The Texas Triangle 2.0

We are back home now from yet another trip, an 11-night affair that – as the blog post title suggests – essentially retraced our steps from a similar trip in the spring.

However, before I get into the details of this trip I want to present some final stats on my 119-night, nine-state, 9,500-mile summer trip. While most of my time was spent park rangering at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin and mountain climbing in California and Colorado, I also spent a fair amount of time driving. To cover those 9,500 miles the truck ran for 225 hours, roughly the equivalent of nine full days or 28 eight-hour days. I got nearly 16 miles per gallon which, considering that I was pulling the trailer much of the time, is pretty darn good. Still, it took a lot of gasoline; nearly 600 gallons.

OK, enough about the summer trip. Let’s move on now to our “accidental” second Texas Triangle trip of the year.

As we have for the last several years we had made plans earlier in the year to attend the Texas Book Festival in Austin in October. Then, sort of at the last minute as we were starting home from Colorado, we decided it would be a good idea to stop in for a day at the Texas State Fair. So, instead of bringing the trailer home from Colorado we parked it at state park near Dallas with the idea that we would go home for a week or so drive back to the trailer, take in the state fair and go to Austin for the book festival.

Everything seemed friendly at the start...

...but eventually turned ugly.

However, once we got home the Astros survived a late season swoon and got into the American League wild card playoff game where they beat the Yankees in New York. That meant they would be playing the Kansas City Royals at least one game in Houston. So we bought tickets to that game. When the Royals and Astros split their first two games in Kansas City that assured a second game in Houston and we bought tickets for that one too. We drove over to Houston on Oct. 11. On the way into town I parked my truck at Betsy’s uncle’s house and we drove the mini-cooper into the downtown and checked into the same “boutique” hotel where stayed for the season opener on April 6, Betsy’s birthday. From there we walked to the game, which turned out to be a loud, raucous affair won by the Astros.

 

The crowd was more subdued the next day when the tenacious, opportunistic Royals parlayed a bad-hop error into a game-winning rally. It also meant that we had the distinction of being at the Astros first regular season game and home opener; and their final home game of the season.

Afterward, Spence Siemens dropped by to join us for beers at a downtown watering hole and, ironically, he ended up going to the Royals world-series-clinching win against the Blue Jays a couple of weeks later in Kansas City.

The next day, Tuesday, we retrieved the truck and drove the two cars to Purtis Creek State Park where we had left the trailer. The park is about 60 miles southeast of the Fair Park in Dallas and it turned out to be a very easy, pleasant drive from there to the fairgrounds on Wednesday.

We had not been to the Texas State Fair in 30 some years, long before we had begun chipping away at our goal of attending every state fair. Or, to put it another way, before we had become self-appointed state fair aficionados.

While we had fairly good memories of that long-ago visit the 2015 version of the state fair greatly exceeded our expectations and we ended up ranking it a solid number two among the 11 fairs we have attended and ranked in recent years; right behind Minnesota and well ahead of Iowa.

The Texas fair grounds are fabulous and the beer selection is second to none. Minnesota gets the nod for #1 because the weather is cooler, the people are friendly and laid back…and we love the cheese curds and the amateur talent show. But make no mistake, Texas has a really, really nice state fair. Many of the buildings on the grounds were built in 1936 for the Texas centennial (of achieving independence from Mexico) and they were refurbished in 1986 for the sesquicentennial. And Big Tex was looking great, fully recovered from the fire that consumed him a few years ago.

Can art.

Umbrella art.

Art art.

Big Ferris Wheel.

Big D.

Yeah, UT!

After spending most of the day eating weird fried foods (chicken-fried meatloaf, pretty good; fried avocado, not so good) we stopped to burn our final coupons on some craft beers at a watering hole with big screen TVs that we had made note of on the way in. The Rangers were playing the Blue Jays and we figured we would catch the end of the game. But we got more than we bargained for. We got there at the start of “The Inning” and spent the next hour watching the Rangers squander a controversial break in the top half of The Inning with an implosion of errors in the bottom half.

A quirky play where the throw from the Blue Jays catcher back to the pitcher hit the batter and allowed the Rangers to score set off a near riot in Toronto. As fans pelted the field with food, beer and sundry objects a lady sitting next to us opined that Rangers fans would never behave that way. Betsy leaned over to me and said; “Sure they would. They’d probably be worse.”

Now, we have no reason not to like the Rangers. They are, after all, from Texas. But when a series of Rangers errors tied the game I leaned over to Betsy and said; “I hope Bautista jacks one.” And, I’d swear it was on the very next pitch, Jose Bautista hit a monster homer that, essentially, brought an end to the Rangers season; and our enjoyable day at the Texas State Fair.

On Thursday we moved our caravan to a state park near Austin and, on Friday, dropped Betsy’s car off at the Mini dealer for service. It was one year ago, while in Austin for the book festival, that Betsy bought the new car.

There must be something in the water in Austin that makes us want to buy stuff but, sort of on a whim and sort of with a plan, we stopped at an RV dealer on I-35 in Georgetown and bought a new travel trailer!

The slogan "Keep Austin Weird" makes it sound like a choice?

Saturday and Sunday we attended the book festival, which was awesome even though it is proving to be quite expensive (I wonder what we are going to buy next year?). On Monday I drove home to pick up the title to the trailer and a cashier’s check from the bank and on Tuesday we took possession of the new trailer, transferred our belongings and returned with it to the same campsite at McKinney Falls State Park.

I stayed another night, hauled it back to Georgetown to get a leaking pipe fixed, and then took the trailer to its storage home in Boerne.

We had a great experience with the 28-foot, used trailer that we bought in 2011, but we had come to the conclusion that it would be nice to have a bit more room.

A bit longer.

And much wider.

The new trailer is two feet longer but also has two large slide outs, one on each side (the other trailer had one small slide out). When the slide outs are extended the new trailer has substantially more room. Also, the ceiling is higher and I can stand up without hitting my head. We hope this second trailer will serve us as well as the first, with a tad more room and comfort.

Today is the 297^th night of the year and I have spent 166 of those nights (Betsy a few less) away from home. We kind of sort of got settled in to the new trailer but, in all likelihood, we will take another short trip somewhere in Texas in November to get better settled.

So, with that caveat, here’s where I have spent my nights away from home this year, so far.

State	Nights	Trips
Colorado	51	4
California	38	2
Texas	29	7
Wisconsin	25	1
Utah	10	3
Missouri	3	1
Arizona	2	1
Nevada	2	2
South Dakota	2	2
Oklahoma	1	1
New Mexico	1	1
Wyoming	1	1
Minnesota	1	1

Finally, and fortunately, with the Mets and Royals in the World Series there are no concerns with divided loyalties. Go Royals!