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Winter trip 2026 - Day 3: Oklahoma to San Angelo TX

Casino parking lot was a pretty quiet spot to sleep for the night. Barely any road noise. I did wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a plastic cup blowing across the whole parking lot. 

We went back into the casino to use the bathroom before heading out, and against my better judgement I took my $42 winnings from last night and immediately lost it all. Surprising amount of people inside for 8am.

We decided to avoid tolls for the rest of the state, and the road we choose took us past lots of cows, a crazy looking high school made of a bunch of round buildings, and what I swear was a pet camel in a backyard. 

Once we crossed into Texas we were on an extremely long, extremely boring stretch of highway. Very flat, scrubby little trees, lots of land. Joe pointed out a Catholic Church a block over on on his side of the road and the words "it's abandoned" were barely out of my mouth before he had his turn signal on. 

Great stop, and surprising how un-vandalized the building was. Here is some history. The walls inside were metal. 
Back on the road, which at least now had wind turbines to look at. I bet at one point we could see 200 at once. Lots of roadkill too, mostly skunks. 

Our next stop was Fort Concho in San Angelo. Not very exciting as far as forts go. This was built mostly for surveying the area and shut down once they were done. The buildings were all still is pretty good shape. Highlight was a mule.
After the fort we drove a few blocks away into town. I had some killer blueberry lavender ice cream and we walked around a bit. We found a neat outdoor area filled with pop art from local artists.
After San Angelo the town, we ended up at our spot for the night, San Angelo State Park. 

We saw some bison doing bison things. 
Found our campsite and parked. Went on a quick hike on a nearby trail, less than 2 miles. There's a lake at this park, and at one time it was much much bigger, but then it just stopped being a lake decades ago. The trail we did used to be 20 feet under water. Lots of prickly pear cactuses. 
We hung out back at the site for a bit. I read and Joe gave me a history lesson on the park. 
At sunset we went down another nearby trail that was full of deer, at last 20 that seemed to be following us on our evening stroll. They were eating the cactuses, which seemed really dangerous.
We had a quick dinner of soup and sandwiches, showers, saw a normal amount of stars and slept like babies.

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