At first, I booked a cheap room in Port Aransas, which we love. We haven't been there since Mal was newly two years old. But then I thought about how many people would likely be there, and how enjoying the beach when it's empty is so much fun. So I canceled that and pulled up the "camps" I'd saved earlier this year when I was doing research for "staycations."
It just so happened that I was able to book a lodge room a Jellystone Hill Country. A lot of the activities and amenities were curtailed due to CDC guidelines (the arcade, indoor activities like dance parties and crafts, etc.), but the park was open, and, importantly, so was the pool. Yes, rain was forecasted for the whole weekend. But, whatever. It was a chance to get away for a few days, so we went for it.
In a couple of days before the trip, I received a call that the lodge room I'd booked was still undergoing refurbishing, and would I mind being moved to a Cindy Bear Cottage? MORE room, a private fire ring (rather than a common one for all 4 lodge rooms) and a covered patio? At the same price? Yes, please!
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| This is Lodge Room 17, still very much in progress. |
We got to the park two hours before check-in, but they let us go ahead and get our golf cart, and even though it was HOT, we enjoyed looking around and getting familiar with the park until we could get into our cabin.
In order to maintain "social distancing" at the pool, they were only allowing 43 people to swim for a two-hour stretch, after which they emptied the area for fifteen minutes and did a complete cleaning of all surfaces. Knowing this, we reserved the 5-7 slot as soon as we got checked in. Then we were ready to check out the cabin!
It was nice. There was "room" for 8 people to sleep: a queen-sized bed in the "bedroom," a full-sized futon, two mini-twins in a bunk room, and two twin beds up in the loft. We've stayed in a cabin with a loft before, in New Braunfels, and Mal and I almost sweat to death. In these cabins, there's a separate window unit upstairs. We didn't sleep up there, and probably couldn't have because the a/c was on its way out and quite noisy, but it did keep the cabin much cooler during the day (and we turned it off at night). I wouldn't recommend traveling with 8 people and staying in one of these cabins, though, because it was tight just with three of us. Still... more room than I'd paid for, so, yay!
We swam for nearly the whole of our two hours, and, man, it was NICE only having to share with a few dozen people!
They were limiting guests at their bounce pillow to 4 at a time, with blue taped squares on the pad to space people out... but two brothers left as soon as Mal got there, so he was able to enjoy it all on his own.
We went back to the room and ate snacks we'd brought (James ate gas station food because he realized that everything in town shuts down as soon as people can't rent tubes anymore), watched TV, and took a few golf car rides to see how the campsites looked in the dark.
Saturday morning, I got up and went into town to get breakfast. I left the park right before 8, when the restaurant was opening, and noticed some people sitting outside of the ranger station... we'll get to that in a few minutes.
I had read about the Wildflour Artesan Bakery and Grill before we left, and it did not disappoint. We got: Hill Country Tenderloin Hash (crispy hash browns topped with pan-seared tenderloin tips, onions, bell peppers, 2 eggs your way topped with hollandaise and green onion), Hill Country Omelet (venison sausage, duck bacon, tomatoes, sautéed onions, and smoked provolone), and for Mal a pancake with scrambled egg.
When I got back, there were many MANY more people at the ranger station. It was 8:30. I had breakfast with James, then went over at about 5 'til 9, when the station opened. By the time I got to the front, the only swim times left were 9-11 AM, or 6-7:30 PM. I booked us for 6, and we spent the whole day listening to Mal ask when we were going swimming.
Well, not ALL day. We also did a scavenger hunt.
We had a picnic with food from the Pic-a-Nik Basket on-site... at our covered patio seating! That's also not something we would have gotten if we'd rented the lodge. As you can see from the scavenger hunt picture above, there are tables, but they're just out on the lawn. It was VERY hot when the sun was out, and super nice to have a shady place to eat. Oh, we got a fabulous pulled pork southwest "salad" (I guess the salad part was the beans and corn? Anyway, it was GOOD), a "grown-up" grilled cheese with tomatoes and bacon, and loaded waffle fries.
We also played with the Plus Plus set Mal had picked out from the ranger station, and we played a few rounds of Slap Jack and the Matching Game from a set of 6 different kids' card games we bought just for the trip.
We were told that we could check in at the pool to see if anyone had left and there was room for new swimmers. We tried 4 times, but no one was heading out early. Mal wore his bathing suit a great portion of the day, though, and we did get ourselves wet at the sluice, which was refreshing in its own right.
Finally, it was almost 6! We went down to the ranger station to watch for the cleaning crew to take off. Then we crossed the street and Mal ran ahead, eager to be the first in. He somehow tripped over or slipped on or lost his balance coming off of a speed bump and landed face-first on the concrete. He scraped his nose a little and his philtrum a lot. He also scraped up his left elbow, and his top teeth gouged a hole inside his upper lips. He was bleeding from the gums, and he said that his teeth were loose.
The staff was great! One guy ran into the restaurant to get us an ice pack (which I knew Mal would refuse). The other ushered us into the restaurant bathroom so I could clean up the blood and assess the damage. Turns out he was an EMT, and looked at Mal's lip when we were calmed down and back outside. He said that it was all superficial and he'd be fine.
Meanwhile, I was super hoping he'd maybe knock those two front teeth out. One of the caps has come a little loose so is wonky. I think we had the worst dentist, and I'm ready for the work she did to be out of his face hole. It's almost time, so it wouldn't have been more than a year or so until new teeth grew in. Oh well. I'm glad he's fine.
And we were off to the pool, where he quickly forgot that he'd gotten hurt at all, even though his upper lip was swollen for the night.
The next morning, guess who walked up to the ranger station at 8:15? While I was waiting, I learned that, although the ranger station opened at 9:00 AM, they were taking reservations starting at 8:30. I got us a prime spot at 11:15. So far, the thunderstorms predicted for the whole weekend hadn't panned out, though it did rain heavily for about 2 minutes twice before we swam. It just made the water even cooler, and we got plenty of vitamin D.
I left a few minutes before James and Mal did, so I could take a shower in the comfort station. We had a shower in our bathroom, but it was small and I also didn't want to steam up the cabin. At about 2:00 PM, we went...
... right back to the Wildflour because their food had been so amazing. This is the first time we've eaten together inside a restaurant since the middle of March, when it had seemed a little weird that IHOP was dispensing syrup via your waiter rather than allowing customers to touch the containers and risk contamination. It was very spaced out, and there were only 4 tables inside the dining room. We had been willing to sit wherever, but were indoors.
James got Geraldine's Tomato Pie (puff pastry filled with layers of tomato, white cheddar, parmesan cheese) with a side of white cheddar poblano soup, I had the salmon burger (house-smoked salmon blended with onion & bell pepper complimented with chipotle aioli, lettuce, tomato on a toasted cheddar jalapeno bun), and Mal got chicken tenders with fries. We ended up taking home, respectively as above, blueberry cheesecake, cheesecake, and chocolate cake. James and I had ours for breakfast before leaving Monday morning. Did not disappoint.
Back at the park, we got some wood and planned to have a campfire. It was the coolest day so far, and thus seemed an appropriate time to try to make some s'mores.
Shortly after James roasted his second marshmallow, the promised deluge arrived, and we slept to the tune of thunder and downpour all night.
This morning, we took our time clearing out, drove around one last time, and turned in our golf cart. Then we drove over to Canyon Lake Dam to check that out. Mal was not happy to have to walk around at all, but it was pretty nonetheless.
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| Dam side. |
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| Back side. |
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| Beach. We did not make it down there. See above. |
