OutdoorTxs Blog

Blog 9 -Labor Day at PK

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 02:44:52 GMT

End of Summer Camp

The summer season is wrapping up. Of course, we had to close it out with a group camp with some fellow Bushwhackers.

Made some plans to meet up with the Texas Bushwhacker crew at Possum Kingdom State Park for a weekend camp. The weather was balmy and cloudy as I made the drive, and no more than 20 min after we arrived, the clouds opened up and dumped a surprise shower on us as I was setting up camp. Can't say I was too upset about it tho, as that cool shower was a welcome relief to that summer heat.

Once camp was established, we dragged our coolers over to our friend Mike’s site and set up under the covered picnic table to hang out and hydrate. After a few drinks, I walked across the road to the bathrooms for a quick potty break. As I walked in, I was blasted with loud Spanish music blaring out of what looked like a guitar amp, set up in the corner. No one else was around, and I have no idea who did this or why. I went back to the table and was laughing, telling the guys about the audio assault in the men's room. They had seen it earlier, so its been playing for a while. Mike was later looking up reviews of the park, and surprisingly, someone left a comment about Spanish music playing in the men's bathroom! Maybe this is part of the park amenities?

The next morning, a few of our friends, who had been at the campsite a couple of days prior, were packing up to leave. We bid them safe journeys home, and then hit the lake to cool off. Some had brought kayaks and were paddling around, while we sat on some rocks in the shallows and splashed around my dog, Chewster. He isn't much of a water lover, but he did have his first swim, although not by choice.

Blog 8 - Return to Spider City

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 05:32:57 GMT

Back to Lake Arrowhead State Park for a weekend camp, with the second night planned at Fort Richardson State Park. It's just me and my dog, Chuey, this trip, as my wife and daughter opted to avoid the spiders and stay home.

I pulled into the campsite, a series of small loops, each containing a few sites in a ring coming off a main road. I had water and electrical hookups to run the AC. This was the middle of summer after all, and temps were pushing 100 degrees. I was also within walking distance of the bathrooms, which were clean and well-maintained, a benefit in most of the Texas State Parks. I got Chuey set up with some cool water and a bowl of food, and whipped up some quick bean burritos for dinner. The drive was long, and with the evening sun finally switching from broil, to keep warm, we were ready to kick back and relax. Unfortunately for us, a youth group had set up camp in the neighboring campsite, a few yards away. Normally, not a big deal, except they had lots of activities going on, which mostly consisted of singing along to loud music, clapping, and occasional yelling. It wasn't quite the evening I had hoped for, but I didn't want to disrupt their praise and worship, so I made the most of it and even found myself joining in after a while. (The singing, not the yelling.)

My belly full, I pulled into the park and made our way to our site. I didn't do a full setup this time, instead opting to just park the trailer so I could tour the fort before closing time. Dogs are not allowed on the grounds of the fort, so I left Chuey in the trailer with the air conditioner running, so he could have a nice nap while I toured the grounds. It was a self-guided tour across a huge open field with multiple buildings that were somewhat restored and decorated to resemble the time period. It was actually a pretty cool experience, despite it being almost 100 degrees. I was mostly alone on this tour, which made some of the old buildings, like the morgue, a little creepy. As I made my way back to the entrance, I noticed the main building had an AC, so I stopped by to cool off. Inside, I met a park ranger, who shared some stories about the history of the fort, the way of life for the people living there, and about the constant threat from the Comanche Indians. It was some pretty interesting stuff.

After the tour, I returned to the trailer to join Chuey in the AC. We killed a little time with the Nintendo Switch before climbing out for some dinner. After our meal, we went for a short walk, and then drove over to check out the fishing pond. This is a quarry lake, surrounded by large boulders with steep ledges. A small but beautiful pond. We arrived kinda late, so we only had about half an hour of daylight to fish, but it was good to get a line wet, and Chuey needed to get out and stretch his legs. As the sun set, we retired back to the trailer to tuck in, put on a movie, and get some sleep.

Morning came early, and I broke out the Omina Oven to make some cinnamon rolls, along with a cup of coffee. I poured Chuey a bowl of kibble and sat down to enjoy my breakfast before packing up the trailer and preparing to head out.

All in all, this was a great trip. Getting some good food, visiting old friends, and checking off another state park made this trip worth the drive. These are great parks that I would like to revisit in the spring or fall when the temps are milder, and the fishing is better. I think my daughter would have liked the old building at the fort. Ill have to bring her with me next time for lesson in Texas History.

Blog 7 - Welcome to Spider City

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 02:47:03 GMT

During the night, Lucy started running a fever. My wife had been monitoring her, and giving her medicine every 4 hours. At about 4 am Lucy was feeling particularly ill, and ended up vomiting in the bed. We cleaned up best we could, put down some towles, and gave her another dose of meds. The next morning we broke down camp after a quick breakfast and made our way back home. I called from the road and canceled the reservation. Fort Richardson State Park would have to wait for another weekend.

To this day, I cant walk outside barefoot at night.

#6 Summer Vacation

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 22:23:41 GMT

It's our summer vacation, and this year, we are taking the Pathfinder to Camp Fimfo in New Braunfels TX. It's a long drive, especially pulling an RV, so we broke up the drive with a night at Abilene State Park. It's almost halfway, and it's also one of our favorite state parks, so it's a win-win.

We pulled in early evening, with enough time to set up and get some dinner before turning in for the night. The next morning, Lucy made friends with a couple of boys who were camping across from us with their family. They came within 15 feet of our camp, which is an invitation to come and play as far as Lucy is concerned. The dad complimented my truck so that instantly made us friends, and I walked over to converse. As we chatted away, one of the boys took a spill off the picnic table at our camp, and cut his head, spilling blood on his shirt and freaking all of us out! Thankfully he was ok, and they got him cleaned up. Monica was making burritos, so we rolled up a few extra and took them to our neighbors. With our bellies full, we said our goodbyes, loaded up the trailer, and hit the road.

#5 Solo Camp at Merus Adventure

Thu, 16 May 2024 04:50:05 GMT

Although I love to camp with my family, sometimes a solo trip is in order. That’s exactly what was on the agenda for this weekend. I loaded up the teardrop, stocked up the fridge, and me and my dog Chewster set out for a quick over night camp at Merus Adventure Park.

#4 3rd Annual Texas Bushwhacker Meet Up

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 20:07:42 GMT

St Paddys day weekend 2024. For the 3rd year in a row, friends Mike, Misty, Jenn and myself hosted a meet up for Texas Bushwhacker owners. The first two years were small gatherings, held at the Oxford Ranch in Llano, Tx, and averaged around 8-10 trailers. This year, we moved the event to the 4R Ranch Vineyard and Winery in Muenster, Tx. My buddy Mike, who did much of the leg work for the event, did an excellent job with the venue and reservations, even booking a live band. This year’s event brought in a staggering 25 trailers, and 30+ attendees that came from all over the country to camp with us. Many new friendships, and memories were made that weekend.

We left on a Thursday and made the trek to Munster Tx. 5 hours, and about 13 potty stops later, we pulled into the 4R Ranch. It was around 7pm when we cross the gates, and drove over the hill, and rounded a corner to the campground. We were greeted by a field of Bushwhackers lining a dirt road that stretched through a rolling plain. It was a pretty sweet sight to see. We cruised down the beaten road, looking for a level spot to set up camp, waving at all the familiar faces. We've communicated with many of these owners in the Facebook group and shared many pics of our camps over the years, but we had never had the pleasure of meeting them, until now. We eagerly found a spot and I began to set up camp while Monica and Lucy got the inside of the trailer ready. The long travel day took its toll on them, so they retired to bed early, while I joined some fellow campers at the community campfire for some welcome drinks and got acquainted with some new friends.

Sunday Morning came early. Travel day. A bittersweet time. On one hand, we were ready to be home, but on the other hand, we didn’t want to leave this great camp site, and part with all our new friends. We took our time getting the day started, making our breakfast as some of the other campers were hitching up to their tow rigs, getting ready to leave. We started breaking down camp, packing up the truck, as one by one, the trailers trekked through the mud on their way out of the campground. It became a spectacle, and we would pause what we were doing every time someone else drove by, spinning tires and sliding around in the mud. The campground slowly emptied, as each trailer made its way out. We eventually got everything loaded up, hitched up the trailer and did one last pass through camp, saying goodbye to the few remaining friends, that had yet to leave.

How different that bustling campground looked, now just a soggy field, with a muddy road leading out the gate. The community bon fire, now just a blackened ring on the ground, lie dormant, waiting for the next group to bring it back to life. This was the heart of the event. The main meeting place for friends new and old. One of my favorite memories from the weekend, for sure. This event was a huge success, and I couldn’t be more proud of the gang for putting this together. The bar was definitely raised, and I’m so stoked for next year’s meet.

Abeline State Park with the Texas Bushwhacker Executive Board

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 08:13:43 GMT

I met this group of friends in a facebook group for Bushwhacker trailer owners. We often posted about modifications and fixes for these teardrops, and bounced ideas off each other, eventually forming friendships. After months of online communication, we talked about having a meet up for group members in Texas. One of the members, Mike, suggest a public campground called the Oxford Ranch. We set a date, sent out invites within the facebook group, and the 1st annual Texas Bushwhacker Meet Up was held. We've since camped together multiple times, and plan the annual meet up for the Texas members. We've jokingly dubbed ourselves the Texas Bushwhacker Executive Board.

This past weekend, we had the opportunity to camp together once again. We chose Abilene State park, as it was a more central location to all of us. We reserved some spots in the wagon wheel camp ground, which is a circular camp ground that surrounds an activity building and bathrooms. The forecast called for much cooler temps, and below freezing temps over night, so we loaded up some cold weather gear and hit the road. We arrived on friday, a day after the rest of the crew. Pulling into the campsite, we were met with quite the surprise! There was an extra trailer parked at the end. It was none other than the resident youtuber, Brian, from DIY OutdoorLife. Now I've communicated with Brian online many times before, but never met him in person. I mean, he lives in New York for crying out loud! But, as luck would have it, he happened to be in Santa Fe NM that weekend, and decided he would make the drive to come camp and hang out with us. We were all glad he did! His YouTube channel is loaded with tips and DIY's for teardrops, and even a few walk throughs of other owners set ups. I actually had the privilege of being featured in a video that should be on his channel soon, so make sure and check it out here - DIY OUTDOOR LIFE

#2 Catching up

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 05:23:27 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

Its a new year. Exactly 3 years since the last blog post, to be exact. I didn't mean to neglect the blog like I did, but what can I say....I was "busy". A lot has changed in the past 3 years since I started this website. Its undergone a few facelifts, as my preferences have changed, and my knowledge in web design has grown. We completely redesigned our shop, with a whole new website, supplier, payment system etc.. and I'm pretty proud of it. But lets catch up on the past 3 years, and our plans for the future of this website.

The Gear - We've made some changes to our set ups over the past few years. In '21 we decided we'd like a bit more room than the teardrop provided. More so, Wifey wanted a bathroom and shower, so we found a purchased a brand new 21ft Zinger Lite RV. We enjoyed the trailer, and took it on many trips through the Texas Hill Country, and some of our favorite state parks. After a couple years, I decided that it was alil longer than I wanted to tow, and was more of a pavement princess; so in spring of '23, we traded it in for 18ft Mallard pathfinder. Single Axle, off road suspension, winter package, and solar panels and inverter on board, made this a much better option for us. We've spent many nights in it, and enjoy it quite a bit. Of course, we still have the teardrop for those quick weekend, and overland trips.

The business - OutdoorTxs_Apparel has made some big strides over the past couple years. Our original supplier went through a buy out, and as expected, the services and quality suffered. Shipments were taking 2-4 weeks longer to arrive, and the printing was outsourced to cheaper facilities, which resulted in a big drop in quality. I made the decision to move the entire operation to a new printer, and completely rebuilt the store website from scratch. It was a big investment in both time and money, but in the end, well worth the effort. I now have much more control over the quality of materials, printing, and order fulfillment. We've updated the payment system to accept cards, apple pay, and also in person transactions. We were recently invited to San Antonio Tx to attend a shop and swap at Base Camp Provisions, which was amazing. We took a small selection of t-shirts, hoodies, caps and beanies and sold a lot. We also struck a deal with Baker outdoors, in Lubbock tx, to stock some of our caps on their shelves. Its been a great deal working with those guys, and we look forward to continued partnership. If you'd like to check out our shop, or support our small business, you can do so here - www.ShopOutdoorTxs.com

Dad - In sept '23, we lost my dad to cancer. He fought for years, and at some points, made a lot of progress. He was so strong, and fought so hard, as long as he could. He was, and always will be my hero. He had things his way, as he didn't want to be in a hospital, and was released on hospice care. He passed peacefully in the night, in his home. The wounds are still fresh, as we just had our first Thanksgiving, and Christmas without him. Though it still hurts, I do find peace knowing he is in paradise, and that i will see him again. We spent a lot of time together in his final weeks. talking, praying, and reminiscing. Mom tells me how proud he was of me. He would boast to his friends about our truck and trailer set up, and our small business, proudly sporting our sticker on his truck. Making him proud was all I ever wanted to do, and so I so happy that i can feel like I did. Making him a grandpa, was probably the best thing I ever did for him. He loved his grand daughter so much, and Ill make sure she always remembers that. I miss him so much its crazy, but I know he is still with us. When a light flickers while I'm working in the shop, or putting something together for Lucy, I look up and smile, and acknowledge him. Before he got sick, we had been planning on taking a fishing trip, catching some crappie and having a fish fry there at the lake. I'm still going to take that trip. Ill pull up an extra seat, and set out a plate for him, cause i know he'll be there with me.

Goals - Going forward, I plan to be more active in the blog. One of the main reason we started this website, was to document memories for our daughter, and a blog is probably one of the best ways to do that. With my wife's budding photography skills, we plan to make a new blog post with photos on all our of trips, just to remember the times we had, and serve as a digital memory of those moments. as time goes on, and we improve in our abilities, I hope this part of the website continues to evolve. I regret that we've missed the last 3yrs, but live and learn.

So there it is. A quick recap of the time we've missed, and our goals going forward. Thank you to anyone who found this interesting enough to make it this far. If you'd like to follow along on our adventures, consider following our socials, and check back here often for the latest blog post. I wish you all an amazing 2024.

Our First Year - Post #1

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 05:07:42 GMT

how it started

In Oct of 2019, I was up late at night with our 11 month old daughter, watching YouTube videos on this thing called overlanding. I've always loved being outdoors, so this instantly had my attention. Sitting there in the dark, with my little one sleeping in her bassinet beside me, i started thinking of all the adventures i wanted to take her on. all the fun we would have. all the memories we would make. I thought how cool it would be, if we could document all the trips, the milestones, the adventures, and keep it all online, so that my little girl could reflect on them when she was older. over the next few weeks, my wife and i discussed the types of things we enjoyed doing outdoors, and how we could digitize those memories with our little girl. i designed a logo, gave it a name, bought the domain, and in January of 2020, Outdoortxs was born.

We set up social media pages, and started posting pics of fishing trips to various lakes in our area. Picked up a couple of sponsors (titan tungsten, and Falcon hooks) and things were off to a good start. We had purchased an off-road Tear drop trailer, and were in the planning stages of some camping trips when everything got shut down. Yeah, our trailer is off road capable, and we could have gone overlanding on some public land, but the problem, was that we live hours away from any public land, and long road trips with a 1yr old are not always easy. we did however, manage to take a few memorable trips to some state parks, and Jelly Stone Park twice. our daughter loved it. See our pics in the camping section.

This first year presented quite a few challenges. We got out as much as we could, and spent a lot of time working on our brand. we've grown our socials, got some branded merch in our store, made a few videos for YouTube (still figuring out the editing!), made a ton of upgrades to our trailer, and even sold my single cab v6 f150, for a extended cab fx4 off-road. we've got loads of plans in the works, to turn it into our new adventure rig.

our daughter is a little older now, and that opens up more opportunity for us to travel. whether it be campsites at state parks, or overlanding in remote forest, we've set up our trailer for on and off grid conditions. We're so excited for the memories we've yet to make, and are so looking forward to the milestones with my daughter. Her first fish. Her first geocache. Her first hike, etc.. they will all be archived here, in digital form. and in the future, when she is grown and starting her own life, she can look back at this page, and relive all the adventures again.