Filigree, Apogee, Pedigree, Perigee...

Well, yeah, sometimes life is just. Like. That.  Within 20 minutes of finishing fall VECCON at work on Friday, the familiar and horrid vision-squiggle of a migraine appeared.  I was determined to go camping this weekend (I needed the break from stress, obviously) so I double-dosed my Replax, downed a coca-cola (for the caffeine - I haven't drank coke or regular coffee for years now) and donned the ice helmet that R(m)B(r) sent me and shuffled my way into the truck. We were going to Brazos Bend State Park, only a little over an hour from home, and thankfully the above attempt at aborting the traditional migraine path worked long enough for us to arrive, get set up, and for me to crash on the couch.

I slept 12 hours straight.

Saturday I woke: slow, stiff, still exhausted, and with the typical brain-in-a-bucket mental fog and it-hurts-when-I-move-physically-bruised-brain-pain aftermath of a migraine.  At least we were camping. At least I had the love of my life gently caring for me (as he always does). Armed with extra strength Advil, tons of water, and loads of patience, I was ready to face the day! take it easy and do a whole lot of not much. 

No trip to Brazos Bend is complete without a gator sighting.

We drove into town for a matinee showing of the latest James Bond movie: No Time To Die (I wore earplugs to dampen out the sound).  We'd been 'preparing' for this by watching all of the other Daniel Craig Bond movies over the past week; this was a fitting end to an amazing character arc.  (Spoiler alert: you might cry when it ends.)

We hung out in the camper, and I did a little bit of loose watercolor painting - the Drawing Lab as a part of VECCON inspiring me to participate in creative work as a way to relax and refocus.

We hadn't geocached in this park, so later in the afternoon we went over to the Nature Center and grabbed two quick caches that were easily off the main trail.  I was giddy when one of the caches had a hippo hidden in it! I'll put him beside our other House Hippo in the camper. (I found our first House Hippo in the dirt at another campground.) 

The main event this weekend, though, and why I wasn't willing to just veg on the couch at home after the migraine hit on Friday, was the chance to be at this specific park on International Observe the Moon Night. 

I've written up a separate post for that here, and including a bunch of fun photos from the event.  You can read my post from last year's event here, too! It's been so neat that we've been camping for both of these nights - I'll have to make it a point to plan for that again next year!

Back at the campsite, we enjoyed the cooler evening weather (yeah, 60* nights!) and had a chance to try out our BlueSky portable fire pit for the first time - and, y'all, I LOVE it!  It uses wood pellets (same as what we use in our pellet smoker) and a 2" layer will burn for ~35-40 minutes with a minimal amount of ash left over.  I love that it's so contained, super easy to light, and that you can time it to a specific amount of time and not be held captive to a fire with wood logs all night long. This is a game changer for me!

Sunday we slept in. Had (decaf) coffee and tea. Roasted jalapeno poppers. Went for a drive thru the park for RDB's YouTube channel and I worked on getting the blog posts ready to go.  BTW - I've proofed about three times and think I caught all the grammar and spelling errors (another downside to my form of migraines: there's a lingering brain fog makes speaking/typing/talking difficult for a few days afterwards). So, forgive me if things look a little... off.  I just needed a break.

We were at Brazos Bend State Park, Burr Oak camping loop site #110 (50a/W). Really liked this site backing in - it's three parking spaces wide and very level!  I think I told RDB at least four times "I really like this site." (Again, migraine - makes me an annoying little kid b/c I can't remember if I've actually said the thing I was thinking out loud or not, so I say stuff over and over.) As we're sitting here in the late afternoon on Sunday (we always buy the extra day) I'm torn b/c I don't want to leave! It's not that I'm not excited about going back to work - I have a new hire starting tomorrow, yeah! - it's that I really love being surrounded by the trees, the lush greens, the beautiful weather, and the incredible moon and stars at night.

Oh well ...  till next time. 

We've been to Brazos Bend State Park several times (and in several different rigs) before:

Back to Brazos Bend, Rainbows and Stars and Bikes and Trains, Going Back for Seconds, and Super "Brazos" Weekend

For more camping photos, go here.

*And bonus points if you remember where today's title comes from.