GUADALUPE RIVER STATE PARK, TEXAS

My teenager and I managed to squeeze in a night at Guadalupe River State Park, as we roved between college visits in Austin and San Antonio Texas.

Our next-morning destination was actually the University of Texas at San Antonio which is near the northwest corner of Loop 1604, but with Six Flags in the same vicinity, I couldn't identify a decent local RV park, so north to the state park we went.  

The good news was that we could actually land a reservation because it was January and temperatures were near freezing.  This is probably one of the most popular destinations in the Texas state park system, and they have a standing sign at the entrance stating that all campsites are pre-reserved.  The not-too-bad news is that the park was not at its most photogenic because it was January and temperatures were near freezing, but here are a few shots of its dormant beauty.

The river is lined with bald cypress, some off them appearing to be hundreds of years old. 

Like this. 

Seriously, one could sit down and have a picnic on the flared part of the trunk. 

The main family recreation area was on the depositional side of this river meander, where the gravel beach was wide.  Screengrabbed inset from the official park map (PDF link).  

This is a view of that area looking northwest.  The signs of recent flooding (Memorial Day 2015) were everywhere.  Note the tangled mass high in the tree to the left of photo center.  The river rose to 42 feet downstream at Gonzales (YouTube vid).  I'm not sure how high it got in this park, but the general debris field suggested that it rose tens of feet.  

Beauty shot.  

I experimented with a few creative sunset photos, as I now Instagram as @Interstate.blog.

Variation on the nature reflection theme of land meeting the water.  Except its not land and water - it's upper and lower portions of the Interstate's rear window.  

If you look carefully to the left of the TV, you can see the ghost of childhood past.  On her iPhone, of course.  

This was our second Texas state park camp-out this year, and it's only mid-January, so I finally took the plunge on this purchase:

Now I'm cooking with gas, figuratively as well as literally.  This is like a kind of debit card with an infinite balance for one particular kind of expenditure.  

And speaking of gas, I have one closing observation for the Class B RV set.

These vehicles were not really designed to be used in freezing temperatures.  They lack the insulation, the R-value associated with larger RVs and trailers.  I have found that one of the keys to comfort is to sleep head-forward, because sleeping head-back puts the head next to the un-insulated rear doors which are quite cold and drafty, even with the furnace cranking away (which it most certainly will do at 32 F - even if set to a very low temperature ours will be on at least 50% of the time in such conditions because the shell of the vehicle loses heat so quickly... 50% furnace run time yielded an interior temp of about 49 F).  Better the feet be back there by the doors because good sleeping bags keep feet warmer than heads.

Anyway, given that every such serviced campsite is a back-in site, if they are sloped at all, they tend to be sloped forward so that rain water drains toward the right of way rather than pooling at the picnic table and fire pit area which every individual site is provided with.  Therefore the nose is often going to be lower, and if the occupants' heads are facing forward, they are going to be sleeping downhill.  This would be bad, hence my use of the red stackers you see here to raise the vehicle back up to level.  In this case I'd used a 2-high assemblage, but I really should have gone 3-high.  It looks a bit goofy, but it does help with sleeping comfort.