Cold Weather near Austin, Texas

Location: Jim Hogg Corps of Engineers Campground; Georgetown, Texas (just north of Austin)

All pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 Cell Phone

I hitched up Sunday morning in a freezing drizzle with the temperature dropping since the cold front moved through during the night. The weather people lied to me again when said it wouldn't pass through the Dallas area until later in the morning. I had plans to empty my tanks on the way out of East Fork Campground but the cold mist and poor condition of the dump station quickly changed my mind. I had arrived with empty tanks so the tanks were only about half full. The difference in weight had I have emptied my tanks would only have been about 200 pounds so I wasn't worried about the weight. Instead of emptying them, I added about a quart of fabric softener to the grey and black tanks to help clean them with the shaking during the travel. I would have used Calgon water softener instead of fabric softener but I have a hard time finding that stuff at Walmart. When I arrived at the new campground (Jim Hogg), I used their dump station to empty tanks before going to my campsite. The dump station was a 100% improvement over East Fork's. Someone needs to write a letter to the Corps to let them know about the deplorable condition of East Fork Campground. It is an embarrassment to all Engineers everywhere. 

A dreary looking Lake Ray Hubbard off of I-30

I was able to grab the cell phone to take this picture of the tree on the right. It stood out like a sore thumb, even in the misting rain.

The cold front followed me all the way to Georgetown. It warmed up a little bit along the way but only to the upper 30's. The wind increased during the day and by the time I was setting up camp, the wind chill was in the upper teens. I'll be here for 6 nights with the first 3 of those nights getting down to the mid 20's. Liberty is OK down to 25 degrees without having to do anything special to keep the water lines from freezing. Luckily, 24 degrees is the lowest predicted, so I'm pretty sure I'll be ok. I have only used the furnace in Liberty a couple of times over the last 5 years. Mostly I'll kick it on just to see if it still works, then turn it off. I use two 1,500 watt ceramic heaters to heat Liberty. One on low and the other on medium will keep the temperature inside about 25 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. One on high and the other on medium will warm it almost 35 degrees about the outside temperature. So with a predicted low of 24 degrees, I should be able to keep it a toasty, 60 degrees inside. Of course, the 30 mile an hour wind gusts straight out of the north, changes those calculations a little bit. But the campground looks great with about 3/4 of the sites occupied, so everything is OK.

Setting up camp at Jim Hogg Campground. I outran the rain so it was at least dry, but the north wind was a cutting type of wind. It got deep into my bones. 

Looking around the backside of Liberty

A view out my peep window. It's about an 8 inch by 11 inch window located at the highest point of Liberty. 

I haven't found a nice "thinking bench" in a while, but have see a few nice trees. 

A drive around the campground.

There are a couple of things I want to see around this area that I missed last time I was here in 2015. If the weather cooperates, I may see them, if not, oh well, it's a reason to return. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.