Camping Trip

 It was crazy; a flurry of activity on Friday morning. The last basket of produce left the house and immediately clothes, cooking utensils, and food began to appear. For the first time EVER we left on a camping trip and I had NO MEAL PLAN. Jamin had gathered frozen meat; I threw in rice, pasta, spices and a share of produce. We ate better than we ever have on a camping adventure. I discovered the joys of a crock pot for camping. Sunday we put a roast in after breakfast, spent the day hiking, fishing, and geocaching, and came home to a wonderful dinner.

I’m sorry we neglected to mention we were leaving town; which caused a bit of concern. The boys did NOT have the weekend off. We debated staying home or camping. We finally decided that we needed to go make memories even if the older ones were busy with work.

We visited a new, to us, state park. Thanks to the Z family for their recommendation. We went to South Llano River State Park. The park is also a wildlife management area. This means that in addition to a pristine river (unheard of in our previous explorations of TX) wood duck, white-tailed deer, squirrel, jackrabbit, javelina, fox, beaver, bobcat, cottontail, and armadillo as well as several exotic species such as Axis Deer, Black Buck Antelope, and Fallow Deer are often spotted in the park. We encountered many of these! During this time of the year much of the park is closed and set aside for a turkey roost habitat. They do, however, have great bird blinds and the younger ones and I had fun watching for new species of birds to show up. We’ll take the Nikon next time and get some nice photos.

Without further ado – some photos:

Stacia leaves her mark on The Caboose – as the rest of us rush to pack.

Games are always a hit! Sorry was our favorite; also enjoyed were
Ruckus

Go Fish

It was COLD this weekend. It was 37* on Saturday. I haven’t a clue what it was Friday night – but cold enough to cause this…..::snort::



We looked for and found 3 caches.

Mike with the first cache (under his hand).



We took advantage of the water to play Pooh Sticks.

The Independent Daredevil doesn't even realize the Father is protecting him. How often am I like this?

The second cache was atop this "mountain" outside Junction.

(I got a hilarious photo I won't share. I took some great flag shots....and didn't realize that in the corner of one was Zander "taking care of business".) ::snort::

Saturday afternoon was spent fishing and playing in the South Llano river. Much of the river access is closed to the public during Turkey Roost season. We plan to go back with the canoes later in the year. I'm sure it will be a much busier park, but there is only one camping loop. We are guessing it will be a zoo during the day and settle down at night.

Our Climber

Do you see the mischeif in those eyes?

Sunday a.m. we set out to find "humble begininnings"; the only cache in the park. The trail led here.

This led to jokes about humble endings.

Jared led an insurrection. They were sure they could follow the GPS directions and get to the cache quicker than Mike’s proposed plan of backing up and finding a road/trail. The GPS said .3 of a mile. They took off.

We headed back and around and found this nicely paved, steep road. The road was closed to traffic but was a nice walk. The photo doesn't BEGIN to show how steep it was. Stacia accepted NO HELP!

At the end of our nice hike, we each found the cache, had a snack and waited....
We realized the kids must have had to climb straight up....

At one point we saw a javelina. We'd been told there were "pigs" in the park. We would not have let the kids hike alone if we'd know there were javelinas. ::snort:: We yelled, they heard and pressed forward.

Arielle popped through the brush,
followed by the boys. Jared did great motivating, protecting, and getting them all to the goal! Way to go, Jared!

Zander was the last one to find the cache and was excited.
We enjoyed a well-earned snack.

Jared, the ham, when he realized there had been a parking lot a few hundred yards from the top of the mountain.

Yep - they went STRAIGHT up - they didn't even look for a trail - just followed the GPS. ::snort::

As we were hiking down the mountain we got a call for Cy and Jamin. They have Sundays off. Lured by our tale of a river you could see the bottom of.....
they were in the park. Yippee! Mike went to meet them. I set lunch out.
Stacia yelled, "Daddy's here" when she heard the van. Jamin surprised her.

Then Cy surprised her.

Josiah commented that you expect to see salmon in the river but they aren't there. ::snort::

They did catch trout (Mike informs that technically HE caught trout;all others skunked).





Jared talked everyone in to going to see the trek they'd had in the a.m. Sadly, Mike found a trail that took them right up. ::snort::

TX is always decked out for Christmas and/or romance with mistletoe in the tree tops.

The boys headed home. We enjoyed our roast and a nice fire.

Nolan woke to two bucks sparring with their antlers outside his window. We had a zillion deer outside our campsite.

Monday a.m. we played Bocce,


packed up,

and headed home.

There is something sad about leaving a campsite. Wait....for the PHOTOGRAPHER!!! ::snort::
We came away with the determination to try to go out once a month. It's DIFFICULT to break away, but totally needful. In the end, the Bible Studies, School, Chapel, studies, house, etc waited and were right here when we got back. We are more refreshed to deal with our life. We made more great family memories, which we're learning to do even when we "feel" that the family isn't here. ::snort::