State Livingston SP: Hiking the Pineywoods Nature Trail

While staying at Lake Livingston State Park, I spent a little time hiking the available trails there. As I mentioned in my entry Lake Livingston State Park, some of the trails were closed, so my options were limited. However, I was able to hike the Main Trail, the Oak Flat Trail, and the Pineywoods Nature Trail, and I will post my reviews of these hikes on my blog.

This entry regards the Pineywoods Nature Trail. Please refer to the available online map of the park to see the trail.

Of the 3 trails I hiked at this park, this was certainly the most interesting. The entire trail is a boardwalk which both begins and ends at a trailhead in the northern part of the park. Some sections of the boardwalk are showing their age, repairs will need to be made soon.

Since I entered this trail from the Main Trail, I had to decide which way to go. I decided to loop counter-clockwise. Once I hit the trailhead, I then returned to the trail in the same direction to see the duck pond.

Wild Plum Creek

The first real landmark I came to was the water treatment plant, which suddenly appears in a clearing. It is quite a contrast after having been in the thick woods for the entire hike. According to park literature, the water treatment plant is a green facility that uses the natural environment to clean water.

Water treatment plant. You may not be able to tell, but those dark spots towards the left on the water surface are actually ducks.

Next came the Frog Pond, which is located on a short spur of the boardwalk.

Frog Pond spur

The murky Frog Pond

Just beyond the Frog Pond, the boardwalk crosses the Equestrian Trail. From this point, it is a short walk to the trailhead. The trailhead sits on the east side of a large parking lot, and it has 3 informational plaques. The two walkways you see in the picture below converge just beyond the structure. The trail on the left is handicapped accessible, while the trail on the right contains steps.

Pineywoods Nature Trail Trailhead

After reaching the trailhead, I then continued on the trail so that I could see the Duck Pond. On my way, I once again crossed the Equestrian Trail. As I approached the Duck Pond, I first came upon a Butterfly Garden. 

Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden is located where the Boardwalk turns sharply south to connect to the Main Trail. Continue straight, and you will approach the Duck Pond. To the left is a bird blind.

Bird Blind

Just beyond the bird blind is the Duck Pond.

Duck Pond

After viewing the duck pond, I retraced my steps to the trailhead and continued my walk around the park.

State Livingston SP: Hiking the Main Trail

While staying at Lake Livingston State Park, I spent a little time hiking the available trails there. As I mentioned in my entry Lake Livingston State Park, some of the trails were closed, so my options were limited. However, I was able to hike the Main Trail, the Oak Flat Trail, and the Pineywoods Nature Trail, and I will post my reviews of these hikes on my blog.

This entry regards the Main Trail. Please refer to the available online map of the park to see the trail.

The Main Trail extends just over half a mile from the park headquarters and connects with the Pineywoods Nature Trail near the Duck Pond. It is a rather nondescript trail, but presently it is well maintained and in good shape.

Clear and wide trail through the woods

At the end of the trail, the boardwalk of the Pineywoods Trail appears.

End of the Main Trail

State Livingston SP: Hiking the Oak Flat Trail

While staying at Lake Livingston State Park, I spent a little time hiking the available trails there. As I mentioned in my entry Lake Livingston State Park, some of the trails were closed, so my options were limited. However, I was able to hike the Main Trail, the Oak Flat Trail, and the Pineywoods Nature Trail, and I will post my reviews of these hikes on my blog.

This entry regards the Oak Flat Trail. Please refer to the available online map of the park to see the trail.

The Oak Flat Trail is a short interpretive trail starting at the park headquarters building and ending near the start of the Main Trail.

Trailhead

The trail is a short hike of just under a third of a mile. Most of the trail is wide and clear, though there were a few overgrown areas.

Trail seems to disappear in the undergrowth

Two or three interpretive signs like the one below line the trail. They provide good information about the environment.

Signs along the trail such as this one provide interesting information about the environment.

There is a bird blind near the end of the trail.

Lake Livingston State Park

Lake Livingston State Park is located on the eastern shore of Lake Livingston, just southwest of the city of Livingston, Texas. The park consists of 635.5 acres dominated by loblolly pine and water oak, while Lake Livingston itself covers over 84,000 acres.

The park is really in a beautiful setting. In addition to a large fishing pier and at least 2 boat ramps, the park also has a park store, an amphitheater, riding stables, and a swimming pool.

Fishing pier; photo taken from observation tower next to park store

However, we will probably not return to this park.

First, some of the park, including 3 camping areas and portions of the trail system, are closed. I believe this is a result, in part, of Hurricane Ike, which was about 4 years ago. There are still numerous trees that were knocked down by the storm, and they are still working on removing them. In addition, I was told that the drought from last year killed a large number of trees, and they are trying to remove them at this time. Piney Shores, Red Oak, and Pin Oak Loop campgrounds were all closed during our stay. These 3 campgrounds account for about 100 campsites.

Downed trees along main park road

One of my main interests is hiking, so I was disappointed I was unable to hike all the trails of this park. Southern portions of the Livingston Trail are closed. On the day we arrived, the trailhead parking lot for the Pineywoods Nature Trail was taped off. However, a few days later, it was open.

The design of the campgrounds leaves much to be desired. It's obvious to me that whoever designed the campsites in this park knew little about RVs. On most RVs --though certainly not all -- utilities are usually located in the same general area. That is, water, sewer, and electric are located in general proximity to one another.

Location of utilities on my trailer: city water on left, sewer at bottom center, and electric on right.

At our campsite, the sewer connection was at the very end of the site, behind the far end of our trailer. The water, however, was in front of the trailer. The electrical was somewhere in between. Luckily, I've learned to have extra equipment on hand for such situations.

Utility connections: water at far left (post next to tree), electric pole in center, and sewer at far right.

Another design flaw is that the campsite driveways are almost at 90 degree angles to the roadway. This makes backing in with large rigs very challenging. Most parks have a gentler angle, perhaps a 135 or so degree angle, but Lake Livingston probably has an angle of about 100 to 110 degrees. And since the campsites come off a narrow one lane road, while an RV is attempting to back in, traffic can back up, as we witnessed on several occasions. I'm pretty good at backing a trailer, but it took me 2 or 3 tries before I was able to fit the trailer comfortably in the site.

And adding to this parking problem is a rather deep ditch running along both sides of the road. If you should miss your driveway, there is a bit of a drop off. There is little room for error, especially with all of the trees that line the site. And the campsites are so short in length that there is not enough room in some sites to park the tow vehicle. We saw several sticking out into the road.

Example of the ditch that runs along park road, and example of illegal parking that is tolerated at Lake Livingston SP

And my final gripe is that we saw no camp hosts at all. Most state parks -- in fact, all that we have visited in the past several years -- have hosts who live in the campgrounds. Hosts perform a number of duties, and their absence in this park was noticeable to us.

The park was pretty full over the weekend, and we enjoyed sitting out and watching kids be kids, riding their bicycles on the park roads and playing together. As the weekend drew to a close, most visitors drifted back to their regular lives, and the park emptied out. This was the time we enjoyed the most, for we then were able to really enjoy the natural qualities of the park.

Donna enjoying our camp; fire helps keep mosquitoes away

Random Travel Thoughts

We arrived at Lake Livingston State Park yesterday. I was surprised to find a WiFi connection here. There is a page on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website that lists parks with connectivity, and Lake Livingston SP is not listed. However, as the information on that page indicates, TPWD is in the process of adding WiFi to parks; obviously, Lake Livingston SP is one that has recently been added.

I'll review the park and provide pictures later. For now, I'll simply update our journey so far.

After leaving Omega Farms yesterday, we stopped briefly at Strouhal Tire Center just south of Willis on old Highway 75. Our trailer was due for inspection. The folks at Strouhal were quick and efficient, and we were only there for less than 30 minutes. The inspection cost a mere $14.50. Now we're legal for another year.

When we first checked into Omega Farms, I asked the attendant there if he knew of a place I could get the trailer inspected. The fact that RVs need to have an annual inspection sticker was news to him. He lived in a motor home in the park, and said he had never had his rig inspected.

I've had trouble finding inspection stations since owning the trailer. Last year, I called around San Angelo until we found a place. This year, after several frustrating calls -- few people seem to know where to get RVs inspected, and you can't get them inspected at just any inspection station -- I finally smartened up a bit and decided to consult the Texas Department of Public Safety, who has authority regarding vehicle inspections. So, here's a handy tidbit of information for any of you who can use it. There is a website where you can locate all types of inspection stations. Go to the Inspection Station Locator on the DPS website, and you can quickly find an inspection station near you. After performing a search, be sure to use the key at the top of the entry to determine which stations offer the type of inspection you need. In my case, I was looking for stations that offer a trailer certificate ("TL").

After the inspection, we took Highway 75 north through Willis and then to New Waverly. From there, we headed east on a series of state highways and FM roads to State Livingston SP. It really was a pretty drive, and Coldspring was an especially attractive little community, with numerous interesting shops located around the town square.

After setting up the trailer, we had some lunch and relaxed a while. Last night, we met Donna's half-sister and her family for supper and had a nice visit with them. They have a house on Lake Livingston, and we will visit them again while here.

Although we closed on our house July 23 and began our travels then, we have set July 27 as the official start of our travels because that is when we picked up our trailer from storage. Beginning with Omega Farms in Willis, I plan to keep a tally of travel data. I'll probably change the format as this progresses, but I thought it might be interesting to see our mileage, our costs, and other relevant information.

Mileage: 45 miles (Willis to Lake Livingston SP)
Lodging fees: $175 for 7 nights at Omega Farms; $99 for 6 nights at Lake Livingston SP
Gas cost: $15.07 @ $3.29 per gallon

Actually, I've kept a travel log since we purchased our trailer in late March 2010. Up to now, we've traveled a total of 5510 miles. Our total gas cost while pulling the trailer has been $2065. Our total lodging cost has been $2528. We have spent a total of 112 nights in our trailer. This calculates to a daily cost of roughly $41.

Now, that is an attractive figure, considering hotel rooms alone run much more than that. But remember there is a total cost of ownership when thinking about owning an RV. That total cost includes the purchase price of the trailer, insurance, maintenance, and other costs. If I were to include all of those figures, then my daily rate would be much higher.

But back to travel. I'll develop a format for tracking our travel data, and I'll probably put that information on the RV section of my website at some point.

I'll make the rounds in the park here over the next few days, take some pictures, and post a review of the park. 

Leaving Omega Farms

We've been at Omega Farms RV Park for almost a week now, having arrived last Friday. Today (Friday, August 3), we  head to Lake Livingston State Park, near Livingston, Texas, where we will spend a week. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department website does not list WiFi as being available at the park, so it may be a week or more before my next post. After a week at Lake Livingston, we head to Dinosaur Valley State Park just outside Glen Rose, Texas, for a few days. As soon as I am able to connect, I'll review both of those parks. After Glen Rose, we return to San Angelo for a few days for medical appointments and other business. I'll certainly have connectivity there.

We've had a good time at Omega Farms. Our time here has allowed us to do quite a bit. We have been able to visit Donna's mother everyday; that alone has made the time here worthwhile. We also visited an aunt and uncle of hers yesterday. We have also taken care of some financial affairs while here, and that has helped to tie up some necessary loose ends before we set off on our travels.

We've also taken care of other things. I got a nice haircut yesterday. Donna has been able to do laundry at the facilities in the park. I repaired a damaged bracket on our hitch system (which I wrote about in a previous post) and performed other minor and routine maintenance, which was necessary since we had not been in the trailer for about 2 months. I have also washed the entire exterior of the trailer and have cleaned the underside of our awning. Most RV parks do not allow you to wash vehicles on their premises, but Omega Farms does, so I have taken advantage of this opportunity.

And Donna has fished and fished and fished. On Tuesday night, there was a music get-together at the "community center" at Omega Farms, and we spent some time enjoying the group playing there. The little group consisted of a bass, a fiddle, and 4 six-string guitars, and they played a nice mix of gospel and country. It was a nice way to pass the evening.

I'll be seeing you down the road.

Omega Farms Revisited

When we stayed at Omega Farms RV Park in May, we did not have a pleasant experience and my review of this place was not positive. We are enjoying our stay here this time much more.

The biggest difference this time is our campsite. This time, we are in site #5. It is roomier, has shade, and has a nice sidewalk running the length of the trailer.

Our Rockwood in site #5

Donna is having a great time, too. In addition to visiting her mother daily, she is fishing daily. I went along with her last night and watched as she pulled in several nice-sized bass. The pond, by the way, is catch and release only, so we were not able to eat anything Donna landed.

Probably the largest of the many bass Donna caught while I was watching

Donna has a good time even when she isn't catching anything

This is the definition of retirement

The RV park is really in a pretty setting, with good trees around the perimeter. In addition to the fishing pond, there is also a small laundry with 3 private bathrooms and showers. They are not the best facilities we've seen, but they are certainly adequate.

Nice view of the park. Lots of shade trees around the perimeter.

The park has a mix of full-time residents and short-term residents. Most of the long-term residents occupy sites around the perimeter, where most of the shade is. Short-term visitors usually occupy sites in the center, which are all pull-thrus with limited or no shade.

There is no cable TV connection here. Fortunately, we do pick up several stations out of Houston, so we are able to watch the Olympics and other programming. There is a WiFi connection, but it is a bit slow and is not a secure connection.

The park does not have a store, so propane and other supplies are not available. However, numerous businesses are only about half a mile away.