Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Day 3: Magic Kingdom

Today's park was the Magic Kingdom.

Our tent in the daylight.  I'll have more to say about camping this time around later.

Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Days 1 & 2: Road Trip

I suppose it's finally time to begin posts about our Thanksgiving trip to Disney World.  I suppose I've been delaying because it wasn't a very good trip, and in hindsight it would have been better to stay at home and spend Thanksgiving with our families.  I'm not advocating against traveling during a holiday, but this particular excursion was not worth it.  In the end, I'm glad we went the year prior on a camping practice run as it was a much better experience.

Our plan this time was to spend two days on the road going to Florida, stopping at a hotel in Pensacola for the night, then six days of camping at Disney World.  That would be followed by three days driving home with overnight camping at the same campgrounds from the previous year:  O'Leno State Park in Florida and Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi.

Apologies in advance for any typos - I'm competing with Selkie, one of our cats, for control of the keyboard.  That cat, there:

An older photo of the perpetrator taken after a hard day's work of stomping all over the keyboard

Now, on with the show.

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 5: Going Home

It was time for our desert adventure to come to an end.  We packed up camp and readied ourselves for the long drive home.

One last look at our campsite...or what you can see of it from the parked car

Desert, facility buildings including housing, mountains

Yucca in bloom

One last stop at the Panther Junction Visitor Center 

On the way home...

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Thanks for reading!

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 4, Part 2: After Hiking

We finished out the day with a stop at the hot spring on the way to the shower, and a sunset viewing gathering.

Back at camp, walking to our campsite

A short while later, driving through the desert to the hot spring which comparatively is a refreshing 105°F

Coming Soon

Just returned from a Thanksgiving! camping trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando.  I'll finish up (finally) the Big Bend posts then move on to Disney.  Stay tuned.

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 3, Part 3: Back At Camp

Picking up where I left off from our May camping trip at Big Bend National Park.

Back at camp and what to do for lunch?  We decided to forgo our pre-packaged, just-add-boiling-water meals and eat in the lodge's restaurant.

Just FYI:  the gift shop/lobby/restaurant area of the lodge had a very unpleasant odor - it wasn't a natural gas smell, nor was it a broken sewer main kind of smell - maybe if you blended those two together?  At any rate, we didn't ask and pressed on, because...food.  We quickly got used to the smell.

The food was good.  I had a turkey wrap and I think Todd had a burger.  After lunch we hung around the lodge area for a while following the shade as best we could.

Finally, we decided to go for a drive.

We started off on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, a 30-mile drive that would have led us down to the Rio Grande River.  I say would have because we didn't get to the river before we spotted smoke in the distance.  Then we spotted a lot of smoke in the distance.

This was May 22nd, the day the Castolon Fire jumped the Rio Grande and started burning toward the Castolon Historic District in the park.  The fire would burn 944 acres over 11 days, destroying several historic buildings in the process.  Of course we didn't know that at time - we just saw smoke and some passing emergency vehicles.

We reached the Castolon Visitor Center area, which was closed for the season and deserted, and pulled in to watch the growing smoke.  At that point we decided to turn around and go back.

Here's what that area looked like a short time later:

photo from nps.gov

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 3, Part 2: Second Hike

Todd was up when I got back to camp so we made breakfast on the stove (sandwiches with english muffin, scrambled egg, cheese and Canadian bacon - homemade egg McMuffins).  Afterwards we cleaned up, filled up our water bottles and drove to the Lost Mine Trail trailhead.

The view from the trailhead parking lot

Gaining elevation

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 3, Part 1: First Hike

I was up early, so while Todd slept in I went for a hike - shortly down the Window trail there's a fork that leads up to the lodge.  It was about a 2 mile round trip back to camp.

Much better before the sun's overhead

The moon is still prominent

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 2, Part 2: After The Hike

Back at camp we were at a loss as to how to spend the rest of the day.  After about an hour we grabbed our go bags, piled in the FJ and decided to drive to the showers.  At the other campground.

Which was 29.5 miles away.

Yep, that's right

The only available showers for campers are located at the Rio Grande Village campsite.  For $2.00 in quarters you can take a 5-minute shower and they're open 24-hours a day.

We originally weren't planning on taking showers; we had brought washcloths and towels to sponge off in the bathroom using the sink.  However we were covered in sunscreen and bug spray, had a ton of time to kill, and wanted to take a drive to see more of the park anyway, so why not?

By the way, if that Google satellite photo above looks like the surface of some other planet to you, you'll be interested to know that Big Bend was one of the locations used by NASA as a moon substitute to train astronauts for the Apollo 11 mission.  Per a quote on the Big Bend Book Store webpage:

"[T]he astronauts were brought along in two separate groups... through the field areas on April 2-3, and April 15-16, 1964. The trip continued the basic geology study by requiring interpretation and mapping of well-exposed structural and stratigraphic relationships. Also included was an introduction to volcanic rocks along the Rio Grande River west of Big Bend National Park... On the first day they mapped two folded and faulted structures on aerial photos. On the second day there were four stops, two at road cuts of layered volcanic lavas and ash flows, a third at Bee Mountain to study an igneous intrusion, and a fourth at Santa Elena Canyon to study a large fault scarp." 

But it's a dry heat

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 2, Part 1: The Hike

I'll start with a quick word about our initial impression by the time we had arrived and set up camp.

It was hot (thankfully we were in the hills where it's about 10° cooler than down in the desert - where it reached a high of about 109 while we were there), and bright, with little shade, and a never-ending stream of flies, mosquitos and other flying bugs.  I mean, a ridiculous amount of flying bugs.  When in camp we had to wear insect repellent, which we had brought but hoped we wouldn't have to use much.

Some of the campsites have covered picnic tables, but not all (including ours, which we knew in advance).  We had brought a canopy that attaches to the back of our vehicle or can be set up as a sort of lean-to, but neither application worked:  A.) The campsite was not adjacent to the car - there was a short, curving uphill path to get from the road to the site.  B.)  When not attached to the car the canopy uses two tall poles on one end, with the other end being staked to the ground.  The slightest breeze made this unstable even though we had it staked/tied/secured very well.  In the end we had to pack it up.  Without the canopy I was more worried about the sun than the heat.  As an alternative we moved our camp chairs down by the road under the shade of a tree when we were at camp for any length of time.  The upside of this is that we got to meet the camp hosts as they walked by and who were super-nice.  We had a great conversation with them.

The campsites are non-electric and don't have water.  The bathrooms of course have water and also have a sink area for washing dishes, but they don't have showers (more on this later).  Knowing this in advance, we brought a 5-gallon jerry can and several smaller containers of water.  Turns out we didn't need to worry as about every 5 campsites there was a water spigot for everyone's use with a 5 gallon per-person per-day limit.  This was a definite plus!

Oh, there are also bear lockers at each campsite as black bears call the park home.  We saw plenty of fresh bear scat during our stay, but did not see an actual bear.  We also didn't see any of the other potentially dangerous park wildlife such as tarantulas, scorpions, mountain lions or rattlesnakes.  I felt both relieved and cheated at the same time.

Ok, enough of that.  We got up on this day and planned to hike The Window, a 5.6 mile "moderate" round trip trail.  We had a healthy breakfast of pop tarts, filled up our water bottles and walked to the trailhead which was near our campsite.

Panoramic from the trail leading to the bathroom.  Our blue tent is just visible to the left of center.

Here we go

Camping At Big Bend National Park 2019 - Day 1

In May of this year we went for the first time to Big Bend National Park in West Texas to camp.  As described on the National Park Service website:

"There is a place in Far West Texas where night skies are dark as coal and rivers carve temple-like canyons in ancient limestone.  Here, at the end of the road, hundreds of bird species take refuge in a solitary mountain range surrounded by weather-beaten desert.  Tenacious cactus bloom in sublime southwestern sun, and diversity of species is the best in the country.  This magical place is Big Bend..."

That pretty much sums it up.

We got an early start that morning and drove about 9 hours across Texas to get there around 3:30pm.

Thumbs-up for wind energy!

We packed a lunch and stopped to eat just south of Fort Stockton at a little picnic area on a hill

Couldn't have picked a better spot

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 9

This was it - our last day on the road.  We got up early, shook off the cold, packed up camp and drove about 10hrs (with stops) to get home.

Blue skies are calling me home

"North 49, Mile 125"
Near Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish), Louisiana

We had a really great trip and I'm glad we got to go with Mom.  I think my biggest takeaways from this trip were:

• Disney World has become much more crowded.  It's true what they say that there really isn't a slow time or season anymore.  Just plan the best you can and be prepared to make the most of it.
• Camping and going to the park wasn't a problem at all.  True you can't really head back to your tent in the middle of the hot day to rest/take a nap, but if needed you could easily camp out in a comfy chair in the lobby of any of the myriad of hotels around the property.
• The hardest part of the trip, and the hardest to adjust to, was the temperature swing from the traveling phase of the trip to the destination portion.  Planning to camp in 80-90° weather is one thing, planning to camp in 30-40°, then 80-90°, then 30-40° again weather is something else.  It didn't help that our travel days ended up being colder than originally forecast, and our Disney days were hotter than they were predicted to be.  I suppose if we had an unlimited amount of space and could fully pack for both extremes it would have been more comfortable, but as it was we did the best with what we had.
• And that's it.  You can only learn 3 lessons from any given situation - additional enlightenment would just be ridiculous.

I'll circle back around to compare/contrast once we take the next trip with our friends.  Hope you enjoyed.

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 8

The next morning we packed up and stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast.  Lunch was also eaten on the road and eight-some-odd hours later we arrived back at Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi.

Camp set-up didn't take too long, then around 5:00pm we headed into Bay St. Louis to eat once more at Cuz's Old Town Oyster Bar & Grill.  Delicious again.

Back at camp we cleaned up and settled in for a last brisk (but thankfully not as bad as on the way to Disney) night.  As we were getting ready to bed down there was a wicked loud drunken verbal fight happening a few campsites down that lasted for over an hour until someone finally came to quiet them down.  Or they wore themselves out - not sure which.

Tents are pitched

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 7

This was our last day at Disney World.  We got up, broke camp, cleaned up, and drove to the Reception Outpost to check out.  At checkout we confirmed that we could leave the car in the campground's overflow parking lot, which we did.  Then we caught the bus to Animal Kingdom.

We originally planned to spend a half-day this day at Hollywood Studios to bookend the half-day we had there when we arrived, but the night before we decided to go to Animal Kingdom again instead because we enjoy that park more (particularly the walk-through Maharajah Jungle Trek).  So off we went.

Tree of Life

Dinosaur, my favorite

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 5

Animal Kingdom was next on our agenda, and this would be our first time to experience Pandora - The World of Avatar.

Wildlife in the campground

Cardinal

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 4

The next day we went to Epcot and met our friend Jackie who lives in Orlando.  She's always gracious and spends a day with us when we come to Disney - good times!

This was the last day of the 2018 Food & Wine Festival so we spent the day eating around Epcot.  A lot.  We had done this a few years back at Disneyland's California Adventure and had a good time, so we were looking forward to it here at Disney World.

I can't find my festival passport at the moment, but even without it I can remember 2 clear standouts:  The Chateau Des Charmes Vidal Icewine, Niagara-on-the-Lake from the Canada pavilion (good), and the Croissant Doughnut with Chocolate and Marshmallows (bad).  To be fair the doughnut was probably good when it was fresh, but it was so, so stale when we ate it.

Not a lot of pictures from this day:

Todd waiting for the bus at the campgrounds

The Epcot entry plaza.  This is currently under renovation and the giant "Leave a Legacy" monoliths are being moved to open up the space more.

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Days 1-3

How this trip came about:

1. We agreed to go to Walt Disney World in 2019 with our friends Holly and Brian and their three kids (see posts from our 2013 Disney trip with them starting here).
2. Todd and I have had a lot a fun camping recently and decided that the two of us would camp at Disney World and on the drives there and back.
3. Being not sure what camping and theme-parking at the same time would be like, and not wanting to combine that first-time experience/stress with traveling with another family, we decided to do a test run in 2018.
4. We invited my mom to come along.

On our first day we got an early start for our 8.5 hour drive and picked Mom up at her house.  We already had most of her gear and had packed it in the car the night before.  We got on the road and had an pleasant enough / uneventful drive to Buccaneer State Park in Waveland, Mississippi - our camp site for the night.

A drizzle around Baton Rouge

Buccaneer State Park sits on the Gulf of Mexico.  Almost completely destroyed by hurricane Katrina in 2005, it underwent an extensive 8-year renovation.