We’re pretty sure God has a sense of humor. At least he must be having a little chuckle over our little predicament. And rightly so…
We made it to the Dallas area and found a nice park to stay in called Collin Park on Lake Lavon. It’s a really beautiful spot and is situated right on the lake. Our campsite overlooks the lake and we are quite thrilled with waking up every morning to lake views, not to mention the copious amounts of bird life we get to see. So far we’ve seen pelicans, seagulls, herons, ducks, geese, swallows, woodpeckers, kingfishers, and many others. We even think we saw an osprey and were told there is one around!
Aerial picture of the Collin Park RV Park and Marina.
The entrance to our park is flooded keeping us here for a while!
But the thing that has made this trip memorable so far is that we arrived in between rain storms. The day after we got here was the last nice day for a bit as it commenced to rain for nearly a week. And *rain* it did! After the 3rd or 4th day raining the park staff started making noise about possibly closing the park due the entrance being flooded. A little history on that – before we even decided on this place for our first spot, Mike did some checking and happened across some Google Earth imagery that indicated the entrance to the park could flood causing people to be separated from their RVs. But we chose to stay anyway because we knew we would want to stay for a long period of time.
As you can see from the picture to the right, it did just that. The whole issue is that this lake is part of a group of lakes in the Dallas area that drain into the Trinity river. Well, with all the rain we were getting, the Trinity was flooding big time and that gave cause to hold the lakes back as much as possible till the river went back down. In this picture it is just about as high as it got. It could have gotten a lot higher and it may yet since it’s raining again as of this writing! The RV is on the campground side as you can see in the left picture, very much high-n-dry and very safe from danger. We have been parking on the other side of the water so Sarah can go to work. The only “downside” is that we’re required to get some exercise first thing in the morning!
A word about RV park etiquette. Take a look at that right-hand picture again. See those tire tracks? Well, while the rest of us were having to walk to our RVs, some numskull decided to drive his car around the flooded area through the grass. He got away with it several times until he got stuck and had to be towed out. The fact is, the park had already told everyone very much in advance to get their vehicles out, but he decided he didn’t need to and kept driving in and out this way. We kinda hope that the park gives him a bill for the lawn repair but seriously, when you’re in an RV park, it really doesn’t help the reputation of RVers when people do stupid stuff like this. Thankfully Sarah had an opportunity to speak with the homeowners who actually own the land and she told them we were not happy with the individual who did this. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, it wasn’t Mike! He’s not THAT crazy!
Caught a fish back in the flooded bushes on Lake Lavon
Bass that Sarah caught in some bushes.
Since those big rains, things have settled down and we have had some very beautiful weather. The lake is finally going back down (though with the rains today it may come back up) and we’ve gotten to do quite a bit of what we came for! FISHING! Yes, Mike has been able to set a goal of fishing at least 25 days out of the month and we’ve actually caught fish! Not much yet, but it’s better than nothing. Fishing in flooded water is particularly challenging since the bass often follow the edge of the water which is buried in the woods and not accessible. The trick to catching fish so far has been to find coves and clearing in the wooded areas and slip into them to cast where the fish are. It’s challenging but it has worked!
Mike also has been able to fly the drone several times and get some fantastic footage of the flooding (as you can see above). But also has gotten some amazing pictures of other areas of the park and lake. The fall colors are on and the trees are really beautiful here. It’s been such a treat since the trees here are brighter than we’re used to seeing in Central Texas. We are hoping to get a video update done with some of this drone footage as well! Check out these fantastic pictures taken early one morning:
Sunrise over Lavon Lake taken by drone.
Reflection of the Collin Park marina taken by drone.
Sarah driving the F350 through the low water crossing area before it became too deep to cross.
Mike fishing off of marina walkway at sunset on Lake Lavon.
As you can see, we have made the most of our experiences here so far and it looks like we’ll get a chance to see more as the rain keeps coming. But at least they are letting water out now so the lake should be back to more normal and fishable levels in about a week or so. We’re looking forward to that since fishing in the woods for bass is very unconventional and difficult. If you are in the Lake Lavon area and would like to get together, be sure to let us know! We would love to hang out and see some of the folks that have followed us on our journeys so far. We especially like to go fishing with people and already have some folks who will be joining us at some point in the next few weeks.
One question we hear often is “How long are you staying in the area?” and the simple answer to that is “we don’t know for sure but at least till spring”. Sarah wants to start doing travel nurse soon and for sure we want to be in Colorado or some point north as of next summer. How and if that happens is still yet to be determined. However, we do know that we should be in this area for at least a couple more months, maybe longer!
Isn’t that the way RV life is supposed to be?
Tight lines and curvy roads!
Mike & Sarah