Night #3 Fiasco

Things didn’t exactly go as planned, but then again they never really do. Here’s our story. We were all set to camp out tonight, called ahead to a couple of campsites to make sure everything was on the up and up. Even asked to see if other people would be camping out too, just to make sure we wouldn’t be the only losers sleeping outside on a hot summer night in Texas. Everything was looking pretty good. The two campsites we scoped out had swimming pools, riverside views, flushing toilets :-), a pavilion, and nice shady areas with hopes of a nice cool breeze. We take our exit and type the address into our GPS and start following our British lady’s accented directions. Let me remind you it’s already 9:30 and the sun has already set (which by the way was beautiful to watch. The sun set right over the hills and half the sky was still blue with clouds while the other half was turning a light golden, orange. I’ve seen the sun set on the ocean, but this kind of sunset is something completely different. It was slower and the colors were entirely different) so it is pretty dark out. We’re now off the exit and following these curvy back roads. It’s just the road, and mounds of sand on either side. We’re the only ones on the road and not gunna lie it was a little erie. So we follow the directions to the end of the road and then we see a sign that says “end of paved road”, WHAT?!?! So we take our assigned left onto a road and then we spot another sign that says “dead end”…are you kidding?? Ha I wish we were. It was a long gravel road with bushes on either side, it looked like something out of those scary movies when the family is driving down the road and all of a sudden they get a flat tire and have to pull over oh and then members of the family just start disappearing, what a coincidence. So trying to avoid as many scary movie scenarios as possible we quickly booked it out of there, having to cross a one lane bridge blocked off by construction cones. We pulled into a nearby town, gassed up the car and asked where the other campsites were located. The directions seemed easy enough, so we found our first campsite of the night. The State Park in Junction, TX, wide open to ANYONE. There was no gate on this campsite and there was also NO OTHER CAMPERS but there was some local wildlife, deer. “There had to be a hundred thousand, maybe even a million. It’s gunna take hours before we get this cleared”(Name that movie).
Tonight was the night for deer cause we saw at least 50. We tried to see if we could get some luck at another campsite the lady at the gas station told us about only about a mile away. We found it, again more deer, and it was closed for the night but there was a late parking area but then you had to pay a ridiculous amount pretty much the same as the nearby motel, Lazy T’s. So we tried ANOTHER campsite. This one was five miles away and this was the creepiest one of all. We followed the signs that lead us into the park. Now we’re in the park and we are on some remote roads, way far off any exit, and the first sign we spot is one that says “watch out for snakes”. Now just pause a second and let that sink in. CREEPYYYYY!! Why would you wanna camp in the middle of the woods where you know it’s basically going to be a snake haven? Despite the sign we continue to drive down this rocky road (Rachel’s favorite ice cream). There’s another wooden sign that says park headquarters 1.5 miles. We continue to drive. Along this mile and half we were chased by deer, followed by some jack rabbits, and even had a standoff with a raccoon that had no intention of backing down. Reached the headquarters and the parking lot was empty, and no lights on inside the “headquarters” if that was even what it truly was. Not to mention there wasn’t any other campers in sight. We turned the car around and exited the park asap. Now the night isn’t so young anymore and the wildlife seems to be even more abundant. Next we plug the GPS in and try to find anything even semi close to where we were. Oh wow, gee how convenient the GPS can’t find satellite. Great. We drive and eventually get some signal. So our camping experience didn’t go as planned and we end up spending the night at a hotel. But let me just describe to you our hoteling experience. So you know that Verizon wireless commercial where the guy goes into the hotel and the guy behind the counter looks kind of creepy and tells the man that he won’t get any signal, trying to scare the guy off. Then the customer explains that he has Verizon so he can get signal anywhere, and the guy behind the counter hands him the keys and says, “Well…towels are kind of scratchy.” We located that hotel without any signal. Let me just say this, I didn’t go into the bathroom without my shoes on.
Traveler trip of the day: Always use your military discount, best price in town!
More to come…