Lake Whitney State Park, Whitney, TX
Well my prayers were answered and we did indeed have a cool breezy evening. Great for sleeping until about 1:15 am when we were awoken from a dead sleep with BLARING "Norteno" music. Now don't get me wrong, I can groove to some polka swinging Northern Mexican music, but not after midnight and when it's forced on me!
Some yahoos pulled into the entrance of the campground (we were campsite #1) and blasted this song not once, not twice, but four times before the campground host finally came out with a flashlight to see what all the ruckus was about. (I think everyone else was just scared to death and kept a low profile). Before our roving mariachis left, they backed-up, screeched their wheels, gave out a big yelp and took off. It took the sheriff 30 minutes to respond. Needless to say we didn't get a lot of sleep after that. It was pretty amusing this morning talking with the campground host (turns out she's a retired Texas police officer) and the retiree in the bus-size RV across from us. He said he wasn't afraid cause he always carries a .38 in the camper. Ah yeah, almost forgot we are in Texas.
Now back to the beauty and wonderment of Balmorhea State Park. It's a natural artesian spring, in the middle of the desert, from which 1.5 million gallons of water flows an hour. In 1936 the WPA built a "swimming pool" around this. (I've attached an aerial shot of the swimming pool being built in 1936 to give you a perspective of the size). It's the world's largest outdoor swimming pool and holds 3.5 million gallons of water. It takes the spring only 4 hours to fill the pool. Dang! The deepest point is 25 feet. There are low dives, high dives, turtles, catfish and lots of little guppies that like to nibble on your legs. Half the area is all natural (scuba divers come here) and the other half is like a regular swimming pool. It's incredibly refreshing because the temperature stays between 72 and 76 degrees, the water is crystal clear and obviously there's no chlorine etc. We swam until hunger took over. We had bought a couple of Texas size steaks for grilling earlier that day and they sure tasted mighty fine! After dinner we were still so hot that another hour or so swim was in order. We swam until the sun went down.
Today we cut through the heart of Texas on route 67. We expected more of the dry arid flat lands and were pleasantly surprised with the green rolling hills, big long mesas and beautiful wildflowers as we traveled farther into the prairie and lake country. After a very long drive (maybe 8 hrs?) we finally reached Lake Whitney State Park and were rewarded with a great campsite perched over the lake. It's really windy, but it keeps the flies away and the temperature down. We keep toying with the idea of going for a swim, but Ned put up the hammock and my get-up-and-go just got up and went.
