Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: My Site Mates

 

 

 Notwithstanding COVID, I was not alone in my campsite. Strangers pushed into my corona bubble. 

The night before my departure from Lake Livingston State Park, as I sat outside in the gloaming, I felt-heard a small rustling beneath my chair. Discounted it. Then I heard it again. Pulled out my phone and hit the flashlight feature. Who - what - goes there? I panned the leafy floor. 

A frog. 

 

 

The next morning, as I broke camp, other site mates revealed themselves. 

Tucked into the space between my tent roof and the rain fly, a walking stick.  

Gripping the side of my colorful tablecloth - a sentimental artifact from the road trip my daughter and I took to Alaska when she was 16 - a green lizard. 

 

Neither the walking stick nor the lizard gave me any mind. 

 

Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: A Wee Walk

 

Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

On my Voting Pilgrimage to Deep East Texas, I camped at Lake Livingston State Park for several nights. 

On Sunday, I took a wee walk on the park's Pineywoods Boardwalk trail. 

A bit drizzly, but I'd brought my umbrella with me in the event of an actual rain.

A lizard on a trash receptacle cheered me, as the sight of lizards always does. 

Lizard, Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

 

Ooooh, and a mushroom that looks like a golf ball on a tee! 

Mushroom, Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

My online research does not culminate in an ID consensus, but the closest description seems to belong to amanita subcokeri.