6th - 8th Day of Texas vacation - Move to Lake Casa Blanca International State Park, Laredo, TX

 Traveling from Lajitas to Laredo, TX - 

packing up, traveling, & arrival, 1-3 May, 2022

Saturday was a busy day of preparing for travel - organizing, cleaning, storing, etc with just a short evening walk. Most exciting was our find of a 4" centipede. We had again walked behind the park in the rolling dirt hills. Ended up at the zipline trails & a warning sign against hiking the area. Oh well! Over 3 miles, not too bad.

The next day we left early (for us) a little after 9am.  Were shooting for 8:30am, but had little piddly issues - like the stairs wouldn't retrack.  George found that the connections had unhooked, so he had to plug them back in.  How did that happen when we were sitting still????  The drive was long, but uneventful.  The most interesting sight of the day was crossing the Amistad National Recreation Area just before arriving in Del Rio.  Here are some fun facts about this area that we had never heard of before.

• At conservation pool capacity of 1117 feet, Amistad Reservoir has:

65,000 surface acres of water.
a capacity of 3,159,270 acre/feet.
2/3 of its reservoir volume in the United States.

• The Rio Grande arm extends up the river 78 miles.
• The Pecos River arm extends up the river 14 miles.
• The Devils River arm extends up the river 25 miles.

• Total shoreline is 851 miles (compared with entire Texas coastline of 367 miles).

United States shoreline is 547 miles; Mexico shoreline is 304 miles.

• At 100°F temperature, 3000 acre/feet or 131,000,000 gallons/day evaporate from Amistad Reservoir.

• Amistad National Recreation Area was established on November 28, 1990.

• Amistad National Recreation Area consists of 57,292 acres.
• Amistad National Recreation Area has 17,820 land acres when the reservoir is at conservation pool level of 1117 feet.br>
• The national recreation area border with Mexico is 83 miles.

Wish we had had time to stop & investigate!!!

Called & chatted with Dan & Linda during the stop for fuel in Del Rio.  Lucked onto a stop for fuel at an HEB grocery store & got the cheapest diesel we had seen - $4.78 per gallon!  Yea!

Our arrival at the park was rather tiring.  We definitely had a first that we hope never has a second!  When we got to our assigned space, someone else was in it!!!!!  It was already about 6:30pm & had been a very long day as we had gotten up before 6:30am.  Luckily for us, the entrance station is open until 10pm & the assistant superintendent lives on site.  Sooooo...first we tried knocking on the 5th Wheel's door - no answer.  George diconnected the Jeep while I tried calling someone, but couldn't talk to a person - only transferred from recording to recording.  We drove back to the entrance & the receptionist called the asst superintendent.  By the time we drove back to the site where we had left the RV, he was there.  Like us, he knocked on the door, but no answer.  He had their phone number so, he started trying to contact them that way.  Although he didn't say it, we got the impression that he knew them.  In the meantime, he knew the park well & had all the space sizes & reservation information, so he led us to a big space that was empty for the night.  We got settled in just as the sunset with a promise that he'd get back with us to let us know when we could move to our space the next day!  Whew!

  

The next morning, we didn't rush, just got up at our normal 9am timeframe & had a leisurely breakfast.  Mr Guerra had left a message that we could move to our site anytime at our convenience.  We got settled into our site (much much better large pull through site) about 1pm.  We decided to do some shopping, so off to have Subway supper & shop at Walmart.  

After we got everything put away, we decided to brave the 90's+ temps with 50% humidity & take a walk. There are several established trails here in the state park, so we headed to the closest one & it's even got a little height & a view of the lake.  This park was signed into existence in 1991 and consists of 525 acres on the eastern edge of Laredo (a Texas city with a 2022 population of 329,000).  It's directly across Bob Bullock Loop from the airport.  The Mesquite Trees were full of birds.  Managed to spot & identify a Pyrrhuloxia and a Altamira Oriole.  They were gorgeous.  Saw lots of others that wouldn't stay still long enough to id them!  Still great fun!  We'll walk more tomorrow.