WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - 2ND Week at Buckhorn Creek Corps of Engineers - Lake of the Pines, TX

We are now on our second week in this most beautiful place... Buckhorn Creek Corps of Engineers campground situated on Lake of the Pines, Texas. This area of Northeast Texas is full of tall pine trees and actually has green grass and leaves budding out on shrubbery already at the end of February. This is exactly what we were looking for when we left Wisconsin three and a half weeks ago, at four degrees below zero!

Sadly, the rules at the Corps of Engineers only allow you to stay 14 days at a particular campground within the same "basin" or flowage. Some of the campgrounds may allow you to extend it an extra time, depending on the rangers discretion. This is to keep people from moving on in and setting up like a permanent resident. Also, only a few of the sites here have sewer hookups included. So it does mean that you do have to pull off the site after a period of time to dump your holding tanks. It's easy for us to pull in the slides, drive over and dump our tanks, and drive back and set up again. It's not such a labored process like it is with travel trailers or fifth wheels. It only takes us about 15 minutes.

This campsite is so pleasant with the wide open view of the water as well as this large lawn in front of us. Every day Steve takes Nick on his 100-ft long rope real and throws his toy for him. Nick zooms back and forth, usually the full hundred foot length - repeatedly - to return his toy to Steve. It really helps to wear him out and take the edge off his energy level. He has just turned 3 years old, but acts like a puppy.

I know it may be sound boring to some, but we have just been totally enjoying sitting here and looking out at the water. We watch the birds come and go, their songs filling the air. The springtime calls of birds is something that we don't hear all winter long in Wisconsin. I think the birds there are too cold to sing!!!

We also watch the fisherman come and go in their boats. This particular little craft drew some interest. It looks like one of those paddle boats with a little electric motor. It seems to be a little larger with seats on it that can rotate and all directions for fishing, without having to stand up. We have seen these guys come down and fish in our bay and then slowly work their way back out around the point. I'm not sure where they are camping or if they have a cabin nearby. It sure is a cute little boat though.

We watched them catch a couple fish and then work their way back out. What a pleasant way to spend an afternoon? 

The weather here has been exceptionally delightful. These are the types of temperatures we have been looking for.  The night time temps are just enough to kick on the heat and warm us up a bit. The electric mattress pad heaters take care of the rest. We are cozy all night long and by morning, ready to open the windows and make our coffee.  Some rain is forecast later in the week, which is desperately needed in this area. Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Louisiana are all in a drought. Some rain would be wonderful because the fire danger is so high.

This little guy is all worn out from playing with his toy. He now needs to sprawl across me and gaze lovingly at my face. Wondering if I'm going to get up and give him some treats. Spoiled brat.

We decided that since we were staying a second week, we needed to pick up some things from a little convenience store about 3 miles away. Round trip is just under 6 miles. Easily done on our bikes. It even means riding across the top of the dam on the road.

We decided not to take Nick or his little trailer because we didn't know if there were shoulders on the road that made it better for riding a bike. After our experience in Jonesboro riding on an urban city route, we wanted to be sure before we left what the roads would be like --- without taking Nick along.

It turned out they were okay, and really we could have taken him. But that's okay, we leave him behind in the motor home on his own. We pulled down all of the shades and we turn up the TV pretty loud to drown out any noises he might hear from outside. We have a Wi-Fi camera that we can peek on him and see what he's up to. It also has a temperature sensor on it that lets us know if for some reason the power were to go out and it were to get too hot inside. Both the security monitor camera and our Starlink operate off our 12 volt DC battery system, not the campsite post 120 AC Power.  Modern technology sure gives us peace of mind.

We made it to the little convenience store. It was our choice to either come here or pull up stakes in the motorhome and drive 12 miles over into Jefferson, Texas to a regular grocery store. So we took our chances and came here instead.  

Steve offered to take a picture of me! I don't often get many photos of myself because I'm always the one taking the pictures. So here I am, this little bicycle riding Granny...

We picked up our groceries, and then strapped them all carefully onto the panier bags on each side of my bike. Plus we had room for Steve's Modelo beer strapped to the center of my bike rack. His bike has a different carrying bag on his back rack that carries things like air compressor, spare bike tube, first aid kit and tool set. Because he carries those things, I get to carry the groceries! 

The store was convenient, but it definitely was not cheap!  But we were able to get a dozen eggs and some gallon jugs of drinking water as well as just a little quart of milk and a loaf of bread. The bread was $5.99 a loaf! It didn't even taste that good. We tossed in a big bag Doritos (which wasn't all that big) and Steve's 12 pack of beer. Ouch! $50 later we were ready to hit the road.

We pedaled on back to the park and put away all of our groceries. Everything made it, including the eggs. The road was a little bouncy but I did make a little video of it anyhow. If you watch the video clip at the end of this blog you can watch our little ride to the store and back. 

After we got back to the camper, a little guy was quite miffed that he didn't get to go along with us. He kept giving us the glare look and kept going over to his little cart and pawing at it, begging for a ride. 

So we did.

When we got back, there was one more neighbor had moved in down the road from us. But he was very, very quiet and just was worried about going fishing early in the morning. That's about the only sound we heard from him was his boat taking off from shore. Later on we spoke with him and it turns out he only lives 6 miles away. He comes here for 2 weeks at a time to relax and fish and enjoy the park before all of the summer people come.

Now that we had a dozen eggs, I boiled up two and made up some potato salad for dinner later on. Steve tossed a couple of our nice juicy hamburgers on the grill. With the fire ban on, they ask that we don't use charcoal grills or anything that could possibly be on the grass and catch fire. The little table top propane grill was okay up on the aluminum table, over our black topped area next to the camper.

While Steve was doing the grilling, I set the table. This is the beautiful tablecloth we bought when we were visiting in Mexico about 15 years ago. Our friend Mary had one just like it, and I had admired it. When we traveled into Mexico we found the same market where she had purchased hers and I bought one too. It makes me smile every time we use it. So bright and colorful with intricate designs woven into the yarns. It isn't stamped or printed. It's actually woven. 

I set out the buns and the pickles and the potato salad and even some of my precious pickled beets that we brought from home.

Topped it off with a glass of my "Two Buck Chuck" wine, Charles Shaw wine from Trader Joe's... Adding in such a beautiful view to have our dinner.  Like I said, we aren't asking for much out of this vacation getaway other than a nice warm place to sit and look at something pretty. We really found that here...

The evening started to cloud up a little bit. We were hoping maybe some rain was going to come overnight. (It didn't) It's made for an interesting sunset with the golden sun peeking out with the heavy gray clouds.

Then suddenly all the background burst into beautiful bright pink and even an edging of crimson along the horizon. What a great treat for an end to a beautiful day.

We spent the rest of our second week basically just doing our own fun stuff that we do. Taking some bike rides, with or without the dog. Did another two loads of laundry in our little portable washing machine. We cooked some creative meals, and took some nice naps. Later in the evenings, after dark, we usually head inside. Since the burn ban was on we couldn't have a campfire anyhow. We crank up the Starlink and we watch some YouTube favorite channels that we enjoy. Mostly traveling and camping, some homesteading. We cuddle up on the love seat with a bowl of popcorn. And the dog between us. 

One evening I made up a special meal. I took some pictures of it during the process. I put shredded chicken along with precooked rice and sauce and seasonings in flour tortillas. I spiced Steve's up more than mine. I didn't have any enchilada sauce, but I used up some leftover spaghetti sauce. Lol. 

Imagine being from Wisconsin and not being able to eat cheese??? I can no longer digest cheese properly, but we found this Violife brand that is a dairy free cheese substitute there's actually made from potato starch.  We can get it in either a Mexican shredded, mozzarella, or even in sliced American that tastes really good for a grilled cheese sandwich.

I sprinkled some of the shredded Violife cheese on the top of our enchiladas. Then I covered them with tin foil and popped them in the oven for half an hour.

Oh my, a rich and filling enchilada meal with a little side salad and some guacamole. 

I want to give a little shout out here to one of our granddaughters.  This is our 10-year-old Whitney. I think she's the only one of all of our grandchildren who actually reads my blogs, and watches my YouTube videos! She sends me silly little pictures that she takes of her cat and her 2 dogs. She also just got glasses...

Recently she has been writing me emails!

So a huge shout out with love and hugs to this sweet girl who takes the time to write to her Grandma Pfun! She is learning letter writing skills at school and I am so appreciative of each and every one that I get. 

Since we have unlimited water, and an outdoor shower, it was time to scrub up this little dog and get him smelling fresh and clean again. We have biodegradable dog shampoo and an outdoor shower on the side of the motor home. I laid our rubber floor mat down for him to stand on so I could scrub him up well from head to toe. Then rinse rinse rinse. With his long hair takes quite a while to get all of the soap out of him.

He was not too happy with me...

I brushed him out, clipped his toenails, and told him he was very handsome. Do you think so? 

We've been taking time on this trip to relax and look around instead of rush rush rush from one place to another. That might not appeal to some people who travel to get to places. 

To destinations. 

To sites. 

To tourist attractions. 

I think, for us, we need to slow down and smell the roses. Or the dandelions.

Almost every evening we were blessed with these beautiful sunsets. The colors are intense and we hang out long enough to watch the sun slip down over the far horizon behind the trees.

This really has been a wonderful spot to be camping for two weeks. Here's the YouTube that goes along with this blog post:

But now it's time to move on. Let's see where we are going, further down the road.

0 miles traveled today (other than the 6 miles traveled on our bicycles to the store and back)

1,121 miles traveled so far

WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - First Week at Buckhorn Creek, Lake of the Pines, Texas

 I have decided that I'm going to combine multiple days all into one post. This will be about our first week here at Buckhorn Creek Corps of Engineers park, located on Lake of the Pines near Jefferson, Texas.

Honestly, we are doing so much relaxing and resting and just enjoying this peaceful place, there's not really a whole lot going on to really write about.

 That's exactly as it should be.

After the weekend was over, there aren't too many people left in the park. I think there's about 5 or 6 campers total. Every day we see this gentleman bring his three dogs down to the shore. They romp around and splash in and out of the water a little bit and then head back up to the campground again. So that's about it for activity around us...

Our main activity for ourselves is to sit back in these lawn chairs with our cups of coffee and look out over the water. We are thinking of places we've been, places we'd like to go, and just enjoying this place by itself.  

The temperatures are up in the high 70s and one day it actually topped over to 82. The nights are down in the 60s or maybe the high 50s now. We are past the cold snap earlier in the week where we did have to put reflectix up in the windows overnight because it got down to 31°. Hopefully that weather is now past us.

We have noticed this great blue heron gingerly walking along the shore every day. He comes down into our cove and walks around looking for goodies under the water. Sometimes he holds his head sideways, kind of cocked, so he can look down with his eyes and see what's in the water. And then quick as a wink, his beak plunges down and he comes up with something good to eat. 

After a few days, I decided it would be good to fire up our Costway washer/spinner and do a few loads of laundry. This is just the greatest thing to bring along, because I honestly hate going to laundromats when we travel. 

Being here at one spot for two weeks, is a very good reason why we have it. Now we don't have to pull up stakes and leave to go somewhere for a laundromat. We can catch everything up right here in our very own campsite.

One of the best parts is that I don't have to sit somewhere for an hour and a half to two hours just to wash and dry some laundry. Instead, I toss in a load and crank the timer for 15 minutes. I can go enjoy a cup of coffee, and then I come back and crank it for another 15 minutes. Extra long wash. I can pull those clothes out and start a second load reusing the same wash water and soap. Once they are all done, I can hit the drain and refill it with rinse water. Pretty easy.  

The spinner on the right hand side can only take a few things at a time. But it spins them out so well that they are almost dry by the time you take them out. I hang up some under-things on hangers from the shower curtain rod, and other things go out on a wash line.

We grabbed this washing machine second hand off Marketplace, but you can get it on Amazon: 

https://a.co/d/0dQFTAg1

It's surprising how much you can get into the wash section on the left.  I would say about half of what a normal washing machine can handle. You don't want to get it too constricted because then the clothes don't move around freely during the agitation cycle.

Here's a tiny video clip showing how it works.

While the second batch was in washing, I decided to have some of my favorite bananas and yogurt with fresh raspberries on top! You can't do that while sitting at a laundromat...

When the second batch was completely finished, Steve hung up a clothesline for me and I was able to hang them out to dry. Some campgrounds have rules against clotheslines, luckily for us, this one doesn't. Otherwise I would just switch everything to hangers inside and hang it all in our bathroom or from the cabinet handles throughout the motor home.

We've been enjoying the sunsets here. Even though we are not over on the other side of the point actually seeing the sun set on the water... We do get the beautiful colors striations across the sky from this side of the bay.

It's been very quiet for sleeping. Every once in awhile we do hear a truck go by, but otherwise it's been peaceful. The big dam is nearby, and I think those trucks are shift workers coming to take over from the previous crew.  

When we wake up in the morning, Steve pops open the window shade and we look out at such a wonderful view. So much better than looking at the side of somebody else's camper where you're packed in like sardines at a private RV resort. That's not our kind of place.

Steve gets up and starts the coffee while Nick and I kind of roll around and I scratch his belly and we take it easy in the morning.  It's a pretty relaxing way to start the day.  When we travel, there are no "have to's" like chores at home.

During the first week, we really haven't gone anywhere or anything other than take a few walks and play with the dog. We are going to get out the bikes and take a ride around, and maybe even go down to the little convenience store about 3 miles away on the other side of the dam. We are getting low on eggs and milk. We called ahead to make sure they carry them and they said they are currently out of milk. But the new delivery truck should be there by Monday or Tuesday. So we will wait to take our journey then.

Mr Blue Heron came back and is wandering around looking for breakfast too!  The black ravens (or called buzzards around here?) are hoping to get a bite of his fish.  Nope. He ain't sharing.  

We've been fortunate to get day after day after day of blue sky. There are burn bans on in the area and everything is very dry. I know they are really hoping for some rain but it doesn't look like it will be coming until later next week.

The spotting planes for the fire crews are making loops overhead across this area. They've been going over daily checking to make sure nobody is being careless with fire or any spontaneous areas combusting into flame.  

Entire regions of East Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are all ripe for fire danger at this time. Hopefully rains will come soon and help alleviate some of the dryness.

We are looking out at the beautiful crisp blue water and it's is lightly rippling in the breeze.  A few fishermen here and there troll on by in their boats.  We watched someone this morning catch a fish right out in front of us. 

In the evenings, we've kind of been taking turns cooking some of the dinners that we like. Steve decided that since we are in Texas, he would make his Mom's favorite recipe, a dish they called "Texas Hash".  Steve is a good cook, and I'm glad that we share the cooking duties.

He browns up hamburger and onion, then he adds a jar of my home canned stewed tomatoes. He cooks up some rice and mixes that in. He kind of lets it soak it up. He adds some spices, mainly salt and pepper and a little bit of Harvest Blend, similar to Mrs Dash. His finished casserole is kind of like a Spanish rice. But his family calls it "Texas Hash". While he's doing that, I get out the dishes and butter up a slice of bread to go along with it.

It's a simple meal, but very filling and hearty. Easy to make and a one-pot meal easy to clean up. 

Another one of the delicious items we made for an evening meal was our precious stash of seafood that we brought from Green Bay, Wisconsin. There is a fish market there that flies in fresh fish from all over and flash freezes it if you want to take it to transport back home.  We get salmon there as well as snow crab legs. The last time we were there they had halibut!  

(We fell in love with eating fresh halibut in Valdez, Alaska last Summer)

We brought along two precious pieces and decided it was time to cook them up.  We thawed them and Steve seasoned them up and put them on a lightly oiled piece of tin foil to put in our air fryer.  He sets it on "bake" mode, so it's like a mini-oven.

He set the air fryer out on a metal table outside so we wouldn't have the cooking smells and heat building up inside of the motorhome. It was a pretty hot day so it was nice to be able to have the option to cook outdoors. 

I pre-baked some potatoes in the microwave and added them for the last 10 minutes or so in the air fryer on a rack above the fish. 

Paired up with a couple of crunchy salads, our baked potatoes, and our big wedges of halibut made a fine feast. The fish is white and flaky and not oily at all. It's similar to salmon in texture. Very light and flaky and delicious. No oily fishy taste, not mushy, with more of a meaty seafood flavor.

They say food always taste better when you cook it outside. I don't know who "they" are, but we're not sharing our dinner with them tonight. Lol!

After dinner is done and the dishes are cleaned up, it's time to curl up and watch a little TV after dark. We are thankful that the Starlink works flawlessly here.  We are able to watch a few of our favorite channels on YouTube. Even an episode or two of Maine Cabin Masters. 

Nick curls up between us, quite content.

I think all three of us are quite content...

Here's the video that goes along with today's blog: 

0 miles traveled today 

1,121 miles traveled so far