Woodson Bridge State Park

Woodson Bridge State Park
2013.05.16
2013.May 16

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The three "Woodson Bridges"

Be careful! There are three turnoffs all placed together withen a few hundred feet of each other. If you are pulling a trailer, it can cause muttering and head turning.

"Oops! There it went..." does not work if you are pulling a trailer. I will show you the three turnoffs, so you do not have to drive up and down the highway.

Here are the three turnoffs...
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The County Park

The County Park
North side of road.
There is no overnight parking here. But day use is free.
14 acre

River Access

Boat Launch ramp

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Private Park

Privately owned Park
South side of road

River Access

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State Park

And of course, the State Park

There is actually a large sign out by the road that is quite visible, and it clearly reads State Park. Coming from 99, it is the first turn off, and it is on the right. "Can't miss it."

Coming from the West (I-5) - or over the bridge - the turn off is the last, or second-left.
North side of road, 114 acres.

Campground for RVs

And the State Recreation Area continues across the river to the north.

There may not be a dump. I do not know.
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All three sites share the bridge area, and the accompanying beach.
The common areas are pet friendly.

And you have to watch out for the high banks. Some are 15 feet high. And erosion can undercut any of them in short order.

And of course they are all three are on the Sacramento River.

At the State Park, I like space 29. There is sun for my solar panels.

But all the spaces are good. They are level, made of pavement, back ins; spacious, and well maintained. The quality of the green grass varies from brown to green. The hostesses are supper friendly, and will do anything for you. However, there is minor, wisper quiet, road noise. But huge old style oak trees are a pleasure to see because of their age, and provide lots of shade if you desire. It is May, and it is hot. Normally, you would want the shade in this heat, but I use the sun for power. I operate without hookups.

I had it made this day: there was only two tents and one tent-trailer. All other spaces are there for the taking. Nobody is here. Just me, shown on the left. The full hookups are empty too.
Wow!

I choose space 29.

It is mine and I found it first.

Blackberries. The date is 2013.05.16. May 16. The weather man said it could rain today. But it is only hot. It was supposed to cool down today. Nothing worse than being in a hot trailer. Got to get outside. Guess I will take pictures of blackberries...

There are quite a few of these butterflies.

And quite a few of the caterpillar form.
...Same creature, because the markings are the same.

Great scenery! It is like a jungle in places, mixed with fields.
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All at once, three squires came out of the same hole, about 20 feet from my door. I don't know what all three were doing in the same hole, but that is where they came from.

Squirrels are friendly and quite approachable, like many parks. But squirrel socialization with the dogs is limited.

When walking down one of the several trails, we came across several baby turkeys, all running down the trail. You can see them in the picture. Cute things, running straight ahead. But suddenly, we heard and seen the momma turkey; shockingly big!

Only a few feet away, she sprang to life, up out of the grass. She charged us with wings outstretched. An amazing site! She flew straight up level with my head, seemingly with magical buoyancy. She seemed to floated in mid air, with wings outstretched far and wide. I lefted the camera, but it would not "click". It would not click! The thing was only two arm lengths away, and the camera would not click.

I was impressed, with awe, but my dogs stood silent, and were afraid of this huge and luming showdow of a thing, and were quite speechless. I looked at my dogs; Not one bark out of them. Nothing! But the large turkey was not speechless at all, far from it. Right on us, three or four feet away, she was loudly screaming and clucking at the site of us. I looked down at my dogs: obviously, they were thinking perhaps they should run and hide.

The big beautiful hen asserted her motherly concerns by clucking frantically for the little turkeys to get off the path! "Stop running down the stupid path. Get off the path to the right or left; and freeze!"

But, instead my dogs, Lexy and Callie, froze. My stupid dogs got the message that was not intended for them. What a crazy moment: Turkeys are scurrying all around, and my bold fearless woofers are frozen in their tracks.

Moments before my dogs were moving fine. Now, their postures were frozen in time, all according to the last preserved dog activity of each:

Callie held unto a "half sniff", the last of a train of normal sniffs. Definitely, no more sniffing or movement from this little doggie statue.

And Lexy, the older dog, from a last sniffing-on-the-ground posture, was all contorted. She had a twisted back with eyes in the opposite direction. She held that position. That is amazing that a dog could manage to hold such a wierd position. That had to be really uncomfortable, with her head pinned back the other way.
Large black dog eyes were wide and riveted. All normal Dog-things at a standstill...
My bold "sniffers" had each turned to stone.

When I finally got them "unfrozen", they came to life with a vengeance. Pent up emotions sprang to life. They were jumping wildly into the air. And it was so bad that they were running into each other. There was no planned direction to all the random jumping. Bizarrely, they were absolutely going crazy.

Have you ever blown up a couple of ballones and pinched off the air? Well, that is how they were. And now with the air released, they were dashing about. Restrained by their leases, the dogs even made sounds like the air rushing out of two ballones set free and zig zagging about. They strained against their collars around their throats. As they went left and right against their leases. They banged heads and tripped over each other. With each head bang, they grunted with joy and excitement. They made really strange sounds: like cries, but not caused by pain. I had a two-unit stampede to nowhere on my hands. The trama had caused abandonment of all normal reason.

These turkeys at Woodson Bridge made my dogs go nuts.

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I did not expect things to be so pretty near just an "old river". But there are areas on the Sacramento River that are as plush and green as the areas along the coast. Not just green! The area is alive, full of sounds. Woodson bridge is well kept, and rich in pleasant sights.

But all this pretty scenery comes at a cost. And that comes from what is not seen: Poised motionless on the ends of stalks, forearms extended in wait, ready to strike, blood sucking, disease carrying creatures. Ticks!
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American Dog Tick
adult female

I noticed a tick on the forehead of Lexy; between the eyes. After I removed it, I discovered a couple more. I then switched to the other dog, Callie. I again found a couple. I switched back to Lexy, and found a few more. I found six ticks on Lexy and six ticks on Callie. I quickly snapped this picture of one, just before the damn thing died. I have seen this kind before: the American Dog Tick.

These ticks are from me!

Got back to the trailer and found four or five more on each dog. And these are not them in the picture. These ticks are from me! I sprayed tick repellant and killer on my hair as I had done with the dogs. I applied it only on certain areas of the dogs: Around the neck where they could not reach or lick, and under, and on, their ears. The spray seems to make the ticks more mobile and you can more easily see them. As for me, they were on the inside and outside of my tee shirt, and in my hair. They like to hide in the seams of clothing. The spray does NOT kill as advertised. I mean, I literally drowned them in the stuff. I sprayed and sprayed, and soaked them for over an hour, and still they would not die.

I still feel "itchy" as I write this.

American Dog Tick
adult male

Here is a close up of one in the sink. All the ticks are literally swimming in poison, and doing just fine.

Gave the dogs a bath in flea and tick killing shampoo. Found nine more around the dogs eyes and mouth areas. These are not the areas that I had originally sprayed.
Unlike the spray, the shampoo does kill. The name of the shampoo is "Zodiac".
Here they are in the bath tub.

Top and Underside of the tick

Several weeks later, I noticed another tick crawling down my arm. I had just put on a tee shirt that I had worn weeks before at Woodson Bridge. It had been through the wash, on warm water, and into the dryer. The tick survived!

Look in the seams of your clothing. They bury there heads into the seam and have little exposed for the eye to see. Evidently I missed this frigging thing.

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Perhaps I should have missed the whole turnoff too... No, not really. Woodson Bridge is a wonderful place. Just keep the dogs on the cement and pavement, and out of the beautiful vegetation.

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2014.11.23
Another time; Just staying overnight...

Here are the TV Channels from my RV Antenna.
But it is not the standard stock RV Winegard Antenna. It is the King Jack RV Antenna.
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Either there is NO dump, or it is closed for the winter. I do not know.

Also, there is shooting nearby. Sounds like shotguns. Kinda gets your attention at the crack of dawn.

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