WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - Day 11 - Buckhorn Creek COE at Lake of the Pines Texas

I think our instincts are pretty good. It definitely was time to pack up and leave Rocky Point campground at Wright-Patman Dam.  One night was enough. Time to move on. Enough of that. 

We really do like the tall pine trees and the terrain that's slightly hilly and especially the green grass. We remarked that it actually reminds us of driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan!  Some of the leaves are coming out on the lower shrubbery and the tall trees of the deciduous type are starting to bud and open their leaves.  Spring!

It really puts us in a good mood as we travel along. Seeing all this greenery is part of the motivation for escaping the whiteness of Wisconsin. Back home, dark gray trees against the winter sky and the white crusty snow at this time of the year does not put a lot of good feelings in our hearts. 

Also, the price of diesel is pretty darn good too. These are the lowest prices we have seen in a long long time. So we stopped to fill up, especially when it is not the biodiesel. We are even seeing more places with DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) at the pumps. We don't need any yet at this time. We get about 2,500 miles per fill up, and Steve topped it off when we left the house.

We even noticed that the pine trees all seem to have fresh green needles bursting out at the tips that gives everything a beautiful green hue as we drive on past. 

We are now trying to take back roads as much as possible. Our interstate travel was to get us South as fast as we could. Now we will try to avoid them if we can.

We traveled along to the next Corps of Engineers Park that we had on our list. This one is called Buckhorn Creek at Lake of the Pines near Jefferson Texas. 

Here is their link: 

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232536

We knew there were many sites available from looking at their grid formation on the recreation.gov website.  We like to be able to pick out a site once we get to a campground rather than just blindly making reservations online. A lot of times, the location of the campsite means a lot to us. Orientation of North, South, East or West is important as well as which way the winds come off the lake and are we going to get blasted or are we going to find a secluded cove.  

And actually, like at the last campsite, are we going to get located next to an irritating neighbor? 

So we pulled on in and the nice gentleman at the gate said that was fine--- we could drive around and look at the available sites and choose the one that suited our needs.

We drove up in the popular area where there were a lot of campers parked. It was on a higher ledge overlooking the water on kind of a point. But the winds were coming across the lake and we could kind of tell maybe it might not be the best spot. Then we went down in the next loop which was behind all that. It was more secluded with a tall stand of pine trees behind the campsites. The third loop was over in a tenting area and really was not made for RVs. 

We selected a beautiful spot with tall pine trees to the South and to the West of us, to the East of us is a shallow basin.  Straight out to the North is a beautiful cove, secluded and protected from the larger portion of the lake. We found our spot!

E217 was a pull-through site without anybody else around. What's nice is having the grid on the Recreation.gov app, you can look and see how many sites around you are reserved for how many days as well. Nobody was around us on any of the sites for the entire 7-Day period that we were going to take our site. That was great! No Neighbors at all!

This site along the water was a little more expensive than some of the others. It was $32 a night. But with our America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass it was only $16. Water and electric included, and beautiful peace and quiet and tranquility!!

This is what we were looking for!

We pulled into the site in the opposite direction. It's a pull-through site, and we wanted to have the best view out the passenger side of our motorhome. We seem to be doing that a lot lately, haven't we? We pulled the picnic table over out of the way a little bit so we could get the motorhome parked and leveled out. Then we brought it back into place.

We were even in a great location for the starlink to work from where it rides in the skylight in the motorhome. 

In no time at all, Steve had us all set up and brought out the lawn chairs and the patio rug. This sure looks like "HOME" to me for the next 7 days.

We aren't asking for a lot on this trip. We aren't looking at tons of tourist attractions. There are no bucket list items that we need to go see. We are just looking for warmth and sunshine and peaceful locations with a beautiful view. 

And I think we got exactly that...

We took Nick for a little walk around and then set back to relax and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. He seems really content to sit here and watch the birds fly on over the water and land down along the shore.

Just look at these temperatures! Back home in Wisconsin they were experiencing a heavy snowfall and cold temperatures down in the low teens. Yep, we are glad that we took off and headed South.

Now we are up for a couple days of relaxing without really needing to do anything. There are no "have to"s other than just enjoying ourselves.  Even nap time is enjoyable, waking up and looking out the window and seeing that beautiful view on one side of the water, or the tall pine trees on the other.

We had spoken to one of the campground hosts, and he said yes there IS a resident alligator down in this bay. Although this time of year he's not very active and stays submerged. He is about five or six feet long and he patrols the bank. So he does caution people with small pets or children to just be aware when you are near the water's edge.  

Steve took out Nick's favorite toy and the hundred foot long rope on the cord reel. They did some fetch for a while in the evening while we were cooking supper. It takes the edge off of Nick's energy level and it gives Steve a chance to get Nick to play with him rather than needing me along every time. Usually Nick wants me along every time, not letting me out of his sight. This large open area by our campsite gives Nick the opportunity to stretch his wings a little. Nick is learning that Steve can be a "fun person" too...

But he does need to dash back over to me every now and then, just to reassure himself that I have not abandoned him or disappeared forever.

It was a perfect evening to sit back with a beverage and enjoy the view. Steve's ice cold beer and my glass of Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's are just a great way to settle back and recoup after our ride today.  

We are not sure what kind of tree this is directly across from us, but it does have green leaves already. It greatly improves the view. Across the bay from us are a lot of pine trees so we do have a lot of green to look at. That's really nice on our Wisconsin Eyes that are accustomed to only brown and gray or white snow.

Just look at those beautiful towering pines!  They make a gentle backdrop against our rig to the South, and also protect us maybe for maybe hot sunshine later in the week? We do see some low 80s in the forecast.

Steve got the grill out and it was time to start putting together some supper. We have along some hamburger patties from our favorite meat market back in Wisconsin, Salmon's Meats of Luxemburg.  This is why I packed the freezer so carefully, to bring along some of our favorites from home.

While he had the patties going, I fired up the air fryer with the last of our McCain's 5 minute fries. Those we can find anywhere, so we can restock on them next time we are near a larger grocery store.

It's a simple meal but easy to put together in the small kitchen of our motorhome. We've kind of gotten it down to a science of what works best and what we need to take out for various meals. The grill he has also has an extra gas burner on one side. We can do some cooking outside if it's too hot inside. We like having options.

Here are the patties, perfectly grilled with the obligatory singe marks. Almost as pretty as in a magazine isn't it?

Thank you to Chef Steveio. (Then I do the cleanup and the dishes) Lol!

Next we were treated with a soft gentle beautiful sunset. It wasn't quite as glamorous as the one we had the night before at Rocky Point. But it was subtle with streaks of gentle colors across the sky. 

It was a great way to end a good day. 

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

Tomorrow I might do some laundry in our portable washing machine.

Only 58 Miles traveled today 

1,121 Miles traveled so far