Follow up to yesterday: The sun had come out sometime in the late afternoon and there was still about an hour of daylight when we got back from our day out in the truck. We had postcards to mail so we jumped on the bikes and made the 20 mile run into Uvalde…again! But it was a nice end to the daylight portion of the day. Then Kim got his telescope out so I could look at the moon. He didn’t try to image last night there was a report of a storm coming in, but he did entertain a family with kids that arrived at the campground sometime yesterday afternoon. Then we finished up the night by watching the movie ‘Sing’.
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OMGoodness! The rain! It started sometime in the middle of the night and continued for what seemed like hours. Thunder and lightning woke me up and the rain started shortly thereafter…then it rained harder…and then it hailed…and then it rained hard some more. And sleeping in what is essentially a metal box only intensified the noise!
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| Camp to the left..Bathroom to the right...this wasn't here yesterday. |
The sound was unmistakable when it turned to hail and from what I heard hitting the roof of the trailer, I imagined it to be golf ball size. Of course, by then my brain was in run wild mode: I was sure the windshield of the truck was going to be cracked, the hood dented, and the bikes dented all to hell. Then I was trying to figure exactly where the insurance cards were and wondered how far down the road I’d have to go to get a signal to call the insurance companies and somewhere in there was concern for the people Kim met last night who were camping in a tent. Did they stick it out in the tent or did they escape to the cars? Then as the hail stopped but the rain continued, I tried to figure out how far the river would have to rise to flood the area…and then I thought about the bikes falling over in the uprising of the river. Aghhhh!! Go to sleep, Karen, just go to sleep! I started to relax because really, what can I do about anything now…it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. Just that quick I was back at it because it occurred to me that the spot down the highway where the sign says “Water possible on road”…yeah, no doubt there would be water on the road…rushing over the road more like it. I just couldn’t shut my brain off or shut out the sound of the rain. At one point, Kim rolled over and mumbled, “Hey, it’s raining.” I didn’t say anything but I thought “No shit...wish I could sleep through it”. (He did say later that he heard it hailing, it just wasn’t a cause for concern for him.) Eventually, as I heard and felt the rain lessening, I was able to fall back asleep but the only way to turn the thoughts off in my head was to run through the words of the song ‘God is so good’ over and over. Strange but it worked! This morning, I woke to the sound of singing birds so I knew the world hadn’t ended; however, I was hesitant to even open the trailer door for fear of what I’d find, but the need to use the bathroom forced the issue. Surprise! The campground was not flooded, the bikes were upright, and the truck windshield was not cracked…but there was a small creek running between our camp and the bathrooms. And I never did get a good estimate of how long the storm lasted.
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We decided to walk down by the river to see if it was higher….yes, it was. Not only that but the big incline of rocks that we had walked down on Friday was washed away in two places…as in instead of a slope .there was a 7 foot drop off at each wash out. Found a pile of hail down by the river…maybe the size of peas, but it sure sounded bigger than that! Because we didn’t have anything else to do we drove into town to see if there was water over the road…yes, there was. In two places, there was major water over the road…trucks were going through no problem but there were people in cars that stopped, considering their options. Coming home we rode north past the campground 7 miles to see if we could get the bikes out that way…yes, we could. But then the next thought was could we even get 1the bikes out of camp with all the mud? Don’t think we’re even going to try it. Just hang around camp for the day…take a nap maybe.
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Excitement in the Men’s room this morning: neighbor boy went to take a shower and found an animal cowering in the rafters…he thought it was a possum. Turns out it was a ringtail cat, not something that you want to mess with according to what I learned on Wikipedia: (This is not the entire article.)
This Texas native was once a favored pet for miners, as they are better mousers than house cats. It has been called a “miner’s cat,” but it’s not a cat at all.
The nocturnal Ringtail belongs in the same family as the raccoon and looks like a small fox with a raccoon’s tail.
Ringtails are shy, solitary creatures. They prefer rocky hideouts, which probably accounts for the way their bodies are built. They are about the size of housecats, with narrow bodies like ferrets. Their flexible ankles can rotate 180 degrees, which makes it easy for them to climb vertical spaces. Their long tails provide balance, and even help them perform cartwheels in tight places to reverse directions.
They will “stem,” or place two feet on one wall and two feet on another to climb rock crevices. They may even ricochet between walls in wider cracks.
Ringtails range from buff to dark brown. Their bellies are white, and their tails, which are as long, or longer, than their bodies, and have seven to eight black and white rings. They have large purple eyes. They range over most of Texas, except for the Gulf Coast. They also live across the desert southwest, and into Mexico. While they prefer rockier habitat, they do live in wooded areas, making their dens in hollow trees and logs. They don’t stay put, rarely spending more than three nights in a den.
Ringtails can fall prey themselves to owls, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, and bobcats.
They make sounds like raccoons – clicks and chatters – as well as a loud bark. A captured Ringtail will scream, and then discharge a pungent smelling liquid from its anal glands. This little trait has earned it another name, civet cat, after the African Civet Cat that produces a musk used in perfumes.
The Ringtail can be domesticated, and it can also be a nuisance to farmers, as it likes to eat chickens. They can be trapped in Texas, with the appropriate license, but landowners can hunt them if they attack poultry. Ringtails are protected in many other states.
It might be wise to leave it alone because of its defense mechanisms and maybe it’ll move along in a few days anyway. Of course, that’s easy for me to say because it’s not camped out in the bathroom I use…at least not yet. 😏
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When I asked at the office if last night’s rain was typical, they all assured me it was not…that it doesn’t rain much out here at all. Sun came out but the ground is still slippery with mud. We extended for another day so tomorrow we can ride ‘The Three Sisters’ … a.k.a. ‘The Twisted Sisters’. I came across it on a motorcycle site, but the office lady suggested it too. It’s one of the reasons we’re in this area, besides just trying to stay away from the bigger cities.
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| The best of buddies! |
The campground has a variety of animals: Axis deer, donkeys, miniature horses, a zebra, 2 Clydesdales, goats, chickens, etc. Sitting down at the picnic table after we got home from town and a little white pony wandered into our campsite. Very friendly and even friendlier after Kim gave it an apple. In fact, it wandered around behind Kim as he went about preparing lunch. Then the Clydesdales came wandering by on the other side of the camp road, so it went to join them. Quite the sight…two huge horses and one that could fit underneath them. We’re told that the brown Clydesdale and the miniature white are good buddies. 😊
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Went for a walk in the afternoon and then I sat for an hour or so by the trailer, listening to music while trying to get a picture of a bird coming out of its nest. The nest is neatly hidden in a cactus but I was able to get a good view by sitting out in the sun…not my favorite thing to do, but I wanted a picture. Managed to get a picture or two of it going in the nest which means I got a couple of bird butt shots.
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Went into town to see if the water was still rushing over the road…hey, it’s been a slow day. While we were at it we went out for Chinese, which sounded better than the peanut butter sandwiches we’d have back at camp. *At 7 pm, the water wasn’t running over the road anymore; however, there is still plenty of water laying in fields and ditches.
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On the way to Uvalde, there’s an old pink truck with a huge breast cancer ribbon on the windshield parked by the roadside…tonight we stopped. It’s painted pink (although it’s faded) and the bed of the truck is filled with flowers, plastic I believe. Also dragonflies were painted on the sides of the truck and the cancer ribbon had ‘In memory of Misty Raines’ written on it. And there were also two objects hanging from the tree behind the truck. All indications are that Misty was loved and is missed dearly.
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