Camping trip to Colorado Bend State Park, 10/18/13

I met my friend Ellen at my work parking lot on Friday noon.  We moved most of my stuff into her 4-runner.
She was bringing 5 loads of firewood that took up a lot of space.  I dreaded telling her I had just read last week that you should always get local firewood that way you don't introduce invasive species.

We had a lovely afternoon driving north on Hwy 183 through the hill country of Texas.  We didn't even make a wrong turn, of course GPS helped.  There are several stages of arrival at Colorado Bend SP.  You have to drive through private property and are admonished to stay in your vehicle and not stop or picnic.  We drove over a low water crossing, up some hills and down others.  Finally we are in the park grounds but it's 5 miles to headquarters on a dirt road up and down hills.  The final hill down is a long winding steep one.

We got to the Headquarters and asked about the cave tour but it was full.  We also asked about the hiking tour to Gorman Falls which was the one highlight I didn't want to miss.  It was schedule for  2 pm Saturday.  We think we can make that with no trouble.  He further informs us that just last week you could walk across the river and not get the soles of your feet wet but now it is at least 12 ft deep and flowing fairly swiftly.  I notice the kayaks for rent.

The park ranger told us we could have our pick of campsites, most were still open.  He directed us to the walk-in sites.  We are used to campgrounds where you have a small driveway to park your car and your tent pad is 10 feet away.  This time the campsites are up to 100 yards away down at 15 foot slope!  After viewing each campsite and reviewing its merits we decide on a corner one. Close to the entry.  Boy were we glad we didn't bring as much gear as usual. Hauling all our gear down will only be surpassed by hauling it back up!  The only blessing there is there should be less of it.  But the view! 

We set up camp in record time.  Practice makes perfect, after all this is our third camping trip together.  Ellen likes using the matchlight charcoal to start our fires.  It is very fast and dependable.  We discover there is no cell service in the bottom of all those hills.  I however have Wi-Fi on TPWD private network.  It never occurred to me it would be the same password as at work.

Well, Ellen likes to call her hubby twice a day when we are camping.  But with no signal we hop in the car and drive up the hill.  We are distracted by several deer nonchalantly grazing just a few yards away!  We take pics, drive a little way and more deer!  More pics, continue to drive up out of the canyon while I watch the bars of signal.  When we have claimed up that steep hill we finally have 2 bars of signal.  There is a convenient pull over spot that has quite the panoramic views while she explains the situation to hubby,  I'm taking more pics.  After all I had been told by several people to take pics.  I often live in the moment and forget.  On our way back to camp a red fox ran across the road, he was beautiful!

Back down to camp it's time to sit and relax and enjoy our view.  Then I notice, its the golden hour,  not really an hour but a few minutes when the sun is setting and everything takes a golden glow.  Out come the phones for more pics!  Now it's time to cook supper.  We decided to make it easy and have hot dogs.  I checked the weather channel ap on my phone and it said thunderstorms at 9:45.  We had seen and been thankful for bands of dark clouds when hauling our gear  down. We weren't worried we had withstood a little storm on our Colorado River State park trip in June.  We had our hot tea/coco and went to bed. 

I kid you not, it started raining at 9:39!  It started raining in the tent soon after.  At first we thought it was just a few drips but soon learned it was steady drips and our sleeping bags were soaked!  We grabbed our clothes and headed for the car.  We to tried to sleep in the very nice front seats that lay back.  After several hours I suggested we try the back with the seats down, at least we could stretch out.  Without any padding it was quite torturous and cold.  We tried to pad and cover ourselves with our clothes but you can guess that didn't work.  Finally when I got up to use the restroom I noticed the sky was lighter in the east.  I got back in the car and told Ellen I was calling it morning and we could get up and start a fire and have our tea/coffee.  The long hard night was finally over. 

As we drank a couple hot cups we watched the teenagers from A&M Corpus Christi who had invaded the camp.  They had more than 15 tents!  I finally started breakfast.  Nothing is so wonderful as bacon frying on a chilly misty morning.  I guess I'm part Hobbit!  After breakfast of bacon egg & cheese tacos we hung our sleeping bags et al out to dry and made another run up the hill to call Tim.  At that point Ellen decide she would like to fill the car with gas, driving up the hill all the time was really burning it up.  So we made our way to San Saba.  It took the better part of an hour.  We stopped at the first gas station which was FULL SERVICE!  A really nice fellow pumped the gas and chatted with us about the park.  He invited us to the San Saba Pecan Festival.  Apparently San Saba is the pecan capital of the world.  We instead went to the grocery store and bought more water.

After making a couple of sandwiches for lunch and letting it digest we looked at the time and it was ten till two!  If we wanted to make our tour we would have to bust ass and change to our hiking boots.  The meeting place for the hike was nearly to the front of the park.  We pulled in as the ranger was closing the gate.  I told Ellen to flash her lights.  Then ranger saw us let us in and told us to follow her down to the trail head.  Another ranger gave a little talk about the previous landowner and the delicate nature of travertine falls.  The rain leaches calcium out of the porous limestone and forms the falls, very much like stalactites in a cave.  After she finished and we were all milling around 3 other park rangers pulled up with some more hikers who had just finished the cave tour, man were they muddy, all but one of the rangers.  That gave us second thoughts about the cave tour, not to mention they said part of it was only 18 in high and you had to slide down.

Anyway, our hike to the Gorman falls was somewhere between hiking and climbing.  Luckily at the steepest part the park had installed hand rails.  What a sight to behold.  Even Ellen said it was worth the non-sleeping night in the car.  We took lots of pics.  Chatting with some of the rangers on the way back I confessed to being a TPWD employee also.

When we got back to camp we laid down on our mattresses that were warm and dry in the sun and nearly went to sleep.  We put everything back in the tent and zipped it up hoping to keep some of the sunny warmth knowing it would be even colder that night with the clear blue skies.  We dined on steak, sautéed mushrooms and only burned on the outside baked potatoes.  It was pretty good except the usually tender New York strip steaks were rather chewy, I thing cause they were rarer than I usually make.  So there were lots of partially chewed pieces and gristle to take home to the pups. 

As we sat around the fire we decided our camping trips needed to be 4 days instead of three so we do do more things.  We would have loved to kayak and hike more but time slips away.  We also decided our next trip would be in March for Ellen's birthday.  We are planning to go to Pace Bend Park, a Travis county park on Lake Travis.  They have and entire series of Hobbit/Lord of the Rings geocaches.  I've been wanting to show her about geochaching.

We slept well that night, it was cold but we were prepared and were snug in our dry bags.  The next morning we skipped our usual hot breakfast for blueberry muffins and granola bars.  We were packed up and on the road before noon.