camping... end of March... 'nuff said?

First run of the camping season... Whew!
Found my spot after dark on Friday night. Got off work and ran home, packed the cooler and my clothes, loaded the dog, convinced my room-mate to go, so I had to wait for him to pack his clothes, secured the apartment and headed out.
I was trying to go to Caddo lake which borders Louisiana and Texas. When we got there, the state park was booked up by boy scouts and the rest of the campsites were "under construction" so they wouldn't let us stay there. We checked out a couple of privately owned camp areas. The owners are only trying to accommodate the RVers, the tent camping spots are very open and public, right next to the road, so I vetoed them.
I decided to drive upstream to Lake O' The Pines Texas, I remember that being such a beautiful lake. We got there at about 8:00 pm, bought our two-day fishing licenses, and went to the park that is run by the Army Corps of Engineers. Alley Creek Park.
It was dark so we set up camp at the nearest spot that we could see next to the water. Turned out to be a great place.
As soon as we got the campsite set up, tent, air mattress, sleeping bags, cooler and kitchen, chairs, etc. It started to storm. We huddled in the tent and decided to wait it out.
The electrical storm was magnificent! A lightning bolt hit about 40 feet from the tent. Stripped a tree all the way down and threw shrapnel all over the place. large splinters hit the new tent, and Megabyte crawled into my sleeping bag and just shook all night long. He was a nervous wreck. Something woke me up and I opened my eyes and everything flashed white-orange and BOOM! It was amazing to be that close to a lightning strike.
The next morning was a little drizzly but I fired up the campfire and cooked breakfast and made coffee. We were on the water so we went fishing. My roommate caught a little crappie, but let it go. I caught a beautiful catfish. I cleaned her immediately and wrapped her in foil with some butter and seasoning. She was cooking before she even stopped twitching. That was lunch. Fresh catfish. Mmmm mmmm good.
I soaked a pot of beans and we fished all day. We lost a couple of bobbers and hooks at first. I caught a yellow bass, but it wrapped around some weeds. So I decided to wade out there to save the fish. I walked out into the lake about 40 feet. It was only up to my high-thighs. I rescued the fish and let him go, and fetched the lost bobbers and hooks. I also lost my fear of the lake water, so I spent the rest of the day up to my hips in the lake fishing.
That evening, I cooked up the beans and grilled a couple of t-bone steaks perfectly and we shared a bottle of Jack Daniels and talked lively by the campfire until about 9:30.
All of a sudden: the wind kicked up. It was a hard, sustained wind, I said this meant something was blowing in, so we secured camp and went into the tent. Immediately it started raining. Another lightning storm with wind and downpours lasted all night long and into the next morning. The mud was so deep that the tent stakes wouldn't stay in the ground. We kept securing the tent and it kept blowing up. At the end, we were packing all our mud-soaked stuff and throwing it into the truck. We were soaked wet and cold, but laughing all the way.
We had a great time, but it was quite the trip. Now I have to set all my equipment up and clean it out and re-pack for next weekend.
What a weekend. I'm bushed!
The Dog is glad to be home too.
MsAmber