Thinking About Old Spring Break Camping Trips...

Here's a photo of Pop, Cathy and travel trailer, made from the water during last fall's camp catfish on Lake Sam Rayburn. This week being spring break and hearing of families taking spring break trips brought to mind a spring camping trip our family took one time when the kids were little.

Detailed plans were made to camp at Caney Creek Park on Rayburn. We had never camped there before. A new place it required a pre-camp scouting trip to check out the facilities. This was a job that fell to me and my daughter Mary who must have been 4 years old at the time. We took an afternoon and drove down. A nice woodsy park, lots of trees, privacy looked good. May not be the same now as this park was hard hit by Hurricane Rita reportedly losing 60% of it's tree cover. At this time it was in fine shape. As we drove around the park, I scouted the water, reading sign of good fishing spots. I noticed a point here, a tree line there, a draw, a creek and a place where an old road bed entered the lake. All prime fish holding structure which with good bait, sharp hooks, scientific methods and copious use of fossil fuels it would be the perfect setting to perform the most favorite of human activities, the collapsing of unsuspecting ecosystems.

I stood on the lake bank, planning to set trot lines, and surveying the unsuspecting native species. Mary was by my side.

I gestured to a line of willow bushes, "I think I'll put my lines out over there."

Mary at my side, looked up with a serious child face and said, "Oh daddy, don't put out lions, they scare me."