Why did the Alligator cross the road? To hide so he could eat us, of course!

We pulled out of Port Lavaca after being well fed, well cleaned up, and after having caught up with some funny family folk (get ya next time D). Our destination was Brazos Bend State Park, which promised to fulfill two burning needs: alligators and therm-a-rests.

Fellow Padre Island camper (and Ontarian) Dan had told us the gaters were so easy to see at Brazos that you had to step around them on the paths . I figured this was a bit of an exaggeration, (foreshadow!), but it sounded good . And Brazos is pretty close to Houston, which had a couple of REI stores (a store like MEC). Ann’s sleeping pad was approaching beach ball stage, so this was becoming critical. Brazos was the perfect next stop for us.

Approaching the park, we stopped at a little grocery store to stock up on all the essentials. We’d heard about some serious weather coming in, and as luck would have it, there was a TV on in the shop tuned to the Weather Channel. They were talking about the coming 3-day storm, showing pretty graphics with big winds, lots of rain, and scary lightning icons all over our location. They reassuringly told us our area only had a TOR-CON rating of 4 out of 10. TOR-CON measures the chance of tornadoes. A “4” is, well, 40% chance of tornadoes within the area. I’ve always wanted to see a tornado … from a safe location, so BRING IT ON!!

We bought an extra bottle of wine in preparation for the maelstrom. But we also decided to rent one of the park’s screened-in shelters. If we were going to get stuck in heavy rain and winds (and tornadoes 😉 ) for days, at least we’d have a place bigger than our tent to stretch out. This turned out to be a great plan.

We got ourselves set up at site/shelter #7 a full day before the big storm was to hit. The next day we headed into Houston to get Ann’s new sleeping pad.  Houston is a very large and busy city. It’s also encircled and criss-crossed with toll highways, some of which are only usable by those with transponders. This made getting to where we wanted to go rather difficult. As usual, we wanted to avoid the fast roads anyway, but this meant our 1-hr journey turned into an all-day odyssey. And the near-gale force winds (a precursor to the big storm) didn’t help. But we prevailed, and Ann is now the happy owner of a fancy new Therm-a-rest.

               

With mission #1 accomplished we hunkered down for the coming storm. Our shelter was screened in, with a nice solid roof, and a small porch. It had power and water, but was not really proof against blowing rain. And unfortunately the only table was located outside (and a friendly sign warned us against bringing it inside the shelter). But with a little ingenuity I was able to use our tarp to protect the porch, and some fellow campers took pity on us (people seem to do this quite regularly 😉 ) and brought us their extra plastic sheets so we could cover the side screens. In the end we had a shelter that was dry and somewhat cosy.

And a good thing too! Man did it blow! … and rain! … and set the sky ablaze with lighting and thunder!! The storm raged for two full days, but we stayed warm and mostly dry. And with the luxury of having power, we even decided to fire up the computer and watch some good ol’ Corner Gas.

The storm didn’t produce any tornadoes (at least not near us), but it did dump tons of rain on us, particularly the second night. Although we were camped on high ground, I was a bit worried we’d float away. The next morning we were still on mushy, wet, but mostly solid ground. However, all around the campsite was new ponds of pooled water and new creeks running everywhere. What a soaker!

   

The storm system lingered and stalled over much of Texas, but it did offer us a few hours of respite through the second day and into the third. We ventured out to explore our surrounds, and to see the various critters than make Brazos kinda famous.

OK, first there is the bird life. All sorts of interesting and weird ones live here. No wonder it attracts the weirdest of all critters: the Birder, in droves.

And the forest itself looks like a set design from a classic southern movie, with lush growth and big trees all hung heavy in spanish moss.

 

 

      

Then there are the odd-ball animals like the opossum  and the armadillo . But the king of them all … the one that we drove all this way to see … the one which made us face a TOR-CON 4 storm … well this one needs no introduction.

Its smiling face tells it all:

As does ours:

           

The day before we had made a visit to the Nature Centre in the park. There we learned a bit about the various animals in the area, including the smiling alligators. We even got to pet a baby alligator, and visit a mom with 29 little ones all hanging around. They’re so little, and so cute. All of which left us feeling pretty brave about visiting the main area the following day.

 

This bravery quickly departed once we saw our first Big Guy. He was just sitting on the edge of the path — smiling, as if tempting us to walk past. We had already turned around to go back when a couple of locals strolled past us, and without a pause, walked past Big Ugly. After that it became easy, and we started to seem them all over the place.

   

With mission #2 accomplished, the storm abated, and the pending plague of Spring Breakers all set to descend on all State Parks (indeed, everywhere interesting outside of college/university towns), we pulled up stakes and headed on. We’re slowly making our way northish now, with our immediate goal to reach Natchez and the start of the Natchez Trace. This 400+ mile route is a national park that will take us all the way north to Nashville. Tonight (and possibly tomorrow) will be motel nights. Oh well… at least the water is warm.

BTW, after much Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression, Ann finally Accepted the loss of her long-loved therm-a-rest. So, after gutting it like a pig (to see its innards so we could see why it failed), she made a final blessing to the camping equipment gods, and sent her old sleeping pad to the great dumpster in the sky. So sad…