We were sad to leave our friends Warren and Cindy in Oklahoma but “the corona” struck again and they closed the campground we were staying in.
Not to worry, though, we have learned that Thousand Trails is letting everyone who is in a park by April 6th stay until May 1st. Well, heck we’re in; TT Lake Texoma here we come! We arrived just in time too. We got one of the last tree covered sites that is level and DRY. This campground is known to have some standing water issues in the fields.
For the most part during our stay, John is fixing all the the things on the coach that he has not had the time to work on. Our girl is going to be in fantastic shape by the time we’re out of here. But what about the “Green Lizard?”
We just got groceries and decide to stop for a pizza at Dominos. Oh no!!! Something is wrong with the clutch, as in there isn’t one anymore. It won’t go in. John says it feels like there is a brick behind it. Now what? We have two weeks worth of groceries in the back, a hot pizza on the way, NO UBERS and no one around we know to come get us.
Now that we have eaten our pizza and are no longer hangry, it is easier to think. We find a cab willing to take us to camp, a tow service to come get the jeep and a mechanic willing to service her. Off to the doctors she goes.
It’s Monday, April 20 and the garage has called. Apparently we “blew up” the clutch. It always a little hard to work ever since we got it back in 2012. The guy said he never saw anything like it. Leave it to us. We are just glad it happened here in town and not while we were out in the middle of nowhere 4-wheeling. Thank goodness we have the motorcycle, they won’t have it ready until Wednesday.
A bunch of storms went through overnight and this morning. Tornado warnings and hail this morning but not so much that we took any damage. The skies have cleared, mostly. I can see a bunch of people looking and pointing up in the sky. Nosey me has to see what the fuss is all about. WOW! They do grow things bigger in Texas, even puffy clouds.
The cloud didn’t amount to much. It rolled in low over the trees and then moved north and left us with beautiful blue skies. The mechanic just called, woohoo, time to go get the Green Lizard. She’ll be ready for some rock-crawling again.
All work and no play make the Dreese’s—well, I don’t know what it makes us, but we need to so some site-seeing. There is a wildlife refuge near by that is open so we are going to give it a visit.
Hagerman? There isn’t much of town here any more except for a few farms and houses.
Okay, yeah. Unless you wanted to live in a “Little Venice” I’d move too. Hope this isn’t too deep, the Jeep doesn’t have a snorkel. Might have to look at getting one of those. This is the third time this year we almost needed one.
We are safely across and see our first sign for the auto tour.
John is so sweet to indulge me in my amateur bird watching. “Amateur” is the key word in that sentence. If I get any of these wrong, please comment. I really do want to know what each bird is.
It’s hard to tell in this picture because they are so far away and John doesn’t have the right lens on his camera, but this seems to be a flock of Franklin’s Gulls. They obviously have not gotten the memo about social distancing.
These American White Pelicans apparently feel they are tall enough that they are socially distanced from the gulls.
Now here is good social distancing practice! The pelican all the way to the right is a breeding male. They grow a hump on their beaks like deer grow antlers during the rut.
Sea gulls and pelicans are pretty easy to identify, but plovers, sandpipers, basically any shore bird, I have a hard time identifying. I’m such a land-locked woman. I think the bird on the right is a semipalmated plover and the one on the bottom is a Wilson’s Phalarope.
Another tough sandpiper but I’m going with the Lesser Yellowlegs.
I have a much easier time with ducks. This is a pair of Blue Wing Teals. The band on the male’s head makes this kind of easy.
Spring is sprung in Texas and the wildflowers are popping out all over. The pretty red flowers are commonly called Indian Paint Brush and vary in color from scarlet to orange, cream, yellow and sometimes even purple. We are seeing mostly the scarlet and orange here in Texoma.
The blooms of the Pink Evening Primrose, at least in North Texas, open at dusk, wither during the day and then new blooms open at dusk.
We are coming into another waterfowl area. Another easy bird. I feel like I’m getting better at this. The Great Blue Heron. No brainer I know, but please, don’t burst my bubble.
Let me enjoy my few moments. Like this one, the Great Egret. One of my favs, I love all those white feathery feathers. No really, they have these almost wispy feathers. Beautiful!
We take a little side trip into a meadow. It dead ends at a hiking trail. Not into hiking today so we’ll turn around. There are little birds flitting all around us. And then, it happens! A bird I haven’t seen before, it always gives me the feeling of finding a hidden treasure. John gets a most beautiful picture of it. Let me introduce you to the Dickcissel, click the name to hear it’s song.
Okay, we are back at the water. John catches a stunning picture of the elusive Wendy.
Okay. That’s enough. Time to go home. It is soon going to be time to pack up and coddiwomple our way north into Colorado to visit our friends Jim and Becky.
