Camping and a storm

The picture above was after the storm. We were camping at Sowell Creek park on Lake Proctor near Comanche, TX and we had a pretty bad thunderstorm. There was torrential rain and hail for about a half hour. The hail was small, about nickel size and amazingly there was no damage to the trailer or the truck. At least we haven't found any yet. When you are in a metal 5th wheel travel trailer the sound of the hail is very loud and probably sounded worse than it was. Below is some of the hail immediately after the storm.

While we were there we did some walking around and we found some things to look at. Grasshoppers are still everywhere.

This one occupied our picnic table and was missing one antennae. We brought one similar one home with us unintentionally. He was hiding in the truck bed and we didn't discover him until we were home.

Here is a spider, he had a substantial web built on one of the grills at an unused campsite. We aren't sure of the variety. And then there were ants crossing the road. There must be a pretty good sized colony under the road for them to have that many holes.

It looks like a snake until you look more carefully. Then there were large acorns on many of the Oak trees in the area. Some were as big as one and a half inches across.

This last picture is  actually from home in our back yard. We have been blessed with many hummingbirds and this is one of them.

The park is an Army Corp of Engineers park and there are 3 of them on Lake Proctor. We have stayed at 2 of them and the campsites are nice. The restrooms are functional but not always as clean as you might like. Prices are very reasonable.

Hummingbirds etc

 We have had a large group of hummingbirds this past summer. In past years we had a few but we always had just 1 feeder or at most 2 and they were close to each other. This year we put up 3 and separated them by 10 or 12 feet and the birds loved it. We had more than a dozen birds this year and often they were all there at the same time buzzing everywhere. We still had a couple who want to hog the food and they try to chase all the others away. They can't understand that we will refill them and there is plenty to go around. I guess they are just like us.

We also had a surplus of grasshoppers and this one seems to be eating his fill. Another creature that we have a few of is called an Antlion. The adult looks sort of like a dragonfly but the larva bury them selves in little cavities that they dig in the soil and they capture and eat ants that happen to crawl by. Very interesting little creatures. Sorry I don't have a picture of the little critter.