Falcon State Park Texas for Camping with Nature
this is going to work well what was that? now there is a tent pad here which I guess I could have put my trailer on but I didn't for one simple reason I don't think I'd actually appreciate ants in my pants or anywhere else for that matter oh this is so good beautiful day sunny um I just had a shower and I didn't have to have a shower inside my camper and clean up you know the curtains and all that stuff I usually do there's hot showers just over there so it's somebody else's mess to clean up no I didn't leave a mess but it was nice to have a nice hot shower and the big thing I noticed as soon as I got here was the air it's dry here I have been in humid air for months and months at a time certainly this whole trip it's just been constant humidity and even you know from South Padre Island which is only about 2 and 1/2 hours away it was 88 to 100% humidity there by the ocean here it's only 33% and you really feel it I'm not going to have any issues whatsoever with condensation out here the trailer is drying out it's not going to smell anymore ah I love it Falcon State Park is on the north side of the Falcon Reservoir in Texas while the southern Shore is in Mexico it's a popular spot for fishing as well as boating but for people like me the attraction was the birds and the wildlife which begs the question: are there any Falcons in Falcon State Park? I had hopes when I saw this bird but when I slowed the video down a little it was clearly an osprey but a magnificent bird nonetheless well my Campground is right here the Black Bass Loop but the first thing I want to explore is just down the road right here the butterfly garden there was lots of interesting plants and lots of birds in the bushes but perhaps January is not a good time for butterflies there was a butterfly sign at least and near it was a fountain with one very lonely flower but the fountain had oranges fastened to the branches and the bees just loved them finally a butterfly arrived apparently quite thirsty but a little nervous around all those bees he finally got a taste of nectar and wasn't going to give up his spot watch what happens when a fly tries to butt in on the left whack! and another bee whack! I guess he just doesn't like to share so even in the cold months you can still find butterflies here but I was curious as to why the Garded was fenced surely it wasn't to keep the butterflies in nope it was to keep the butterfly eaters out and this bird loves butterflies now I've seen road runners in my other travels but never so many at Falcon Park they're as common as Robins are up north and are quite comfortable around humans yuck! that one tasted bad they're like Mother Nature's Pest Control it is kind of neat how they fluff up their feathers just like the cartoon but do they really go BEEP BEEP! listen closely to this one in a tree {Coo Coo Coo Coo} I would have thought that was a dove call well tonight it's totally vegan I've got two kinds of potatoes big red potatoes and a little baby red potatoes with some uh vegan mayonnaise and pepper uh green beans some hummus and avocado and lots of pepper healthy UMmm...and tasty at dusk a red Fireball glowed in the trees and as it dipped below the Sierra Madres a song could be heard [Coyotes howl in the distance] nothing says good morning like a steaming cup of coffee with a hot bowl of oatmeal and the sweet call of a happy bird well I think it's time for an update on the performance of the Slimarado, my Chevy truck because uh some may remember that a few videos ago I started a little bit of a challenge I believe that I can get better gas mileage at least once with this pickup truck while Towing than I would with the Jeep and the ongoing bet is I believe I can get better than 15.1 mpg now uh the last time I reported this and let me just whoops I'm losing the rock last time I reported this uh it was a couple of videos ago at least uh yeah I'd only achieved between 11.1 and 12.2 and I wanted to update this uh the last video but it was so windy and I was on the beach and the waves were really loud so now you can hear me except for this little bird that's chirping in the background here's all the receipts since then my gas receipts and uh I did the calculations what did I get this time? well the first one and where was that uh just before Pensacola Florida 12.4 mpg so we're already better then it went down to 11.9 in lacome Louisiana uh 12.1 uh-oh it's going down 12.0
uh you know 12.5 uh there's oh there's one real bad one here uh where was this uh Kingsville Texas I was fighting a headwind 10.6 miles per gallon OUCH! however they're not all that bad 11.2 the best one is right here and it is are you ready? 13.1 MPG so that's good I'm improving
and the funny thing about that one that was what when I was traveling through Houston I was on the freeway and I was actually going 70 mph not the usual I tried to keep it around 60 but I think it was you know maybe there's a bit of a of a wind behind me maybe it was all those uh those cars and those trucks were sort of pushing me through the freeway improved my gas mileage I don't know but that's really good I think my range for this this section is between 10.6 as the low and 13.1 as the high I'm getting there you know a couple more miles per gallon and I'll have won but uh it's kind of tough I'm still in the race that's the main thing and it's for charity by the way it's not it's not going in my my pocket like these receipts are well Falcon state park has a ton of trails which is why I got my hiking boots on now although it's January it's actually very green here um and this is where it goes from the the humid East to uh to the dry West now we're into more of a desert scrub everything wants to harm you by the way there's thorns and you know thorns on the cactus even the the mesquite tree here is very thorny look but don't touch but it's that coolness plus the dry air it just makes it perfect for a hike you know when it gets to be you know 100 plus (F) in the summertime you probably don't want to be here but in January or February it's Pleasant and there's so many things to see although the desert Cottontail is pretty common one thing you might not always see is a sun halo the other thing about deserts is uh you got to pace yourself even though it is the end of January and it's reasonably cool when you find the shade of a tree sit down and relax and just get that cool down you don't want to get too hot you don't want to get dehydrated and uh although that Sun's a little foggy today you can still get a sunburn there's so many trails to explore here however if you look closely there are little Trails right across the big ones these are the roadways made by ants their own personal freeways across the desert sand and those Sands also reveal tracks could these be from Javelinas? near the reservoir I spotted something in a tree it seemed to resemble a big bat but on closer inspection it wasn't a bat at all this was a colony of bees also Gathering was this flock of redwing blackbirds to those that are observant the park has many surprises one thing that's really impressive in this area are these exposed Cliffs by the water um it's not just rock these are actually fossils fossil sea shells you know it's like this is a uh a seashore from millions of years ago but there's so many it's incredible some rocks were crystallized and had a bright sheen well look at that looks like a fossilized spark plug must be from Fred Flintstone's car oh but he used his feet didn't he? so much for that joke after watching a bird admire the Sun dog it was time for me to head back to Camp well I'm just catching up on a few comments and emails I did uh release a video this morning so always have to check out make sure people are behaving but uh one more note then I really didn't want to forget this there's one thing you really really really have to be aware of if you camp in a place like this it's not the javelinas it's not the snakes the thing that'll really get you is the cell phone because this is right on the border that's Mexico over there never ever let your cell phone pick the signal do it manually make sure you've got something like AT&T or T-Mobile whatever you normally use cuz if you don't it's going to pick up the signal from Mexico and uh I got I got flagged uh for just after a few minutes that I had a $300 bill because uh I wasn't paying attention and yeah it drifted across the border um I'm okay I talked to my provider they said you know they'll take care of it but um the people at the front there uh they told me somebody had an $8,000 bill that they weren't aware of it so be careful there's nothing that will destroy your trip more than a huge bill so uh don't trust this little guy well the sun's just gone down it's quiet it's a beautiful night and uh I think I'll be leaving in the morning so it's time for me to give my review of this particular Campground I am in Falcon State Park in Texas it's kind of halfway between Brownsville on the coast and Laredo right on the Mexican border um and it's a beautiful area um it's semi arid uh lots of uh brush there is a reservoir over there like a place you can get a boat or a kayak in very peaceful there's tons of trails around here and they're all very easy to walk lots of wildlife uh if you like birds it's a really good place the road runners if you're a Road Runner fan this is definitely the perfect place to see road runners and of course if there's road runners there's got to be coyotes and there are you can hear them at nigh t uh it's it's very I feel very safe here it's very well laid out it's clean I mean the spaces are fantastic I mean look at this I've got this shelter if it should rain and it didn't I can still you know sit out here and uh get that fresh air and I think there's something for everybody if you got a big RV and you need the hookups well there's a section for that if you want cabins with air conditioning well they have that as well or if you're a cheap guy like me you know you get a place like this you know there's no hookups but there is a washroom over there that has hot showers again really really clean I think they've done a really good job on this place as far as price goes I paid you ready for this ? $10 a night for this $10 a night there's no taxes you give them $10 and you're good to go there is a fee for getting into the state park it's $3 a day so it's actually $13 but if you have a Texas State pass you don't have to pay that value-wise it can't be beat this is really good value a nd uh you know it's not overrun it's quiet I mean it's January but for somebody from Canada where I know it's really really cold up there it's t-shirt weather in January weather was great I really enjoyed it I love the walks I like the fossils um what can I say I love this spot um Falcon state park to me is a two thumbs up you know two two thumbs up and two fingers up it's like yeah great place check it out it's easy to find by the way I had one more Sunset to admire before retiring for the night in the morning a rabbit wished me well and the Osprey hurried off with his breakfast breakfast well I really enjoyed my stay at Falcon State Park but it's time to move on so I hope you enjoyed this video check out my others as well and I hope you'll follow me on the rest of my travels and just as I was exiting the park I finally saw a javelina and it was in a campground called "Javelina Run"! they train them well here
2024-02-11 07:11
