Kansas is Big

Even though we wanted to make it as far east as possible, we had to turn in around midnight after driving for the better part of the day. We'd only made it a little more than halfway through Kansas to Milford Lake State Park. Turns out the state is deceptively large. No wonder Oz seemed like worlds away, it probably took Dorothy a full day to get out of Kansas!

We drove around the park which was pretty desolate in this post-Labor day season, and found a spot near the lake but tucked away in the woods a bit to protect us from the famous prairie winds. Thankfully, the winds cooperated and we were able to sleep fairly uninterrupted.

The next morning, we got up early enough for Loren to cook up the last of our bacon before we hit the road again, stopping to gobble gobble at the family of turkeys crossing the park road.

Camping Oasis in West Texas

We made it through most of western Texas and arrived at Balmorhea State Park with just enough daylight to set up camp and eat a delicious meal of fried spam and veggies. The night sky opened up above us for some of the best stargazing we’d ever seen, and the moon waited to rise until about 2 hours after sunset, giving us plenty of time to play with the camera and tripod to get the settings just right for the star-filled sky: we could even see the Milky Way. Everything was perfect and wonderful until a few hours after we retired to our tent, which was when the coyotes decided to come out and wreak havoc and stir the dogs in a nearby campsite. The crazed barking, yipping, and yelping went on until about 5am, which is when Kristen decided she couldn’t listen anymore and tuned it all out with ear plugs.

The Milky Way

Morning brought peace again. We made a delicious camp breakfast of fried eggs, spam, and onion with some Sriracha, served with coffee. By the time we packed everything up, the temperature had soared into the 90s, so we opted to pay a visit to the Spring for which Balmorhea State park is known. The Spring has been developed into a pool, equipped with a 3m high dive (the water was approaching 30 feet deep on that end), lots of little fish, and a crowd of underwater adventurers: snorkelers and scuba divers. The cool water and high dive ensured we were wide awake before setting off on the road again.

Breakfast: Fried egg, spam, onions and coffee

Natural spring / pool at Balmorhea State Park

Soft-shelled turtle (first-ever turtle that Loren admitted was not cute)