2/10 - 2/13/2014 - Hueco Tanks State Park

We left Balmorhea State Park on Monday morning (2/10) and headed west about 200 miles to our next stop, Hueco Tanks State Park.  We drove through desert areas with mountains in the background.  It seemed we were in the middle of nowhere but once we got to the park, civilization (El Paso) was only about 30 miles further west.

This was probably the most interesting park that we've been to in Texas.  Hueco Tanks State Park is a State Park and Historic Site.  Hueco is a Spanish word meaning hollows and refers to the many water-holding depressions in the boulders and rock faces throughout the park. There are numerous pictographs and petroglyphs throughout the park, many in hard to reach canyons.

This park is also world famous for bouldering (rock climbing).  The mountains are low enough that climbing without ropes is common.  It was interesting to see the climbers hike into the park carrying their crash pads on their backs.  Not quite sure how much help the crash pads are if they fall but they all had them.  Climbers come from all parts of the world to challenge their skills on these mountains.  

This park probably has more rules and regulations than any of the others we've been to.  Access to the park and campground was between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m ONLY.  No one was allowed to enter or leave after 6:00 p.m. except for emergencies.  There were three mountains but un-guided hiking was only allowed on north mountain and only 70 hikers/climbers were allowed on that mountain at one time.  Anyone wanting to hike had to register at the park office and if 70 hikers were already on north mountain, they had to wait until someone came back.  The other two mountains could only be accessed with a guide.  Guided tours were offered most morning and we signed up for one on Wednesday.  The main reason for so many restrictions is the damage that has already been done to the pictographs and petroglyphs and to the fragile desert landscape.

 This is a Tlaloc, a pictograph that seems to depict an upside-down person

Graffiti from a "49er"

Pictograph

Solid red mask painted to the curved wall of a cave - pictograph

Our guide, John, has been a camp host at this park for many years usually staying about six months at
a time.  Our group of 12 met at the interpretive center and started our hike.  We stopped often as John pointed out the different desert plants and explained their uses.  We also learned the history of the park.  It was the Escontrias Family Ranch from 1898 until 1956.  It was also a stagecoach stop for the Butterfield Stage which ran from St. Louis to San Francisco.  It ran this far south to avoid the inclement weather of the plains.

We hiked into the canyon and John told us that he was 83 years old and had had a knee replacement.  He told us this so that no one would have an excuse not to try the rock climbing necessary to reach some of the pictographs.  Well, I took one look at the rocks and knew there was no way I was doing it.  The going up may not have been too bad but I always worry about the coming down!  I'm quite happy looking at the pictures Marty takes. 

No Way!  I may be a wimp but I'm a happy wimp.

The mountain goat people

We stayed three nights at Hueco Tanks.  We thought about staying one more night because we realized that Carlsbad Cavern was only 2 1/2 hours away and we would like to see them.  In the end, we decided to continue on west and save Carlsbad for a future trip. 

2/6 - 2/10/14 - Balmorhea State Park

Our new home at Balmorhea - look at the mountains in the background.

Thursday morning (2/6) we left South Llano and drove to  Balmorhea State Park which is about 240 miles straight west on Interstate 10.  As we drove there we saw SNOW on the ground (not much) and when we stopped at the rest area the bathroom sinks weren't working because the pipes were frozen.   I guess West Texas is not used to this kind of cold.  It was a grey day but no precipitation so we had a decent drive.   We arrived around 3:30 and found out that the water pipes here are frozen at every campsite - what is going on in Texas?  We got set up and Marty took the electric heater out to the water spigot and we got a little water into our tanks.  

This park has excellent internet but we have no TV signal and no radio stations.  They do have cable stations but we have no cable so we took a trip into Pecos (about 30 miles north) to find some.  We picked up a cable at Walmart (and amazingly nothing else) and drove home.   Marty hooked up the cable and now we still have no TV - the cable hook-up doesn't seem to be working.   I guess no Olympics for us - maybe at our next stop.

Friday morning we once again woke up to cold temperatures and frozen water pipes but we (Marty) thawed them out and we got to take hot showers.  We took a walk around the park and checked out their pool.  It's pretty amazing; it's spring fed and is 25' -30' deep at it's deepest points.  The water is a constant 72 - 76 degrees.  By this point (at 11:00) the outside temperature was around 50 and there were actually two hardy souls in the pool.   This pool is also used for scuba diving classes and there were about six people getting ready to go diving as we left.

Desert flora

There isn't much to do here at Balmorhea except for the pool but Fort Davis State Park is only about 32 miles away.  We took a drive up there and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce in town for some information on things to do.  One of the recommendations was to take the scenic loop driving tour (74 miles).  We decided to do that and also stopped at the State Park to get a map and stopped at the McDonald Observatory to get information on their star party.

The drive was incredible, beautiful mountains and rock formations.   It took about 3 hours to drive the 74 miles because of all our stops along the way.

He'll do anything for a good photo op!

West Texas

Rock On!

Howdy!

On Saturday morning the temperatures were much warmer (50's - 60') and sunny.  Marty decided to try the pool.   The pool is 1.75 acres!  Since it's spring fed you swim with the fishes - Pecos Gabusia (like minnows) and Comanche Springs pupfish (this is the only place in the world you can find this fish).  He was the only swimmer but there was a diving instructor with his diving students.

Come on in, the water's fine!

Cold enough to need a sweatshirt

Too bad he left his wet suit at home

That's not Venus, it's Jupiter!

After Marty's swim we got ready to go to a "Star Party".  Beyonce and Jay Z weren't there but we did get to see Orion, Jupiter and Pegasus with about fifty other people.  This star party was held at the
McDonald Observatory at the top of Davis Mountain.   The moon was about 1/2 full and there was a bit of haze so it wasn't a perfect night for star gazing but it was still pretty cool.  When we got there we walked over to an outside amphitheater where a man with an awesome laser pointer pointed out the stars and their name origin and stories.  After his lecture we walked over to the telescopes where we lined up to take a peek and volunteers explained what we were seeing.  It was an awesome night and I can't wait until we get to New Mexico and Arizona where the skies should be even darker. 

Since I wimped out of swimming on Satuday and since we are leaving on Monday and since the temperatures were in the mid 70's I had no excuse on Sunday not to go swimming.  I'm not real comfortable in water that deep but we have our snorkeling gear and it was all good.  The water was incredibly clear, we stayed in the water for about 45 minutes and I'm glad we got to swim.  This place is an oasis in the middle of the West Texas desert.   It must be a very popular place in the summer. 

2/2 through 2/6/2014 - South Llano State Park

Sunday, 2/2/14 - Happy Super Bowl

Fire damaged forest

The flags indicate where new trees have been planted

We took a drive from Lockhart over to two
nearby state parks; Bastrop and Buescher.  In September of 2011 a wildfire affected 96% of Bastrop State Park.   The forest is still recovering but all of the campsites are open as are most of the hiking trails.  New trees have been planted along the burnt out treees but it's probably going to take years for the forest to come back.

Buescher State Park is about ten miles from Bastrop along the same camp road.  When you go into either park you just stay on the camp road to visit the other.  It was a hilly, scenic ride - might be fun on a bike.

When we drove through, the temperatures were in the 30's and it was a damp cold so we didn't do much walking around (I know - what wimps!).

On the shore of Lake Buescher

2/3/14 through 2/6/14

We left our nice quiet site at Lockhart on Monday morning and headed west for South Llano State Park in Junction, Texas.  It was only about 180 miles but what a difference in landscape.  The land is starting to look more like a desert and we are seeing more cactus.  There also far fewer towns in this part of Texas.

Our new home at South Llano SP

South Llano River

 

Yay!  We made it to the top of the hill.

The big attraction here at South Llano is the wildlife.  As we entered the park we saw wild turkeys crossing the road.  We also saw deer bounding through the woods.   Later that evening we saw a mule deer.  There is a large turkey population here and many areas are restricted from 3:00 p.m. until 10:00 a.m. as the turkeys come to these areas to roost for the night.   There are four observation wildlife blinds where you can sit and watch the many different birds.  There are also many trails here for biking and hiking.  We started out biking on one and ended up hiking as much as biking - very hilly and lots of loose gravel and rocks.

The deer here are amazing.  Every morning and evening we see the herd passing through to the left of our trailer.   Early Tuesday evening Marty quietly went out with his camera and tripod to take some photos.  Unfortunately our next door neighbor saw him and, in a very loud voice, asked "ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE PICTURES OF THE DEER"?   His response - "I was".   Luckily, the next morning at sunrise he was able to take pictures of the whole herd going back to wherever they hang out during the day.

The view from our window!

South Llano Turkeys and Deer

The only thing we don't like about this park is there is no internet and no tv stations.  We do get one radio station, the Fox channel so we get to listen to country music and a little bit of news.   We spent Wednesday morning at the local (Kimble County) library using their free wifi and downloading everything we could.   I downloaded my limit of 6 books from the Chicago Public Library and we both downloaded a whole bunch of podcasts.   That should hold us until we can get back on the internet.

This is a tiny little town with a populastion is 2545.  As tiny as it is, they have a Sonic, Dairy Queen and McDonalds.   They also have at least four churches and four thrift stores (and one really nice library).

We woke up on Thursday morning to frozen water pipes.   Marty took the electric space heater out to the water spigot and got the water thawed out - YAY!!    The temperatures were in the low 20's and with the wind chill it was in single digits.  Time for us to go somewhere warmer (if we can find that).

1/25/ - 2/1/2014 - Lockhart State Park, Week 2

Texas Longhorn

I had a tough time writing the blog this week, our internet at the park is extremely slow!   Downloading pictures takes forever and I tried three times and gave up each time.   Today is Saturday and (fingers crossed) it looks like the internet is finally working. 

We've been working on our plans for the spring and summer and it looks like we know what we are doing through the middle of August.  All of March will be spent in Mesa, Arizona and we already have tickets to the Cubs-Sox Spring Training game - GO CUBS!   My sister, Sue and her granddaughter Sarah will be spending their spring break with us.   During April and the first two weeks of May we will be heading slowly back to the Midwest.   We just signed up to be camp hosts at a Corp of Engineers campground on the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa.  Camp Hosting is not a paid position but we get our site free so we are hoping this is something we'll enjoy and possibly continue to do.  We will be about 25 miles south of Dubuque and about 4 hours from Chicago so we hope to see some familiar faces.  There are no hook-ups but if you have a tent and want to visit we'd love to see you.  We will be working there from 5/15 until 7/15 and then will be heading to the Chicago area. 

Here's what's been going on this past week:

We are about 75 miles from San Antonio so last Saturday (1/25)  was our day to tour that fine city.   Temps were in the 50's when we left but it was sunny so it felt warmer.   This was Marty's first time in San Antonio and my second although my first time was a quick afternoon in July when it was about 90!

San Antonio is named for St. Anthony of Padua.  I found that interesting because we have a very old statue of St. Anthony that belonged to my great-great grandmother.   I like when things connect :).

Outside the Alamo

Our first stop was The Alamo.  We walked around all the building and read all the history.  I always get the chills when I'm inside historic buildings like this.   I picture what it must have been like back then and I get a little teary-eyed thinking of the brave men who died here.  I read too much!

San Antonio River Walk

After we left the Alamo, we took a walk on the River Walk - a looong walk!  I really need to start wearing a pedometer, we walked for about an hour so I'm guessing about 3 miles.   It's a very nice walk below street level with lots of cafes and shops along the way.   The last time I was here back in July of 2008, it was prettier with lots of hanging baskets of flowers.   Not much was blooming in January.    While on the River Walk we saw a sign for The Market.   I always want to see a "market" so we walked about five blocks down Market Street to find it.   It was like being in Mexico!   Lots of vendors inside and out selling all the things you see in the touristy parts of Mexico.  All we bought was a taco and diet coke.  

After all that walking (including the long walk back to the car) it was time to head over to the "BBQ Station" and meet our nephew Paul for dinner.  Paul is in the Marines and is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base which is in the south part of San Antonio.   He is not allowed to tell us what he is doing no matter how much we (I) pester him.  

We had a nice dinner and and visit and out of the three BBQ places we've been to in the past week this was probably my favorite. 

Maddie is trying to figure out where Paul came from

Paul's "ride"

On Monday and Tuesday we woke up to temperatures in the 20's and  frozen water pipes.  Marty was the one who discovered this and took care of it.   I stayed in bed until the water was working and I could take a shower.  We didn't do much of anything either day, tried working on the computer with very limited success and read and watched tv - boring.

On Wednesday we visited the headquarters of American Volkssport Association (AVA) in Universal City, Texas.  Marty's sister, Linn and her husband, Terry are members and I've always had it in the back of my mind that this might be something for us to get involved with.   Since the headquarters were reasonably close to where we are staying (about 45 miles) it made sense to take a drive over and get some information.  It was actually easier to join in person and pick up our walk booklets than to mail in our applications and wait for them to mail it back to Sue who would then have to mail it to us.  We are now members and looking forward to taking our first walk.  Austin has 3 and so does San Antonio so maybe we'll get one in before we head further west.

Ok, maybe I'm a "geek" but I think this is kind of cool.

The AVA is a nonprofit organization that sanctions more than 3000 walking events each year.  There are walk events in cities all over the USA and internationally.   There are two kinds of events.  The Traditional is scheduled by an AVA club and will usually have members available for registration and for further information.  The other kind of walk is called "year-round/seasonal" and is self-guided and available most days of the year.  There are two distance options for walkers,  3.1 miles or 6.2 miles.  These walks are a good way to learn about the area you're visiting.   If you want to read more, here is the link:  ava.org
 

After leaving AVA we visited Guadalupe State Park and went for a short walk.  It was a beautiful day, temps were in the low 50's and there wasn't  a cloud in the sky. 

Guadalupe State Park

Guadalupe River

From Guadalupe State Park we headed east to the Gruene Historic District in New Braunfels home of the oldest dance hall in Texas.  According to their brochure the stage has "seen the likes of Bo Diddley, The Dixie Chicks, Jerry Lee Lewis, Garth Brooks, and Willie Nelson".  How cool is that?  The dance scene in the movie, "Michael" starring John Travolta was also filmed here - I guess I'll have to rent the movie.

On the stage at Gruene Hall

Darn, it's too early for dancing

I'm "crazy" for Patsy Cline"

We walked in to the dance hall around 4:00 but the live music doesn't start until 6:00 so no dancing for us (I forgot my cowboy hat anyway).  The hall was pretty neat with a very old wooden floor but I don't know if I would have liked it very much once the music started - a lot of Texans smoke - yuk!   The attached bar was already smoky and there were only a few people in it.  Haven't these people ever heard of lung cancer?

We crossed the street to a bar/grill across the street - Mozie's where we split a grilled cheese sandwich and a cheeseburger.  Best cheeseburger we've had in a long time.   We also stopped in at the antique store next door where I saw a set of pyrex bowls just like the ones my mom had - they were asking $125.00!   Take good care of those dishes Katie :).    

hmmmm, maybe I should start a new collection? 

Pyrex bowls, just like mom and grandma

Antiques?  Seriously??  I remember using these, what does that make me - oh never mind!

 On Friday we visited our second state park of the week - Palmetto State Park in Luling, Texas.  They have many trails and we walked the "Ottine Swamp Trail"  which was a little over one mile long.   It's weird walking along a "swamp" trail and seeing cactus.  We would have walked another trail but it was HOT!  Temps were in the low 80's and it was humid.   It's much nicer hiking when temps are in the 50's or 60's and the sun is shining.  

























This was the 8th Texas State Park we've visited and I've like them all.   They're clean and quiet (of course, it is January).   Most of them have had nice hiking trails.  I could definitely see spending more time in Texas next winter - we'll just have to wait and see where the wind takes us. 

1/19 thru 1/24/2014 - Lockhart State Park

Monday, 1/20/14

As we were hitching up to leave Mustang Island S.P. one of our neighbors noticed our Illinois license plates and stopped to talk.   He was from Oswego, IL and during the course of our conversation I found out he grew up in Maywood and went to Proviso East High School (that's where me and four of my siblings went).   He was older than us and graduated the year before I started but then he mentioned that his dad was a history teacher at Proviso.   I didn't remember him but it turns out that  my sister, Sue, had him for American History - what a small world!

After that little bit of weirdness we hit the road with a destination of Lockhart State Park in Lockhart, Texas.  It's just under 200 miles so a relatively light day of driving.   As we were driving, the GPS  confused us (Ok, it was me that was confused) and we had to make a u-turn!!   Rather than finding a empty parking lot Marty decided that he could just do the turn on the road and it worked!   And I didn't even freak out (too much).  It's amazing how much more comfortable he is driving this big rig.

Our new home at Lockhart State Park

When we got to Lockhart Park the office directed us to pick a site and then come back and let them know which one we chose.    This is a very small park with only 10 full hook-up sites and 10 with just water and electric.  We chose #5 and were backing in  when another rig came and told us they had just chosen that one and were already checked in at the office.  We drove the circle one more time and chose site #3 and are quite happy with it (it's better than #5 anyway).

We did have one issue when were backing in to the original spot, got too close to a branch and we now have a small tear in our rig's rubber roof.   It should be an easy fix once we find a rv store for a patch kit.

Once we were all settled in it was time for dinner and time to go explore the town of Lockhart which just happens to be the Texas capital of BBQ - who knew??  There are four bbq restaurants in town and we tried Black's.   It was ok but we didn't feel it was anything special and it was very pricey.  We have a whole week here so we'll definitely be trying the other places to see which is the best.

After dinner we drove to Best Buy in the nearby town of San Marcos.   The park has very weak WiFi and we decided to buy an antenna to boost whatever signal we could find.   It works but it's still a weak signal - 3 bars which is better than the 1 bar we started out with.   We have to have WiFi, can't live without our technology.

The telephone wires next to the highway were loaded with birds - very freaky!

Tuesday, 1/21/14

We found a Crestview RV Sales and Service Store in Buda, TX which is only about a 1/2 hour from us.  We headed over there to pick up a patch kit for the roof and also found some lubricant for the slide-outs.  It's a nice store with good prices so we picked up a catalog for future shopping.

Texas State Capital

When we got back in the car we decided to drive another 1/2 hour north into the state capital of Austin.    When we got there we parked on 6th street, the heart of the music district and walked over to the Tourist Center.  We picked up lots of brochures (probably too many) and then drove over to the State Capital Building.   We went into their visitor center and then walked into the Capital Building.  It's quite something to see but all we saw was the rotunda, the next tour wasn't for another 25 minutes and we didn't have that much time on our parking meter.   If we go back to Austin it would definitely be worth taking the tour.   Here's a trivia question for you--
Can you name the 6 different country's flags that have flown over the State Capital building?  I'll put the answer down below.

 

Looking up at the dome in the Rotunda

The Texas Capital Building has had six different country's flag flying over it.  The countries are:  France, Spain, Mexico, The Confederacy, The Republic of Texas, and the U.S.A.    I knew this before we visited here and thought it was an interesting fact - my brain has way too much of this useless information in it.

Smitty's BBQ

We left Austin around 4:00 and since we didn't have lunch decided to try another bbq place in Lockhart - this time it was Smitty's and the experience was much nicer and half the price.   When you walk in you go straight to the back and tell them what kind of meat you want.  They give you the meat on butcher paper and then you go into the seating area where you can choose what you want to drink and any sides that you'd like.    It was like that at Black's too but there were so many sides there that we went overboard - we're still bbq newbies.   After two days of bbq I need a break so I'm not sure when (or if) we'll try the other two places.

When we got back to the park we decided to check out one of the trails.  We walked for about 45 minutes and saw these scary looking birds.

Black Vultures

Wednesday, 1/22/14

Whenever you visit a state park in Texas you must pay a daily admission fee (this includes campers) which adds about 21.00 per week on to your camping fees.  The State of Texas does offer a State Parks Pass for $70.00 which is good for one year from the date of purchase.  We bought the pass at Galveston State Park and so far have used it for three weeks of camping.  This was an easy decision, it's already paid for itself.    It's really nice to have if you just want to spend a little bit of time in a park which is what we did on Wednesday at Pedernales Falls State Park.   We arrived there around 11:00 and checked in at the Park Office and showed them our pass, the daily admission here is $6.00 each so we saved $12.00.

Pedernales Falls "Beach"

This park is in the Hill Country of Texas and has over 20 miles of hiking trails.   We did about two miles of hiking with lots of ups and downs.  The Pedernales River runs through the park and once you get about 2.5 miles below the falls they allow swimming and tubing.   We walked down to see the "swimming area".   Since the river is so low right now you could see all the large rocks in the water and I don't think anyone would want to swim (or go tubing) in it.  

Relaxing on the "beach"

After hiking back up to the road we got in the car and looked for the trail to take us to Pedernales Falls.   We hiked down to the falls and could actually walk out to the middle of the river because the water is so low.   It was incredibly relaxing - I sunned myself on the rocks while Marty was taking photos.   This is a beautiful park and hopefully we will be able to camp here at some point.   It is interesting to read the signs about flash floods and how quickly the water turns dangerous.  Hard to believe on such a beautiful day.

Standing in the middle of the river

Sitting in the middle of the river

Playing in the middle of the river

After leaving the park we went looking for a winery.  This is easy in the Hill Country, they are everywhere!   We ended up at Duchman Family Winery and did a tasting and picked up a couple of bottles of white wine.

Enjoying a little vino

After leaving the winery around 3:30 we started looking for a place to stop for lunch.  We found a delightful cafe - The Texas Pie Company.   Marty had soup and a sandwich and I had the lunch special - Beef Strogranoff.  We both had pie (of course) for dessert.   Pecan for Marty and Lemon for me - Yum!  

Thursday - 1/23/14

Happy 5th Birthday to my great-nephew, Danny Burke!

We had a quiet day on Thursday, it was cold and blustery so we stayed inside until it was time to go visit Marty's friends Bill and Claudia who moved down to Dripping Springs, TX about 3 years ago.    They invited us to come over for dinner and we had a wonderful time visiting with them (and ate a delicious pasta meal!).   The pasta was home-made as was the bread - wow!    They came to Texas to retire but as so often happens with retirees they seem busier now.    Bill has a radio show out of Austin that broadcasts 4 hours Monday - Friday.      Claudia is a master gardener, felts, knits, and volunteers in Austin.   They have a cow named Chloe, many chickens, and a few sheep to keep them even busier. 

Bill and "friend"

Chloe

We enjoyed spending the evening with them but when we left we found our truck covered in ice!!   It's a good thing we didn't give away our scraper.    What should have been a 45 minute drive back to the park ended up taking 1 1/2 hours - at one point we were at a standstill on the highway for about 15 minutes.   Many ramps were closed and it was kind of scary knowing that the other drivers probably didn't know how to drive in this kind of weather.   We were very happy when we finally got back to the rig where the inside temperature was a balmy 51.  :)




Friday, 1/24/14

We woke up to temperatures in the high 20's and frost on the ground.   We have no plans for today so it looks like a "catching up and cleaning" day.   Our water spigot is frozen so we only have the water that's left in the tank.   It is supposed to get up to the 40's this afternoon so we should be able to hook the hose back up for a little while.  

Skating at the Golf Course, a whole new sport.

Ice is pretty when you know it's going to melt soon.

Crunch!