We made it to Garner, Pedernales, and Blanco State Parks, Lost Maples and Hill Country State Natural Areas, and Hamilton Pool. Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.
My sister and my nephews came and stayed with us over the weekend at the Frio River so they were able to come to Garner and Lost Maples. At Garner it was great because the boys could swim in the water and play mini-golf. It was beautiful there! Of all the places we went, Garner was by far the most crowded, but even it wasn't awful because of the season. I think it's possibly the most well-known, and it was a great way to start because we never had to deal with people after that. We had the whole parks to ourselves!
We also took them to Lost Maples, which was my mother's favorite part. It was a lot of fun to hike through the trails there, and the scenery was amazing. It was a very different experience from Garner, much more untouched and low-key. I dug it.
Here are the boys and my mother looking out right after we got inside Garner. 
The boys had fun walking into the tree. It was huge!
Where we crossed the river at Garner so they could swim. 
My mom and Will walking ahead at Lost Maples. The trails were gorgeous, and there were several different options. We could have stayed over a week and not hiked everything they had to offer. Of all the places on the trip, this is first on my list to come back to later. 
Will and I took an alternate route on the way back to the car and found this clearing. It was fun after being surrounded by all the trees.
The next five photos are of Hill Country Natural Area just outside of Bandera. Neither of us even knew this existed, but saw a sign and just headed in that direction. This was my favorite park of the trip. It gave me excellent access to that big Texas Sky I've been telling you about, and that made me really happy. It was also our most intense hike, so that was a lot of fun. Trekking through the parks really whipped my momma and I in shape that week!
The next three pics are at Pedernales State Park. The first one's mine and the second two I snatched from their web site for effect. It was incredibly peaceful there, but the water was a bit intimidating with those crazy photos all over the place.
The next two photos are taken at the exact same spot only 5 minutes apart. Yikes!! Point taken on the flash flooding; that looks absolutely terrifying.
We made a stop at Hamilton Pool just outside of Austin. It has a great waterfall that has created a swimming hole. It's a bit of a hike even to get down there, but absolutely worth it. When we passed through there was no swimming because bacteria levels were too high. I am not sure how often that happens, but at least we know they're checkin! Even without the swimming, I'm glad we made the drive. It's really very pretty.
Here I am just above the swimming hole at Hamilton Pool. The way it's set up is great because you can walk around the pool almost 360 degrees and even get up underneath the waterfall.
We also went through Blanco State Park, which neither of us knew existed. It was quite a bit smaller and the water levels were very low, so there wasn't much to see this trip, but I could see how it would be very nice and relaxing if they could just get some rain to fill up that river.
No comments:
Post a Comment