Day 848: Amistad NRA, Day 3

The kids again went out do do some fishing this morning, with M doing some photography:

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Frost on the weeds:

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The kids crossed over to the other side of the inlet:

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The RV from the other side:

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We were visited by some serious fisherman who didn’t seem to be doing any better than we are:

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Trish did some face painting on B:

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Trish walked down to where the lake submerges the road:

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Another great day at Amistad National Recreation Area!

Day 847: Amistad NRA, Day 2

M and B got up early this morning to do some fishing, and M did some photography as well:

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It was a beautiful sunny day:

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I went for a bike ride on the worst pavement I’ve ever ridden, and along the way passed through a Border Patrol interior checkpoint.  The officer told me I was his first bike of the day, not surprising for this lonely highway from Del Rio to Comstock:

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Looking towards the lake where the dirt road to our dispersed campsite turns off.  The sign on the pavement reminds boaters to rinse off their boat to prevent the spread of Zebra Mussels:

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M’s sunset photograph:

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More fruitless fishing:

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Trish did more crocheting:

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When we were at our house the last time, I found a set of four solar path lights that my parents had bought.  They were too old to return, so we brought them along and used them tonight for the first time:

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We’re so happy to be back in the West, land of dispersed camping!

Day 846: Amistad NRA

Today we left the Walmart of Del Rio and drove to the visitor center for Amistad National Recreation Area.  Amistad Reservoir has nothing to do with the ship Amistad, rather the reservoir was named Amistad, which means “friendship” in Spanish.  The Amistad Dam backs up the Rio Grande river for over 80 miles, making Amistad Reservoir the 3rd largest man-made lake spanning an international border in the world.  There’s a string of buoys in the reservoir indicating the border between the US and Mexico, which follows the pre-reservoir path of the Rio Grande:

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The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges and patches:

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Leaving the visitor center, we used the dump station and filled up our fresh water.  It’s quite the milestone when we break open another box of sewer dumping gloves, in this case switching from latex to nitrile:

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We had originally thought to continue on to Big Bend, but we found out there’s dispersed camping here so we decided to check it out.  We were not disappointed:

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This is the first time for almost six months that we’ve had this kind of solitude in a dispersed camping location:

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M set out to try to catch dinner:

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I drove back out to the main road and followed it until it runs into the lake.  The lake level can fluctuate by 30 feet or more, so this road always ends in a different spot:

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We like it here so much that we decided to hang out here for a few days.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.