Over the past year and a half, we’ve been exploring new state parks—trying to find fun places with nice camping and hikes within about 4 hours or so of home. We’ve been to quite a few, but to ease back into camping after a super hot summer, we opted to return to a couple of our favorites nearby. So in September, we spent a long weekend at Buescher State Park.
Buescher was actually the very first place we took Tourtoise when we got her, I believe, so that was a nice little commemoration. We really like this park because it’s pretty quiet with really woodsy camping spots. There aren’t many hikes within Buescher itself (although there are a couple of really great ones with beautiful overlooks!), but it’s adjacent to Bastrop State Park with a park road connecting the two. Bastrop has many more hikes, and we get access to both with an entrance to either.
We picked one of our favorite spots from last time: it is at one end of the curve that backs up to the lake. You have to walk a little way not on a trail, but it’s worth it to sit and enjoy the view and the birds.
While on this trip we tried out a few things worth mentioning.
1. The built-in tire pump on the Hare!
It was still quite hot (hitting over 100 each day), but our tire pressure warning went off as we set off to drive to the trailhead of a hike one day. It was a little surprising because usually that happens when it cools down for the season. But it was super easy to take care of because of this awesome Rivian feature.
The great news is… this is just SO EASY. Hook up the cord, set the pressure goal, and pump. We weren’t particularly low on any tire and the whole process took maybe 5-10 minutes total? We had a guy stop to chat about Rivians while we were airing up. I’m really still not used to being so popular for our vehicle. I’ve driven boring cars for so many years. It’s amusing-especially because I’m still not really a car person but it is a very cool car.
The only slight—very very slight complaint—is that the air compressor control doesn’t seem to work great. Sometimes it would stop before we got near the goal pressure. One time it went well over the goal, so we had to let air out. I ended up just stopping to check it occasionally on the screen instead of letting it run automatically. Even with that little hiccup, it’s still such a great feature and easy to use.
2. Our shower tent!!
After one of our 2022 trips, we realized outdoor showering could be handy—if really dirty from a hike and don’t want to track it inside or after swimming or just because we want to spray down really quick because it’s hot. The Tourtoise does have an external hose, so we bought a shower tent a number months ago and just hadn’t used it yet. This time we intentionally set it up and used it. And it’s so pleasant.
Like I mentioned earlier, it was still very hot on this trip. We would get up early-ish, to get a hike in before it hit the peak heat. But even then, it was in the mid to high 90s and sunny while we hiked. We kept the hikes short (around 45 minutes to an hour), but still were soaked in sweat by the end. At our campsite, we had lunch, then hung out outside in some kind of shade, bird-watching and reading.
Then when it got close to cooling down, we took a shower outside, washing away all that sweat and heat. It’s just a nice camping experience. Watching birds and looking at trees while taking a shower.
I felt a little bad because we didn’t use a gray water bin (although we did specifically use an appropriate outdoor camping-approved shower wash). So as soon as we got home and knew we would be using this again, we bought a foldable gray catch. It fits perfectly, is a few inches high on the edges, lets us catch the water, and is easy to transport.
Great animal watching
We had some really great animal and bird watching on this trip too. We got great views (and sounds) of Pileated Woodpeckers, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, Green Heron, and the more common species. No cuckoo this time though.
In addition, we saw several species of lizards and this velvet ant (maybe the Klug?) that apparently has a wildly painful sting!
Overall, an excellent trip with a few new test successes.
