On our way up to Caddo Lake we passed a sign for Martin Creek Lake State Park. It looked enticing so when we were deciding what to do on Sunday morning, stay near Caddo and find something to do or head back towards home and do something in another park, we opted to check out […]
Caddo Lake Hiking
There are just handful of trails at Caddo Lake State Park and it was easy to cover them all in a short amount of time. Surprisingly there was a good amount of terrain change on the trails, at least for this part of Texas. That’s because there are quite a bit of slope forests in […]
Caddo Lake Camping
Last weekend Chris and I met my parents at Caddo Lake State Park in northeast Texas. It is a 5ish hour haul from our house with stops for the toddler. And while it is about the same distance time-wise of other places we go to in the Hill Country, this just seems like a harder […]
The Frio Bat Cave
Finally we’ve returned to camping and hiking season around these parts! Just as a lot of people are storing their gear for colder months, we southerners are digging it out and are ready to get outside. Gone (mostly) are the days of standing outside for two minutes before dripping in sweat so now is the […]
Beach Scenes
For our vacation, since we were on North Padre already, we opted to drive down to Padre Island National Seashore for all of our beach visits. I think this was mostly spurred because the first night we were there we drove down after dinner and it was quite peaceful with just a few cars on […]
Sea Turtles at Packery Channel
The second afternoon of our vacation we popped down to the Packery Channel jetties to walk along them (they have a sidewalk on top) and to look for sea turtles as we had done six years ago when it was just Chris and me. We were looking to kill a little time before dinner and […]
Birthday Fun at the Texas State Aquarium
For Forest’s birthday we spent most of the morning at the Texas State Aquarium. I hadn’t been since I was a teenager, about 20 years ago, and during that time period went two or three times. I had vague memories of it but couldn’t quite recall everything about it. It appeared based on the website […]
100 Years of the National Park Service – National Parks Part II
Great Smoky Mountains Even though I had been to the adjacent town of Cherokee, NC several times for work, I had never ventured over to see the Smoky Mountains until our thru-hike on the AT. Clingman’s Dome hosts the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, the joke being that once you climb the summit then […]
100 Years of the National Park Service – Monuments, Historical Parks, and Memorials
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Less than an hour from Billings, Montana on the Crow Reservation is the memorial to the battle of Little Big Horn, or what many people know it as, Custer’s Last Stand. One of the perks of my job in Florida was being able to travel multiple times a year and […]
100 Years of the National Park Service – Trails and Recreation Areas
Appalachian National Scenic Trail All of my Appalachian Trail posts are here Florida National Scenic Trail – While part of the National Trails System, it is administered by the US Forest Service. All of my Florida Trail posts are here Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area This recreation area we hit up on our AT […]
