Martin Dies in fall...

Heh. I love that title. The state park that we enjoy going to, mostly because it is fairly close, is called Martin Dies, Jr state park. It is a really pretty park and hasn't been that popular since we started camping there about 5 years ago. That all changed this weekend.

They were closed for about a year after Hurricane Rita tore through that region of south east Texas. They lost a lot of trees and we were pretty sad that we couldn't camp there for well over a year, but it was still a pretty well kept secret.

We put in our reservation a week or so before our trip and they didn't mention anything about being booked up. When we got there, we were amazed at the number of people trying to check in. We actually had to wait in line for about 15 minutes, which we had never done before. The place had gotten quite popular. Ugh. We enjoy camping to get away from it all.

Well, we picked our spot off of the map (because the ones we liked were already taken) and we went on back to park the behemoth in our new home for the next two days. We had no idea how awesome this spot was going to end up being.



So we settle in on our first night and our camp neighbors are older. They certainly don't seem like the party type and we are excited about that. As the night goes on, more and more people arrive. The party is getting ready to kick off...

Except, it was our kind of party. After the rest of the crew showed up at our camp neighbor's site, they broke out the guitars and even a banjo. They were literally playing "dueling banjos" with a guitar and a banjo. It was awesome. We enjoyed every bit of that. They were the nicest people we had ever camped next to.


Our firewood was pretty green, so it took a lot of effort to get it to burn. If you didn't watch over it constantly, the fire would dwindle and go out. This is usually my job, but I was feeling like a bum and didn't really care. CeeJay really picked up the slack here. She had our fire going really well for HOURS. She is quite the little pyromaniac.



The following evening, our neighbors invited us over for fried fish and even some birthday cake. CeeJay had made some home made chili, so we passed on the fish, but took them up on the birthday cake. Heh.



The weather was gorgeous and the stars were amazing. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of camping. We got a few inquiries on big Bertha. People were wanting to know how old she was and what kind of an RV she is... No revealing decals or images makes it tough to figure out. The park hosts came by for a short visit and CeeJay expressed her interest in possibly doing that someday. Now that could be a lot of fun...