WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - Big Storms Again at Pat Mayse Lake, TX

We are enjoying this section of North East Texas. We are at Pat Mayse Corps of Engineers Park in the Northeast section of Texas near Arthur City. We have a lakeside site here for seven days.

Sadly, we woke up to cloudy gray skies and impending storms. There was a whole swath of dangerous storms that were streaming right across the entire US. We were at the very bottom edge where it was dragging across Northern Texas and Oklahoma. And we were directly in its path!!!

In the morning it wasn't too bad, although it was cloudy. I got some editing done from my little "office" in the front cockpit of the motorhome.  I like having my laptop set up at this space, and using my passenger seat as my office chair. Everything can stay out of the way if I am unloading cameras or charging up equipment.

We watched the clouds roll in all afternoon. We weren't sure if it was going to go around us or if we were in it's direct path.

The skies darkened and we were due to get hit around 5:00 p.m. with the first wave...

This was not looking too good for us.

(we are at the tip of the red arrow,

that is what was going to hit us at 2:00 a.m.)

The wind started blasting around us, and we were getting lambasted directly broadside from the winds across the lake. We were worried about the trees overhead crashing down on us in the RV as we slept.

Nick was curled up with his little reindeer toy. He was very nervous, while we were anxiously watching the storm on the Weather Channel on tv. We also tuned into Ryan Hall on YouTube to track it's progress.

There were tornado warnings in both of the counties near us and we were next in line. We had both of our phones set to loud volume in case the alarms went off from our weather apps.

About 1:00 a.m. we looked at the weather maps and it looked even worse. It was time to break camp...

We pulled up our leveler jacks and pulled in the slides. In just a few minutes we were ready to go. By quarter after 1:00, we were leaving our campsite along the shore and driving up to an open area next to the concrete shower house / bathrooms. The open space was actually the RV dump station!!!

This was all done in the dark, but I do have some of it on the video link down below at the end of this blog. We pulled in and got settled for the night. Although it was still windy, at least we were in a protected area. If the danger alarms went off on our phones notifying us of an impending tornado, we had the concrete shower building to rush into for protection.

We managed to get a couple more hours of sleep, and the storms roared overhead. By morning, things looked pretty good again!

This was a great place to hunker down overnight, we were safe and secure, as well as out from underneath any trees that could have fallen on us. We were so thankful to have this place to retreat to.

Steve said as long as we were here, we might as well dump our holding tanks. LOL. So we did just that.

By 8:30 a.m., we pulled back down into our campsite and we were all set back up again. Just in time to start making breakfast and have a cup of coffee. The day was absolutely beautiful!!!

We spoke to the host, he said he didn't hear a thing and they slept all night long. He never knew we left and never knew we came back. 

We decided to have a fruity breakfast of bananas, yogurt and granola, topped off with fresh blueberries!

Yummmmmmmm

Although it was still quite breezy, we were able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. The world looked entirely different during the daytime hours, not nearly as scary and threatening as it was overnight.

One of Steve's inventions that I wanted to mention, was his de-flapping solution for the sides of our roll out and retractable slide toppers. They are like little awnings that protect the top portion of our slides when extended. But because they are retractable, they flap in the wind and loosen up and make a lot of noise. Also, we don't want them flapping around so much in the wind that they rip or tear. 

My ingenious husband figured out to take a thicker version pool noodle and cut a long slice entirely down one side.  Depending on how high your slide toppers are situated above your slide roof, that determines what size pool noodle to buy. We found for ours, the thicker ones were better.

Steve gets up on his step ladder and carefully threads the slit edge of the pool noodle over the edge of the fabric of the slide material. This holds it rigid so it does not flop in the breeze or tear the fabric.

He has it cut the exact length needed for the depth of our slide. That way the wind doesn't get underneath it on one edge and still tear the fabric.

What a great idea for peace of mind, and to protect our investment in the middle of a windstorm. It sure would be a hassle to try and pull in a slide with a ruined topper and have to find a dealership to try to replace it while on the road. 

We are always very careful to make sure that it is removed before we pull the bedroom slide back in again.

That evening, we were treated to the most beautiful full moon, rising up over the water. 

I just love the sparkles on the surface of the waves. Everything was calm --- we really couldn't believe the night before there was such a terrifying storm.

I got out my big camera and was able to zoom in for a close up...

The next morning, we woke up and took a glance at our phones. Rut roh!  We were due for MORE storms to roll in. These were going to be even stronger than the ones before. Yep, we are the red arrow. These storms were even predicting 6-inch hail and high winds again.

Although things looked sunny and nice, we decided we were going to move to another campsite within the park. Up over the hill and more secluded, but without too many trees around us or overhead.  We might as well get moved now before things get worse. We were the only ones in this entire section of the campground, besides the host. We talked to him about it and he said there was no problem with moving sites, and he would let the park ranger know on the reservation system. Like I said, there was nobody else there, so we could pick out the best one for our needs. Selecting the direction that the motorhome would face is the most important factor in choosing a new site.

We could now position the motorhome with the nose towards the direction of the wind. Motorhomes are made to drive 50, 60, 70 miles an hour so it can handle winds coming directly at it. It's the side winds that worry us that could push us over. 

It was a very nice site, and down to our left we could see this nice shallow cove. The host told us there were beavers in there. A mom with little beaver pups had been seen swimming around the last few days.  

The wind started picking up, and we hunkered down for the night. We played a few rounds of cribbage and kept the weather channel tuned in on our Starlink.  

We got this beautiful copper wax melt decanter from Steve's sister for christmas. It looks absolutely lovely in the evening. Look at the shadows that it reflects onto other surfaces. What a great addition in the camper. Thank you again, Wendy! It sure is beautiful.

We made it through another horrible stormy night. We were secure enough in our campsite with the nose facing the wind. We didn't need to move back up to the dump station. The storms passed over and some of them actually went around us. So it wasn't as bad as two nights before.  But there had been heavy heavy rain for hours on end. Everything was quite wet and damp in the morning.

We heard a few slap slap sounds, and looked out and managed to see Mama Beaver swimming around. We didn't see any of the pups, but we knew she was there. She would poke up her head every now and then and look around. I think she was busy gathering breakfast for her babies.

The mists floated up over the surface of the water because it was warmer than the air temperature. A cold front had come in and the temperatures had dropped quickly overnight.  I think we went from '80s down to the low 40s.

Here was Mama Beaver floating around to the right of the trunk. I didn't have my big camera at hand quick enough to zoom in close.

It was still pretty breezy in the morning and quite cold. We decided to not go back down to our campsite on the lakeshore for the last night of our reservation. We decided to just stay right where we were. 

It was breezy enough that I was able to wash up some laundry in the portable washing machine that we carry along in the shower stall. I talked about that in the previous blog or two. It sure is handy to be able to do our own laundry and not have to go seek out a grubby laundromat in some little town. I hate to waste a couple hours sitting and waiting for clothing to wash or dry at a laundromat. It's much nicer to be in our own campsite and enjoy our camping time.

Plus, everything smells so much better when dried out on the line. 

The other benefit of having tons of rain overnight is that it helped with the drought conditions in this area. There had been fire bans on since we had first come down into this section of Texas. Things were so dangerously dry...  Now we were seeing fresh green growth and even these little teeny flowers appeared to sprout up overnight from nowhere.

We had gathered up a few pieces of firewood, just in case they lifted the fire ban on the area after the rainfall. This one was very beautiful. I love nature's artistry... 

Although it was breezy and cool, we sat out in our lawn chairs and enjoyed the afternoon. Felt good to be outside after being cooped up with the cold weather and the wind.  We did a little bit of a walk with Nick, and then came back to our lawn chairs again. It was so peaceful and quiet. The host had left and there was nobody around us anywhere. Except Mama Beaver every now and then going "slap" on the water.

We want to enjoy our last night here at Pat Mayse Lake, because we know the next morning we would be moving on.  We are so thankful we made it through these two bands of storms. I know people around us and to the North had horrible weather.  Little did we know that the next hunk of weather coming through would be stretching all the way from Texas to Michigan in destroy places with tornadoes all along the way. The worst is yet to come...

Here is the YouTube that goes along with today's blog post: 

1,249 mi traveled so far

WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - On the Road Again - Pat Mayse COE Park, TX

Awwwwww we have now been on the road for a whole month! Yep it was four degrees below zero when we left Wisconsin in search of warmer temperatures. And we found them. 

Sadly, it was time to leave this lovely campsite at Buckhorn Creek, Corps of Engineers Park on Lake of the Pines, Texas.

We took care of dumping our holding tanks and filling up our fresh water before leaving the campground. It's nice to be back on the road and looking for our next location. Although, Lake of the Pines is going to be one of our favorites! 

Now we are seeing more terrain that looks more like "Texas" from our past experiences. We are seeing cattle and we are seeing oil pumps and more wide open terrain.

It was a cloudy day, but at least it was not raining. We traveled in a north west direction heading to another Corps of Engineer Park.  

MOOOOOOOOOO!  These are not the dairy cows that we are used to seeing in Wisconsin.

We wandered our way up to Paris, Texas. We did an Aldi stop to get some of our favorites and to also stock up on fresh vegetables. Being that the previous two weeks we were in the same spot, we had run out of anything fresh in the crisper drawer. We didn't have much room for frozen vegetables either. All we had were canned vegetables. We really enjoyed the fresh produce from Aldi, and the prices sure are right for the budget.  

We swung by Walmart and picked up our newest prescriptions that we had on order for pickup. This is the first time we've ever done where we've ordered our refills online, and had it filled at a different store than we normally do back in Wisconsin. It worked!  

We drove out of Paris and headed for the East and West portions of the Mayse Lake Corps of Engineer campgrounds  

We had to actually drive right over the Mayse Dam! Yep, the road actually went right over the top of the dam. 

We could look out at the beautiful smooth serene water. 

No wind at all... (but wait till later in the week though!)

We drove through the East Mayse Lake campground and it really didn't impress us with any sites that we wanted. There were a few campers there, but there were plenty of sites available. So we drove back out to the main road and headed to the West Mayse Lake campground.  There are three different loops to this campground and we wanted to be right down by the water. 

Much to our amazement, in Loop B we found a campsite that actually had a big cement slab on it for parking on! None of the other sites had this at all. They were all kind of lumpy blacktop, and many of them were not level. It was probably the prettiest site that I could think in the entire park. There was water around us on all three sides and nobody else in the entire B Loop, except the host way up near the entry. 

How do we keep finding such excellent campsites???  Winner!!!

We were set up in our new digs in no time flat...

Just look at this. This is not one of those fake AI pictures that makes an arc. Note that the horizon in the background is straight. This is exactly how it looks when you stand at our campsite and the water was curved around us on all three sides with our own little private beach.

We could not believe our good fortune in being able to take this site for an entire week. Next week someone else has it reserved. These sites are $20 that include electric and water. But with our America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass we are getting it for $10 a night. Amazing!

Far across the lake, there's nothing but woods. There are no cottages, no noisy neighbors, only beautiful serene peaceful water surrounding us on all three sides.

We were all set up and Steve rolled out the awning. There was no wind (yet) and we were really enjoying the relaxing sunshine and the calling of birds.

I walked down along the beach. As long as you stayed in the sandy area it was fine. But if you got a little too close to the water's edge, the clay sucked you right into the muck and it clings to your shoes!

I had to let them completely dry before I could start scraping it off. It finally did come off the next day, but it took a while. LOL 

The sun started going down, and we could tell we were in for a real treat. From our vantage position we could see that we would be enjoying the morning sun rising on the left...  and also catching the sun setting on the right. What an amazing campsite.

Soon everything became an orange glow as the bright ball crept closer and closer to the horizon. Reflection off the water was almost blinding.

Here was as close as I could get with my cell phone for a photo. It was so bright.

And then, before you knew it, it slipped right behind the horizon and it was all gone. The orange streaks across the sky we're all that were left until sunrise the next morning.

But the trick was on us, the sun didn't come up the next morning. We had clouds all day long. The birds were singing and twittering around from branch to branch. Look at the beautiful bluebird! 

I think from its song, this is a red winged blackbird?

We basically were going to have a cloudy day. The temperature would be getting up to 80°. But it definitely was totally different than the day before. The winds were starting to kick up...

SUDDENLY the power went out! In the entire campground. No power.  

Steve walked up over to the host site. He was a brand new host and this was his first day on the job. He had actually only been on the job for a couple hours. He did have a phone number to call a ranger but couldn't get through on his cell phone. Limited signal.  We went back to our motorhome with the Starlink and used the Wi-Fi Calling feature. We got ahold of the ranger and he said it would be fixed in a couple hours. 

That was okay with us. We have propane to switch over for our refrigerator. Other people who rely on electric only for their refrigerator systems in newer RVs find themselves in a pickle in this type of situation. Our refrigerator operates on either propane or electric. 

We were okay, and we have plenty of battery power between our house batteries and the Bluetti power station to take care of our needs. So the Starlink can run, the computer can stay on, we can charge up our cell phones or any of our camera equipment. 

Just for grins, Steve decided to try out our new solar blanket that we had gotten for Christmas. This is from Renogy and it is 400 watts.  Here is a link: 

https://www.renogy.com/products/renogy-400w-solar-panel-blanket

.

We like it because it can fold up into a 16"x16" shape about 5" thick. If fits easily behind the love seat when not needed. 

He flipped it open, and hooked the cables up to our Bluetti power station. The Bluetti is equivalent to maybe two or three big lithium batteries.  We decided to not upgrade the motorhome house batteries to lithium. Instead, we opted for the Bluetti so we could use it in other applications besides just in our RV. It is portable and can come in our house in case of a power outage to operate things like our refrigerator, sump pump, or our Starlink.  We can also take it out anywhere and have instant 12 volt DC or 120 volt AC power with us. 

Now, back to the solar panel...

Even with the partly cloudy sky, this 400 watt panel was bringing in almost 300 watts of charging energy from the sky!  

Isn't that nice? The only thing we had running was the Starlink and that's what was drawing out 28 watts of power from our system.  

We also have a 320 watt solar  panel on the roof of the cargo trailer as well as two 100 watt flexible panels that we could hang from the awning if we wanted to. That would give us 920 watts total if we needed to charge everything up quickly. It's nice to have options.

In a few hours, the power did come back on. It flickered a few times. Once we were sure that it was steady, we turned back on our Progressive Industries power management device to make sure it was good clean power and not low browned out or high arcing.  That protects all the wiring inside of our motorhome.

While that was going on, I cut up a bunch of veggies and started my favorite Aldi casserole with Polska kielbasa sausage, Aldi canned sliced potatoes, and vegetables.  I didn't have any fresh green beans so I used canned ones. It's baked in the oven with some olive oil and spices. Soon it's a delicious warm filling the belly meal full of comfort food.

The second night we had an absolutely striking amazing sunset, better than the night before!!! The clouds in the foreground made a beautiful accent for the setting sun from behind.

As it was going down, I just snapped these photos with my cell phone. No AI, no editing, no touching up. Straight out of my Samsung cell phone. I WAS SURPRISED TO SEE HOW ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS THIS PHOTO IS!!!

(I think it's my favorite of the entire trip so far)

We relaxed again on our second evening in absolute peace and tranquility. The campground is so quiet we don't hear a thing. There's no traffic nearby, and I think the host left and went somewhere. Everything was totally silent.

The next morning, after coffee, I want to work on my shoes. I found a bamboo skewer in our drawer that worked really well for gouging out the dried bits of clay from the treads of my favorite slip-on shoes.  They look a heck of a lot better than they did the day before, that's for sure.

We had a full day of just relaxing and not doing much of anything. I didn't even haul out my sewing machine! I have a quilt that I'm working on, but for some reason I didn't even want to do that. I think it was the peacefulness of the campsite that just kept us sitting there and looking out at the water.

It was near dinner time, I made up a tray of fresh veggies and some dip. Steve hauled out the grill and made up some of our favorite brat patties from Salmons Meat Market in Luxemburg, Wisconsin.

Adding a pickle spear and some lettuce and tomato to our burgers, with thousand island dressing on mine, it completed our meal. Steve of course, needs a big wedge of sweet Vildalia onion on his. 

I made up a video to go along with today's blog...

The next blog and video will detail why we ended up sleeping in the dump station overnight??!!??

128 mi traveled today 

1,249 mi traveled so far