Hello all, I’m looking for suggestions for my 4 day camping (tent or eno) trip this coming weekend. I’m from Houston and want to keep the drive around 4 hours so it seems my options have been limited to National places such as Big Thicket, Sabine, Angelina, and Sam Houston National Forest (since state parks are booked). I looked at Big Thicket but it seemed more like a day trip. The other places seemed to revolve around water activities which I’m not too interested in. Where is a good place to hike that has SECLUDED/primitive camping? Any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated!
A couple of friends and I went for a weekend camping trip at the big Thicket Preserve in East Texas. On our second day of camping we went out for a hike, and when we returned to our campsite we found this sweet black labrador waiting for us. He's a fairly large boy, so you can imagine how intimidated we were when we initially saw him. He didn't bark, didn't growl, but instead, he wagged his tail as we approached him. He had no collar, and we noticed how thin and weak he was so we fed and hydrated him with what we had. We also noticed that his eyes were cloudy and he had trouble finding his food. He even struggled to walk around the campsite without stumbling over tree roots. After he ate and drank water, he went straight to sleep next to my tent and was there when we woke up. The next day we packed up our equipment and started the 5-mile hike back to my car. He followed us all the way to the car wagging his tail and leading the way making sure we were behind him every 5 minutes. Since he's an old boy and probably belonged to someone, we decided to visit the nearby homes within a 5-10 mile radius to see if anyone was missing a dog. No one claimed him, so we brought him back home to Houston, bought him very nutritious wet food, and gave him a safe place to sleep. We also bought him flea and tick medication since he was covered in ticks and losing hair from scratching his flea bites. As soon as we could, we took him to a Vet to see if he was microchipped and also to check on his health. The Vet said he's about 10-12 years old and gave us a long list of health issues the poor boy has. So far, we have done as much as we could do for him with the money we have but because of quarantine restrictions, we don't have anywhere near the amount we need to get him back to good health soon. I am willing to keep this fella and give him the best last years he could have, but I need help with his heartworm treatment, deworming medication, ear infection medication, blood work, fecal work, and possibly dental work. Since he's been staying with us, his mood has significantly improved, but he's still in poor health conditions. As long as I can get him further examined, treated for heartworms, and get those infections taken care of, then I can easily give him the best remaining years of his life. Asking for donations was my last resort because I know times are tough for all of us. We've even reached out to friends and family for help, but if we
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Last Thursday I went for a trip to the Beech Creek Unit of Big Thicket National Preserve in east Texas. I wasn't planning on doing a lot of fungi hunting but there were so many lovely specimens out there that I decided to take some pictures. Sorry for the photo quality. I'm not an expert at ID by any means--I've taken a few guesses in the captions. Just sharing in case these are of interest to anyone.
The trail into the Beech Creek Unit
Not ID'd, apologies for photo quality
I wish I would have taken a picture of the stem, but they seemed very comfortable where they were
Hericium erinaceus? Could I have cooked these guys up with onions and butter?
Hello all, I’m looking for suggestions for my 4 day camping (tent or eno) trip this coming weekend. I’m from Houston and want to keep the drive around 4 hours so it seems my options have been limited to National places such as Big Thicket, Sabine, Angelina, and Sam Houston National Forest (since state parks are booked). Has anyone been to these places? I looked at Big Thicket but it seemed more like a day trip. The other places seemed to revolve primarily around water activities which I’m not too interested in. Does anyone know of a good place to hike that has SECLUDED/primitive camping? Any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated!
