LONE STAR HIKING TRAIL AT DOUBLE LAKE, TEXAS

Local travel in May starts to become iffy around greater Houston, both because of the heat and because red bug (chigger) infestations are on the rise.  Red bugs make mosquitoes look like the plague of outdoor amateurs.  And northerners.  Whenever I see a #vanlife person eschew indoor van plumbing or showers, I immediately know that they are not from the south, and don't travel in the south in warmer weather and thus know little about parasite control (showering immediately after hiking is one of the best ways to control the mites).  One good red bug infestation would change their minds overnight, oh hell yes.

Despite this plague, we had a cold front come through and we took full advantage of it with about 43 hours in the Coldspring, Texas area, leaving Friday afternoon around 3 p.m., arriving in time to take advantage of the evening, and returning home Sunday morning around 9 a.m. before all hell broke loose traffic-wise on Houston's freeways.  Here are a few photos.

Here's the fun part of boondocking:  I picked our destination basically by closing my eyes and pointing my finger at a map.  That location ended up being a hunter camp in the Sam Houston National Forest. 

I picked our destination by closing my eyes and pointing my finger at a map.  That's pretty cool when you think about it.

It can't easily be done unless your rig is equipped to boondock.  More than two years of sporadic free time we've now devoted to working on ours for this purpose.  

Hunter camps are great resources but in our area it's important to remember that, during the off-season when no hunts are in progress, they tend to attract horse people.  And horse people run generators.  Such was the case with our first night, although we had enough separation that it really wasn't noisy enough to cause a major disturbance.

I did a 3-mile hike that first evening on a second hunting camp road that was chained off to vehicles.

The cold front had left some interesting blow-downs.  Vegetation looking like it had just been deposited five minutes previously.

Neither my husband nor I had ever seen this flower before, and we have about 70 years cumulatively in greater Houston.  

It looked like a variant on the black-eyed Susan, which are everywhere in our area.

And always photogenic.

Post-hike pondering of all those noises and smells out there. 

We had a wonderfully cool overnight, with temps falling into the 50s.

Our dog had to wear her "horse blanket" in these two crisp mornings.  It's actually an IKEA Toftbo bath mat, somewhat non-skid on the back, so friction holds it in place.  We shave our dog routinely, otherwise her entire body would be as long as her tail.  This is a necessity in subtropical Houston with its temps that reach over 100 degrees, but it's a bit of an inconvenience on cold spring mornings in Coldspring Texas.  

After our overnight at the hunter's camp, we moved on to the Big Creek Scenic Area.

Forest Service roads... I had great fun messing with our new Garmin 770 LMT GPS unit during this trip.  I absolutely, emphatically do not recommend running this device in RV mode, and this Air Forums thread explains exactly why with examples that I developed based on my testing.  But it seems to work coherently in car mode.  I will need it later this summer for my intended plan to drive across the continent solo, without the benefit of a human navigator. 

While off-leash, the dog is trained to remain behind the human, to minimize the chances of viper encounter.  In my blog post about Lake Houston Park, I showed a pic of a water moccasin that we encountered.  In this area, copperheads were a larger danger.  

The greater Houston area consists of flat coastal plain and piney woods remnants, for the most part.  Floral diversity tends to be limited and subtle in woods such as these.

Blue-green and yellow-green forest floor assemblages in one place... I've never seen this before. 

We chose Big Creek for this reason, because of the topography (rare for this area) and diversity.

This section of the Lone Star Hiking Trail was in excellent condition due to its exclusive use as a hiking trail.  As much as I want to see outdoor activities expanding in quintessentially car-crazy Houston, I often end up defaulting to the cliche' "Houston we have a problem" whenever I encounter a trail that has been destroyed by off-road cyclists.  

More flowers I don't usually see.

After the Big Creek hike, we moved on to Double Lake.  We got there before noon and the hosts advised us that there were a few hook-up campsites remaining.

You might be tempted to look at this and exclaim, "Whadda deal!" because hook-up sites appear to cost less than primitive sites. But that price means 'on top of'.  Generally I'm very pleased that the prices have risen this way ($37 total for our overnight, including day use fee).  Twelve years ago when I stayed here, the modern-day construct of workampers (camp hosts) had not yet been invented.  Those people need to be there to maintain order and to protect the facilities, and they need to get paid. 

We don't need hook-ups, but we decided to stay a second overnight and it was a convenient location, so we purchased one of the remaining hook-up locations.  Actually there were multiple open, non-reserved locations.  This park engages an internet reservation service, but like every other one I've seen in Texas, it's woefully inaccurate.  It shows far less availability than is actually present.  Campgrounds like this lose substantial revenue for lack of reservation technology investments.

During the hottest part of the day, I strung up one of my hammocks at our campsite and gazed at the sky.  My husband and I are both fairly driven people and it's rare to have a day of "down time" like this. 

My husband had never been to Double Lake.  It's a great car-camping location, so I had been there 12 years previously when my daughter was small and we were still doing multi-family group camping with her friends.

The doubleness for which Double Lake is well-known.  All lakes produce reflections, but this one amplifies the process due to its size and orientation relative to the sun.  

This wasn't even a very good day for the reflections.  Depending on weather conditions and canoeing intensity, they can get much more vivid than this. 

My husband taking stealth photos of the dog and I, except his phone camera lens is always dirty, giving that classic cell phone milky appearance.  

We hiked another 3 miles down the Lone Star Trail, but not before having a picnic.

And one of us had a nap.  Is that the face of pure bliss, or what?  But if you sit on the ground like this, there might be chiggers.  And yes there were, on this day. 

Two of the items without which one should never travel in a camper van are duct tape and gallon-sized zip lock bags.  Here's an example why.

My Osprey in-pack water bladder burst a leak at one of its sonic or thermal welds.  You can't see it because it's covered with duct tape, but IMO it was clearly the result of exceptionally poor product design (the REI site says "no longer available" and it gets plenty of one-star reviews - no surprise).  My husband responded to this event by ordering me a military-grade bladder as a replacement.  I'm sure glad this failure didn't occur later this year when I plan to be boondocking and long-distance hiking in Middle Of Nowhere, Canada.  

I was a bit bummed coming back from this trip, as it might be our last prior to my departure for Canada later this year (my husband will join me some time later by flying up and we'll drive back together).  Between our schedules and the impending hot weather, our seasonal camping door is closing here in greater Houston.

I don't know if there's any scientific validity to claims about "forest bathing", but a WSJ (I think that was the source) article appeared on the same day as this trip, so here's an excerpt.  I'd link it but now that I'm on my desktop instead of my phone, I can't seem to find it.

CUSTOM REAR DOOR SCREEN FOR THE AIRSTREAM INTERSTATE

I'll warn you in advance that this can be a tedious and frustrating project.  But with commercially-available Airstream Interstate-compatible screens routinely selling for $350 to $500 (rear doors, Sprinter aftermarket) to $3,000 (Airstream OEM option for the sliding door, per owners who have reported getting cost estimates), you can get through it by reminding yourself of all the money you are saving because you suffered through the aggravation of fighting neodymium magnets in a sewing context.  Because in contrast to the pricey versions, my rear screen version costs about $20, and when I eventually get to the point of making a side screen, it won't be much more than that.

The Mercedes Sprinter van body is curved in three dimensions.  It's not just a flat panel with side-to-side curves.  There is also front-to-back curvature.  For this reason, it's almost bloody impossible to properly fit a screen to it through a process of conventional measuring.  The only sane way I found to tackle this project was to repeatedly fit it step by step.  Here's a general description of my process.

I began by taking a piece of no-see-um netting, available on Amazon for about seven bucks, and physically fitting it to the curb-side door opening, with neodymium dot magnets.  If you look closely at this pic, you can see white pin heads on three sides.  Those are the intended magnet positions that resulted from this initial fitting exercise. 

I should clarify that, for this version 2.0 of my screen, I decided to make a screen for just the one door.  My original plan (and my v. 1.0 prototype) was a full-width screen spanning both doors, but we subsequently added a custom hitch carrier that usually carries a Yeti cooler, blocking the street-side door from opening.  Furthermore, the Yeti side of the van is where my husband sleeps, and he doesn't like sleeping with his door open, whereas I do.  For these reasons, I re-designed this v. 2.0 screen to just cover my side, my door.  This makes for a more manageable crafting project, and it also makes for easier administration of the resulting screen.  For instance, if it starts to rain in the middle of the night, it's much easier to wrangle one door rather than two, in order to shut it quickly, especially when the hitch carrier is in place such that I have the rear step to use for this process.

Onward.

Once I cut the no-see-um shape based on that initial magnet fitting to the door frame, I began cutting side trim pieces out of a common black polyester liner fabric that is available in any fabric store.  During my earlier v. 1.0 screen trials, I found side strips to be essential in discouraging insects.  They tend to follow the light, plus their sense of mammalian exhaled carbon dioxide if they are biting insects.  They will walk all the way to the edge of any given barrier in an attempt to get around it.  If there's no border, they'll walk to the edge of the screen and circumvent it by squeezing underneath.  But if there's a border such as what is shown as being added above, they'll stop there.

I wanted about a 3 inch border, so for the top and center which are straight runs, I cut 8 inch strips, hemmed them on each raw edge, and basically sandwiched (more like taco'd) the no-see-um netting in them.  In other words I folded them into a hemmed V-shape and inserted the edge of the cut no-see-um netting into the fold.

Notice that I transposed onto the resulting fitted trim pieces all the original white pins which mark the magnet locations.  This is essential to sustain the integrity of the fit through this trimming process.  

The heavily-curved side piece took a bit more work to cut properly.

I laid the cut no-see-um netting on the polyester fabric and used it as a template for the first curved cut.

But then, of course, I had to basically trim off the remaining straight edge to create a curved strip of uniform width.  

Then I repeated the process of folding this curved strip in half, hemming each raw edge, and fitting it to the rest of the workpiece.  (Seam ironing at each stage is essential in this process, of course.  If you are a seamstress or seamster, you already know that).

Like this.

Notice how the bottom is still raw.  The final step, once this top section is fully fitted, magnet-ed, and sewn, is to add a solid piece on the bottom to take it all the way down to floor level.  Because we have jack-knife couches, I chose not to run the no-see-um all the way to the floor.  Having a solid fabric across the bottom discourages our dog from getting too engaged with whatever she sees outside beyond this screen.  She's well-behaved but I wanted to restrict her vision in this area so that she would be less inspired to try to push through it.  

Then there's the arduous and curse-producing process of hand-sewing in each magnet.

I used a combination of larger plastic-coated neodymiums that were left over from a previous project, and smaller dot magnets.  The larger ones I placed in areas where there was an abundant width of metal door frame exposed.  Smaller ones were used in tighter areas. 

It's very important to hand-baste in the magnets before the side seams are sewn up.  You have to be able to reach under the pinned trim to do this in the proper order.  Order of operations, in other words.

And then it becomes a real pain in the ass to complete the trim sewing, because the neodymiums will stick to everything - your sewing machine plate and foot, each other, your scissors, your pins, etc.  It takes more patience than any human should be forced to summon.  

For the smaller dot magnets, I took a different approach.  I inserted each intended magnet into the places on the trim pocket where they were supposed to go, but then (this is important) I held them in place by adding a temporary magnet on the OUTside of the fabric.  This basically held them captive in the correct locations and allowed me to hand-baste them securely into place without them sliding around, or flying across the room in response to some attractive piece of nearby metal, as neodymiums tend to do.  

If you choose to try this project, understand that it is best done as an iterative process.  You might not get it exactly right on the first try, but you can always carefully re-open your seams and make adjustments as needed.

For instance, working around the lower door hinge was a pain.  I had to get everything sewn and every other magnet in place before I could determine conclusively where this supplemental magnet, represented by the white pin head, needed to be placed.  That two-pronged door keeper you see folds inward when the door shuts (Edit: There also has to be room to be able to reach in and detach this keeper, if the door is to be folded back to the Sprinter body).  I couldn't have it potentially snagging the screen and yanking it off the door frame, because I was designing this screen to stay in place regardless of whether the door is open or shut.  So I'll carefully open up this section of side seam, slide in and anchor another dot magnet at the pin head location, and close it back up again. 

One thing to keep in mind is that it's important to exploit every anchoring opportunity, because in some places, they are limited by the door mechanics and trim.

For instance on the bottom threshold, our 2006 Sprinter reveals this exposed, recessed bolt.  Sure enough, I positioned a neodymium dot to attach to this bolt to help anchor the bottom edge. 

Here's an illustration of why I chose to use variable magnet sizes.  There's just a tiny piece of exposed metal inward of these door contact points.  Airstream's trim covers up most of that section of the Sprinter van body, and I did not want to remove that trim because its aesthetics are pleasing.  Therefore I didn't have room here to place a wider magnet of any kind and still be able to shut the door with the screen in place.  So there are tiny dot magnets just to the inside left of these contact points. 

Now for a couple of money shots.  If you are meticulous and a person skilled in the textile arts, you can spot a few errors I've made in this design.  But if you make your own screen using methods similar to what I've presented here, I'd suggest not sweating the small stuff.  The screen is black and its trim pieces are also black.  It becomes very difficult to see imperfections and personally, I have so many Interstate projects that I intend to complete that I did not want to devote an excessive amount of time to making this project "perfect".  It's a door screen, not an evening gown.

View from the outside in.  See what I mean?  It doesn't exactly jump out and slap you in the face visually.  Nor is it supposed to.

You can see in the photo above the solid piece I attached to the bottom of the no-see-um section.  I took this pic before I had totally completed the clean-up work on the piece, so I hadn't even ironed that section yet.  You can see the original bolt fold near the no-see-um screen. 

And here's the more important view, which is from the inside out.

Not a perfect execution, but presentable.  

And how does it work in practice?

This week, I tested it after dark in a Gulf of Mexico coastal salt marsh, which of course is mosquito heaven.  It does function as designed.  I had no bug penetration to speak of (the far larger problem remains bugs that follow me into the Interstate when I'm entering the vehicle or when I let the dog out to pee).  

 For more discussion on Airstream Interstate screens in general (pros and cons of various approaches), see this Air Forums thread.

SEA RIM STATE PARK AND FOUR NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGES

Yet another of my whirlwind tours, this time of the upper Texas coast rather than south Texas, and here are some pics and anecdotal comments.

(1) TRINITY RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

With 30 million people in Texas but only 1.8% of Texas land being federally-owned (PDF link), you can bet that, at times, things get a little strange around here.  Every federal installation has serious access pressures and some discretion to enforce its own rules, balancing the wildlife preservation mandate against public interest and pent-up demands of too many people who have too few public spaces available to them.  For that reason, policies are variable and access is unpredictable at best, if it exists at all.

The weirdness starts with Googlemaps, which doesn't even name or label portions of this particular refuge (shown anonymously in green above).  The NWR's web pages are no help, because they simply direct the public to "contact the refuge".  But then of course if you try to "contact the refuge", you'll be hard-pressed to locate anyone.  And then if by some miracle you do locate someone, the answer is often "no".  

We drove up to Trinity NWR to see what we could find, and the answer was a big fat nothing.  That trace on the Googlemap called Camp Road wasn't even a public right of way.  There were signs warning of imminent death if one chose to trespass on private property.  Which had every appearance of being federal land, but let me not go off on that tangent.

So, we decided to leave that one for future sleuthing, and we moved onward to our local coastal jewel, the sure-thing known as...

(2) ANAHUAC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.

I blogged about this place last year, and it is a gem.

Shoveler Pond. 

A portion of Shoveler Pond at sunset.  I see lots of mountain majesty on Instagram, but we don't have those kinds of massive natural features on the Gulf Coast.  We have to look for the beauty in little things, like sunset colors. 

I say "we" because this short journey started on a Sunday, and my husband and dog followed behind me.  He had to go to work Monday morning and so did I, but my assignment was in Beaumont Texas rather than near our home base in Houston.  Sometimes we do this.  We travel locally and take two vehicles, and then he leaves when it's time to sleep.  It's imperfect but it's the life of working people.  At least this way, I get to spend time both outdoors and with my loved ones. 

Lily pads in Anahuac.  Lotus, I think.  No mud, no lotus. 

Anahuac after dark.  Part of my purpose for this jaunt was to test my new rear door bug screen.  More on that in a separate blog post, but what better test for a rear door screen than a huge coastal marsh after dark?  Can you say mosquitoes?

Duckweed in said huge coastal marsh.  I forgot my DSLR so these are all iPhone photos.

Near the marsh overlook (boardwalk).

The boardwalk is all done up with stainless steel screws.  My husband speculates that they cost more than the lumber.  The significance of this will be shown by a contrasting photo below. 

(3) SEA RIM STATE PARK.

It was probably wonderful at one time, before it got obliterated by two major hurricanes (pretty much a direct hit by Rita on September 24, 2005 and then again in 2008 by Ike, the third most costly storm in U.S. history). But right now, it's a hot mess.  The visitor's center is a trailer that doesn't even have access to a septic (the park staff's wastewater drains into a honey pot), and there are no showers.  I don't think I've been in another state park that has no showers.

This is what happens when stainless steel screws are NOT used.  Most of the boards on Sea Rim's boardwalk have broken free and were sliding loosely between their side rails.  It's a beautiful boardwalk but the amount of deferred maintenance was staggering. 

I could tell right away that we were shaping up for a great sunset, though. 

And that would be it, as seen from the beach-side of this state park, rather than the marsh-side.  I have never seen a better Gulf of Mexico sunset. 

I had a paid reservation in the park's small campground - this state park does not allow any form of overflow (some do, some don't - again, it's all about access pressures).  However, once two Labrador retrievers began a bark-a-thon, I high-tailed it outa there, abandoning my paid spot and instead I went to park right on the beach, which was unusually wide and firm at this location, so it made for safe Airstream Interstate parking, all eight thousand pounds of her (that sentence is as long as the section of beach that I had all to myself).

Camper van on fire, at least figuratively.  

Every trip and every destination has pluses and minuses.  This was the plus for this one - I had a good square mile all to myself.

And the sunrise was even better than the sunset.  Here's the first peek above the horizon...

...and here's the Full Monty.

When I woke up, the beach was covered with freshly dead fish that had not been there the evening before.

They all appeared to be the same size and species. 

As soon as the seabirds discovered this windfall, there was a great pandemonium of activity as they gorged themselves.  But I could not get any decent phone pictures.  Birds in far-flung areas are not as tolerant of humans as those in urban areas.  They fly away before you even get remotely close.

Speaking of far-flung areas...

I finally got to test part of my new connectivity improvements.  And I was very pleased!  Those are actual "before" and "after" screengrabs of my iPhone's homepage.  Before I flipped the switch, and after I flipped the switch.  Thanks to Technomadia for that one!

(4) McFADDIN NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
(5) TEXAS POINT NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.

I did manage to speak to a human at their joint headquarters, and he was quite nice in explaining the management principles that apply to both refuges, and the reasons behind those decisions.  Which gave me some ideas for state and federal policy suggestions.  Which I will discuss in another blog post in the future.

Much of McFaddin looks pretty much like this.  These refuges are largely set-asides for migrating birds.  

Another shot of McFaddin, with bugs squashed on my windshield for special effect.  

Neither refuge had any real pedestrian access.  They are mostly geared toward hunters and fishermen.

Texas Point had a short woodland trail.  Plenty of these were blooming.  They appear as if they might be a coastal rose species (based on what I know of wild roses that grow in Nova Scotia), although they did not smell like roses.  

My main aspiration when I go to an unpopulated area is that I might find some biking or hiking access.  I want to get out and move around over long distances and get serious exercise without motorized vehicles, and that's a very, very tall order in Texas, which is more than 95% private property (PDF link).

To that end, I went to where Texas-87 was blocked off.  It used to be a well-appreciated coastal highway joining High Island and Sabine Pass, but it was abandoned after yet another historical hurricane damaged it beyond repair for much of its coastal length.

I know what the western terminus of Texas-87 looks like - it's under water as a series of dissociated asphalt chunks, literally.  I was hoping that this eastern remnant might hold some promise for biking.  Alas, it doesn't look good, does it?  Hiking, maybe.  But Nature has pretty much taken it back by this time.

Driving back to Houston from this area is trippy in its own way.

In order to get in and out of Sabine Pass, you have to literally drive through a couple of Port Arthur refineries. 

Anyway, another successful road test of our lithium battery system and now our connectivity improvements also.  And some ideas for future endeavors came out of this trip, which I will discuss later.