October Catch Up

Let me catch you up with the last part of October and early November.  From Austin I traveled north to make a meet-up November 2 with three college buddies in East Lansing, MI.  All of us are Michigan State University Spartans and MSU had a huge football game vs. University of Michigan.  The short version of the rivalry is that Spartans really don't like the U of M.  I traveled to Michigan by way of Chicago, stopping off to see my brother Jerry and his family. 

This leg added 1145 miles to the Tank's odometer.

 So from the west suburbs of Chicago I went up to Midland, MI, my birthplace and home of my father, step-mother and brother Jim.  Jim was kind enough to put me up in his driveway for three days (yay electric space heater!)

350 more miles!

 After a nice visit with the family finally, on November 1 I traveled to my friend Steve's house in Okemos, MI (just outside East Lansing) to get situated for the next day's BIG game! Sitting through 5 hours of cold and rain was well worth seeing the result:  MSU 27, UM 6.  We went out to a great celebratory dinner in East Lansing afterward.  1600 miles of Tank travel and man was it worth it!

 
Only 87 more miles.

Thanks for reading!

Campground Review: Buescher State Park, Smithville, TX

Created in 1933 from a land donation from the estate of Emil and Elizabeth Buescher, Buescher State Park is made up of 1014 acres of land and water a few miles north of Smithville, TX.  After dropping the kayak off at my storage locker in West Houston my camping buddy Becky and I drove up Texas Highway 71 to the park.

We stayed in the heavily wooded Oak Haven section of the park.

Compared to most of the other Texas parks Buescher SP is on the smaller side.  Of more importance was the fact that, unlike Bastrop State Park 11 miles up the road towards Austin, Buescher dodged the huge forest fire that swept the area a couple years ago.  There's a nice little stocked fishing lake that the campsites surround, due to being walk-ins with no reservation ours was not one of those campsites but it was still very satisfactory.

I was unable to learn if this lake had a name or not.

The weather upon our arrival was threatening rain so we put the tarp shelter over the picnic table and grilling area.

The spacious paved sites were all heavily wooded.

Buescher and Bastrop SP's are somewhat associated with each other and there's a 12 mile scenic camp trail (bikeable or walkable) that links them together.

22 miles round trip sounds better via bike than foot.

Verizon barely came in at our campsite and Millenicom wireless data only registered 1 bar although our site was in a sort of gully type area so reception might be better at higher elevations.  Being only about 25 miles southeast of Austin this marginal reception was surprising.

Past readers of this blog know I grade parks down when they contain navigable bodies of water but don't offer canoe rentals but this wasn't a problem at Buescher.

Buescher has canoe and kayak rentals.

 

If you are looking for non-fire damaged campgrounds in the Austin area that is reasonably priced ($17/night) Buescher SP is a very decent candidate.  During my stay the weather consisted of rain and then more rain so I didn't get around to all the things to do (these photos were all taken in a 1 hour weather "window") but I'd definitely go back.

Thanks for reading!

Back to Texas

I was in Farmington, NM in the northwest corner of New Mexico planning on touring the parks in Utah when my daughter texted me that she had been diagnosed with gall stones and she was probably going to have her gall bladder removed.  I've never had gall stones but I've spoken to women who have had them and also given birth and they to a person said they'd much rather go through labor so it must be a pretty painful condition.  I canceled the Utah plans and headed to Dallas-Ft. Worth where my daughter lives by way of Amarillo - Oklahoma City.



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Two days later when I got to my daughter's apartment in Hurst, TX she decided to try to manage the gall stones through diet, so the operation was off.  I stayed with her for a few days and then decided, since I was in Texas I may as well visit my storage locker in Houston and drop off the kayak which was underutilized because of the cooling weather.  A little less wind resistance is a good thing for the Tank (and my wallet).



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Gas costs were considerable but the saving grace on this portion of my travels was that I didn't pay for a single overnight (Thanks Wally World!)  I wonder if in some past life I was a long haul truck driver?  After dropping off the kayak I learned that my camping buddy Becky, whom you were introduced to way earlier in the blog, had Columbus day off so we went camping in a Texas State Park up near Austin.



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I'll review the park we stayed at in a separate post.

Thanks for reading!