Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

Chilly Days at Stephen F. Austin State Park

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Coral Berry, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus

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Ten petal anemone, Anemone berlandieri

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Forest took the following photos:
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In early February we made a our first camping trip since Thanksgiving. Bad weather had thwarted a couple of reservations before then and it appeared that bad weather was going to thwart this one. I know I’ve mentioned here before that it is one thing to be on a backpacking trip and having to hike all day and make progress and it is another to be camping with a kid and have to be able to entertain him while camping even if the weather is bad–I’d rather stay home and entertain a kid with all of his toys available at home if the weather is bad. Without a kid I’m pretty sure Chris would just take a long nap and I would curl up with a book while it rained but with an energetic 4 year old that wasn’t an option.

Despite the not-great forecast we still wanted to go camping. Luckily it appeared that there were some shelters available so Chris called the state park and found out it was likely to work out that we could upgrade to a shelter. We’d still have our tent but the shelter provided a larger protected area for us to cook and hang out should the weather turn bad. And on Saturday afternoon it did end up turning to rain but somehow we managed to convince Forest to actually take a nap. He’s been off naps for a long time at home, usually taking one only if he’s sick or overly tired—or better yet, on a long car ride!—but naps are a rarity. So, it was pretty glorious we got to spend most of the afternoon napping in the tent.

The campground was quiet that weekend due to the forecast. There were a few other campers but it was not a packed state park. We did manage to get some hiking in and plenty of exploration. Looking back at the photos from our first time here made me a bit nostalgic—Forest was only bout 16 months old at the time! The state park has also changed along the bottomland areas near the Brazos River thanks to Hurricane Harvey. Most of the trails in that area are closed because the trails no longer exist. I’m putting a screenshot from Google Earth showing what they have from August 2017 of the state park—the coverage doesn’t go over the entire park but from the aerial they have on the east portion, you can imagine what the rest looked like.

Campsite Shenanigans at SFA State Park

Evening Trail Explorations at SFA State Park

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