This was a big shopping day for us. While Alea was cycling to our stopping point, I made a detour to Crazy Cat Cyclery to drop off my bike to have my chain replaced and to get my shifters adjusted. Once I had done that, we met at Harbor Freight, where for $25 we got a tarp, bungees and tent pegs that we will attach to our awning as a sun/wind break so that we don't need to worry about how the van is oriented in order to get adequate shade (too often we need a means of screening out the western sun). Next it was a nearly complete grocery restock at Walmart.
From there we drove to Franklin Mountain State Park, where we eventually camped at one of the picnic sites ($8, primitive, pit toilets). They have an RV area, but it was a long ways to the nearest toilet. We were considering parking near one of the tent campsites when the ranger based by. When Alea explained how we were wanting to be near a toilet because of her bad knee, he took us over to the picnic area and pointed out a few different sites that we could use for the night.
Once we were finally set up, I headed off for Walmart again, this time to get the oil changed. I was a bit pressed for time, since the park gates close at 5 pm. But fortunately, they got that turned around very quickly.
Next, it was over to the bike shop, in the hope that the repairs had been made and it was ready to go. They were just finishing up when I got there, and said that adjusting the rear derailleur had taken a lot longer than planned. They would get it shifting correctly on one side of the rear cassette, and then the shifting would be off on the other side of the cassette. They eventually deduced that the new derailleur cable that had been replaced in Fort Wayne, IN had a couple of extra loops of wire hidden inside the down tube (someone fed the cable through incorrectly). They replaced that and now the bike shifts flawlessly, which is good, since we are headed for the mountains very soon.
One final stop to get some cheap gas (thanks to GasBuddy), then it was back to the campground shortly before 4:30. There was construction work being done on the main highway through the state park, and they had already closed off the park entrance with jersey barriers. With no direct means of access to the park, I was befuddled. But the barriers eventually ended, and it was clear that they had left a means of exiting the park. So I did a roughly twelve-point turn in order to drive the wrong way uphill and into the park.
Lana was once again our source of discovering wildlife. While I was gone she had discovered a "horny toad" (western great horned toad). We used to find them often when I lived at Vandenburg Air Force Base, CA in the 1960s. I was six years old then, so my memory was that they were much bigger than they actually are.
It turned out that we had the whole park to ourselves. So we relaxed and enjoyed a nice sunset. It cooled off nicely after that, allowing us to have our first campfire in quite a while (all of the campsites we had visited in the past week did not allow fires).
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