campermom

With no time to spare, we took off from SA right after work, with traffic at a stand still, it must have took until 6 to get to Boerne! After we cleared thru that, it was a straight shot to Junction. The park wasn't full, yet. I asked for a site we've had before, right across from the restroom, shade, it was nice. We took a very short walk and returned to get my son to bed. I stayed up a bit longer, watching the stars from my sleeping bag.

After breakfast, my son decided that we should skip swimming there and go ahead to Buffalo Gap. There was a huge chili cookoff happening in town. For a town of 463 people, they must have all been there 'cuz it was packed. Since my idea of vacation is to get away from the crowds, we skipped that event.

Buffalo Gap Historic Village was kinda neat. The origianl courthouse/jail for the county in on the property. Many other buildings had been moved to the site and set up to represent what "town" must have been like ages ago. The buildings were furnished with items donated to round out the historic look of the place. They may not have been part of the original business being represented, but they had information about the people who had donated the items. ( a little extra history). They also had some cats. A big friendly tabby tom, a black female and a tabby female, and 2 fabulous kitties. We played with the kitties for about 20 minutes. The gift store/office had loads of historic books about the area, along with stuff the kids would like. It was $5 for adults, $2 for 6 and ups.

We arrived at Abilene and began setting up. Once the tent was up, I tried to get a tarp up, covering the tent ( which leakied in the last heavy rain). I've learned a tarp can't really be used with no trees close by, a steady breeze, and only 1 adult to hold and tie down. Nevermind. Moving on to airing up the mattresses, I snagged mine on an old bungee cord hook. RATS! Off to Wal Mart. I am NOT sleeping on the ground. I can live without a hairdryer, I can live with only a box fan, I can pee,,,,well, you get the idea, but I ain't sleeping on the ground.

$100 dollars, and a hour later, we return, with more stuff than planned. Installed the air mattress, put up the canopy ( a real nightmare to install alone but worth the effort), and off to the pool. Our evening went as planned, including turning in early.

I woke up about 3 with a pain in my shoulder, hmmm, that dang air mattress went flat, yes the new one. Grrrrrr.

We awoke to drizzle and mist. Everything felt damp and it was to cool to swim. We drove back into town, got some new socks ( planned on living in flipflops all weekend), got some icecream, went to Old Navy, and caught a movie. ( Barnyard is pretty cute) The drizz;e let up for a few hours and we took a hike along a trail by the ponds where families were fishing. I could hear a man getting after his son who had lost interest in fishing. My son aasked to go play with him. How perfect. They both were bored alone, but now, were not bothering anyone. I visited with the family, even helped bait and remove caught perch from the hooks. Since we didn't really eat lunch (ice cream doesn't count), we needed some healthy food.

Camp cooking is so easy. I love finding meals where almost nothing needs to be refrigerated, and takes one or two pans to prepare. We almost always have greenbeans for the veggie. Couscous, rice, or pasta are great. So, we had shrimp fettuchini alfredo, and greenbeans one nights, and cheeseburger maccaroni helper, and greenbeans the other night. We usually bring frozen beef raviolis and sauce, that's a snap to prepare. Breakfast is always pre-cooked bacon, and egg beaters. This weekend we found that when we ate a big, late breakfast, we didn't need lunch. Guess we're just having to much fun to stop for lunch.

I patched up the old air matress witht eh patch included with the new one, and did fine, till the storm blew in over night, and the tent started to drip. When we decided to get up, I broke camp in my nightshirt. I only had one change of dry clothes left. The folks from across the street camp over to help take the canopy down. I thanked them for their help, went to the showerhouse to clean up, and we hit the road back to Junction.

The weather was mostly cloudy in Junction but it was perfect to tube. We swam for hours and had a blast. About 4:30 we left for home.

Although this wasn't my ideal weekend of camping, all was not lost. I still know that there is nothing as relaxing as waking up in your tent (however wet you might be) and have your son say how much he likes sleeping in the tent. I just wish I could have someone else set up my tent once we got home, hose the mud out of it etc.....

Abilene is a nice park. I am sure we would have enjoyed it more if the weather cooperated. We will probably go there again sometime as a stopping point for a longer journey ( Colorado maybe?) I wish.

Still beats having to work the holiday!
Happy camping.

copuswalker

Glad you had a good time.

Just remember....stay out of Walmart!!!

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There are those that hike and those that don't and those that say they will but won't.

ploddinTod

Thanks for the trip report, campermom.

You won't need that tarp to protect your tent if you can get it to quit leaking.
Have you seam-sealed the tent? Is that where it's leaking? In and around the seams? Another area of potential concern is your rainfly. Does it reach all the way to the ground? Some inexpensive tents have a fly that only reaches 2/3 of the way down. Blowing rain can get into the floor of your tent in this case.

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PloddinTod

campermom

well, I never got to seal all the rain fly seams. I just couldn't reach them. When I was doing it, it was only supposed to rain that one night, and we tarped it instead. That was in June. Now, I think I will figure out how to easily finish sealing it, before the next trip. It is still trying to dry on the deck. I had to hose it down, red mud was everywhere. Once it's dry, it will look like new. The fly goes just about to the ground. What I think happened is that when the wet part comes in contact with something else, either the mesh underneath, an airmattress pushed against the wall, a clothing bag pushed to the side, well, the water comes thru. The wind picked up and blew the fly so it was touching the mesh. I still think that camping in 40 degrees is better than in the rain. You just can't get out an do anything wet.

When we left Abilene, we checked the doppler in the office. There was a man there asking about the park pass. Turns out he sells RV's and gives them to his clients as a thank you gift, but never got one for himself. He didn't know how much he would be saving if he had one. I told him that I already had a park pass, so would he like to give me an rv for free? Oh well, didn't hurt to ask.