More from Texas

So there we were in January of 2017 back in Texas. We found a pretty interesting National Monument in of all places, Waco, TX. No, not the Branch Davidian compound, but rather the Waco Mammoth National Monument.  The monument is managed jointly by the National Park Service, the city of Waco, and Baylor University. The monument is the only paleonotological site in the nation that has a nursery herd of Columbian mammoths. Two men discovered an unusual bone in 1978 that they took to Baylor University's Strecker Museum. The staff identified it as a Columbian mammoth femur. A team was organized and worked for 20 years that uncovered a nursery herd of Columbian mammoths that appear to have drowned together in a single event 65,000 to 72,000 years ago. Surprisingly, this very dry area was a swampy, highly vegetated area. The monument is a covered building with a high walkway that gives excellent viewing of the fossils. 

Next we headed to east Texas and the woodlands. We decided to stay at Triple Creek Music RV Park as they advertised music. Arriving at the entrance of the park, we noted that it was a pretty much one lane dirt road. We turned left and started driving down what turned out to be a 3 mile ride. Joanne said that she hoped the park was actually at the end of the road as there was no way to turn around. Low and behold, there it was. We knew where we were by the confederate flags and trump signs. The park itself was interesting with some very cool wooden sculptures that were done by a resident.

The music, kind of a local blue grass jam session, was interesting, but the park was a bit much for people with a "resist" sticker on the back of their RV. We stayed two nights and left.

The reason we went there was to see Big Thicket National Preserve. The preserve protects 15 different remnant areas of what was once 112,000 acres. The preserve has longleaf pine uplands, slope forest, arid sandylands, wetland pine savannah, palmetto hardwood flats, cypress slough, bottomland floorplain, baygall and estuarine wetlands. Animals and plant life abound but it appears to be a lot of swampland.  But to be fair, we were not there in the season of wild flowers.

Birds and bugs were everywhere.

Next stops, Louisiana and Mississippi.

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