Village Creek State Park Texas

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Left camp about 9:00 am heading east on I10.  Leaving San Antonio was easier that getting to camp because we were on the east side of the city.  We left the interstate so we could go north of Houston.  We are really glad that we did.  Traffic was bad enough north of Houston.  It was nice weather for driving.  We stopped at the Walmart in Lumberton to get supplies.  We got to our campsite at Village Creek State Park about 4:30.  This is an okay park.  Really the only problem with it is that the restrooms are about 1/4 mile from all the campsites.  We got our exercise just walking to and from the bathrooms.  This area of Texas looks a lot like Louisiana.  It is boggy and wet.

Friday, March 3, 2017

We didn't get in a hurry this morning.  After breakfast we loaded our back pack with supplies and drove to the day use area in the park.  We hiked on the Village Creek Trail to the swimming beach about 1.13 miles from the trail head.  It is an easy hike.  We weren't impressed with the swim beach.  It looked kind of dirty.  The creek is very large.  It looks more like a river and is dark colored from the material from the swampy areas.

Village Creek

Swim beach on Village Creek

We took the Tupelo loop (0.87 miles) on our way back.  It had some really muddy parts that we had to work to get around.  When we were by the Tupelo swamp, Mike saw a big splash in the water and we stopped to look.  Eventually I saw a river otter in the distance looking at us.  Neither of us had ever seen a river otter in the wild so we were really excited.  We ate lunch in a shelter with benches by the creek.

Place where we saw the river otter in the bush in the middle of the picture

When we got back to camp, we both took showers then made chili in the dutch oven and grilled hot dogs for supper.  Today was a misty, sometimes rainy day.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

It is a damp day, not really raining yet, but not good for trails in the park.  We went to town and ate lunch then went to The Big Thicket Preserve Visitor Center.  Big Thicket is a national preserve.  The displays and information in the visitor center were very interesting.  We hiked part of the Pitcher Plant Trail and saw hundreds of pitcher plants.

Blooming pitcher plants

pitcher plants

Long leaf pine

On the way back to camp we stopped and hiked the Sundew Trail.  We saw a lot of sundews on the ground.  You have to really look for sundews because they are small and grow right on the ground.  This was a very good day.

Sundews

Sunday, March 5, 2017

It rained hard all day so we just sat in the trailer reading and resting.  We will head home tomorrow.

Monday, March 6, 2017 through Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Drove home mainly staying on Hwy 259 in Texas then Hwy 59 in Oklahoma.  We stayed in a KOA in Mount Pleasant, TX.  It was a nice KOA and very convenient.  In the Red River area of Texas and Oklahoma we saw thousands of crows.  Other than that it was just an uneventful drive.  We really enjoyed our winter Texas vacation.