Goliad State Park and Another Lesson Learned

Monday, March 29 

We left the house after lunch had a beautiful two and a half hour drive down hwy. 183 to Goliad. The sky was overcast but the patches of wildflowers along the road brightened up the view in spite of the overcast sky. 

Once we entered Gonzales County we began to see a lot more cattle in the pastures than we see up in the Hays/Travis area. We’ve been through here before but never noticed how many Brahma ranches there are, with a few short horns and miscellaneous breeds thrown in for color. With their cream colored hide they added a nice contrast as they munched along in those wildflower patches. 

Arriving at Goliad State Park, check-in was quick, our campsite, #13, is one of 21 spacious pull-thru’s in the Karankawa Camping area. It’s an appropriate name, as the Karankawa were a tribe that lived in the area. 

We ran through the usual set up routine, unhitching, connecting water and power etc. then leashed up the pooches for a walk around the loop. . . noting as we went which sites would be highly desirable, which wouldn’t and checking out the little screened enclosures that are also available for rent. 

They would be really nice for tent campers during the peak bug season. There are three other tent areas but none of them have these little screened enclosures. 

Set-up complete, we took the dogs for a short walk around the loop. We were probably gone from our site for about 15 minutes.

 As we rounded the corner, putting our site in vision, we heard running water, and as we got closer noticed water cascading like a little Niagara Falls all along the passenger side of the RV. 

Steve immediately shut off the water supply and unlocked the door, both of us expecting the worst. It seems "somebody" was on our side this time though. 

We had noticed when we put the jacks down that the rig was about an inch low on the passenger side, and that saved us a lot of potential problems, as the water ran out instead of into the interior. 

A connection on the pump under the kitchen sink had apparently blown apart, probably loosened on the rough road we’d just traveled over. Even though Steve had checked it before we left it couldn’t hold up to the vibration. 

We spent much of the remainder of the afternoon blotting up water (good thing we had a lot of towels available!) and running fans under the cabinets. 

We were prepared to turn around and go home when we first saw the situation, but it turned out to be salvageable. It took us three tries to get here (having had to cancel the first two reservations) and we certainly didn't want to have to give up now that we were finally here! 

Lesson learned here:

ALWAYS turn the water off before leaving the site for any length of time! 

We spent the remainder of the afternoon recuperating our nerves and checking out the immediate neighborhood. 

It turned out we had a lot of neighbors, tiny ones, tree trimming neighbors.... otherwise known as leaf cutter ants. 

There is a large colony of them, permanent residents I'm sure, not campers, just a couple of sites down. 

The woman in the campsite next to us pointed them out. She was taking photos of them climbing up and down the tree in another site.  They are fascinating little creatures and they worked all day at gathering their leaves. 

Their colony is quite extensive, and mostly looks like a dog has been digging from a distance. 

Close up you can see the entry hole and the fine soil they kick up. This colony is probably where the ants are taking the leaves they clip, on which they will grow microbes to feed their young, as far as 8-10 feet under the surface!

Not to be outdone by all the industry of the ants, we were also visited by a pair of wrens. 

Not just visited.... they wanted to move in! We sat in camp relaxing, enjoying a couple of "adult beverages" and noticed birds dashing in and out around the front end of the trailer, so we paid closer attention and discovered this pair was doing what a pair at home had attempted. . . trying to build a nest on our propane tanks!

They were swooping up under the tank cover, a large plastic covering for the two tanks that made the area nice and dark which is their preference for nesting. 

We dislodged them twice but they kept coming back so finally Steve opened  up the top piece on the plastic tank cover so it would be light inside and that stopped them. Well, actually, I think they moved over to a rig that had just arrived. Oh well, that's nature at work!

Tomorrow we'll visit The Presidio La Bahia where the Fannin Memorial is located. This will be a jump directly into the middle of the Texas battle for independence.

*Follow up note - the fans seem to have taken care of the interior moisture, and so far a check of the insulation from the underside seems to show no damage.