Month: February 2019

Monday, February 4, 2019

It was cloudy all day today. No sunshine at all. No rain. And clouds aren’t all bad on a travel day. We might as well get use to the clouds based on the 7-day forecast.

Today we moved from Kerrville-Schreiner Park to Stephen F. Austin State Park in San Felipe, Texas. It is on the west side of Houston about 50 minutes out of Houston. San Felipe is really just a tiny town of 747 people and all that is really here are the historical sites of Stephen Austin, the park and golf course. Dave said something about us being out in the woods and seems he is right. Nearby towns that are larger but still outside of Houston are Sealy, Fulshear, (where Dave and Linda live) and Katy. We are still about an hour from where Anne’s cousin Ross and Barb live. We hope to see them again while we are here too. We had an uneventful travel day and we are settled in. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

This morning was like most mornings lately. Cloudy! Don’t know if this is the norm for this part of Texas this time of the year but we have had a lot of cloudy mornings with the sun breaking though for a beautiful afternoon. We had a beautiful afternoon today.

We planned to do three things today. Church, riding the River Trail and visiting the Riverside Nature Center. We went to early service at Kerrville First UMC . It is a beautiful church that looks new. They have three traditional services in the sanctuary and one contemporary in the fellowship hall. We attended the first early service at 8:15. There was a good crowd, a very good message from the senior pastor (They have three), and communion. The senior pastor and the one associate pastor we spoke with knew about NOMADS. Yea – maybe the word is getting out.

After a late breakfast, we headed out to ride the River Trail on our bikes. Perhaps because we rode earlier today, there were fewer people on the trail today. It was still a beautiful and fun ride. We rode to the end and back. Today when we turned toward home we discovered there was a strong head wind we had to fight against. Made for a harder ride today, but still fun.

Unfortunately, we did not do our homework on the Riverside Nature Center. It’s closed on Sunday. Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad. It was still a great day. After some lunch we did a little more hiking in the park and then just relaxed outside at our campsite the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow is moving day.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

This morning was warmer than the past few. It was still very cloudy and an occasional drizzle. We haven’t been able to sit outside or eat outside much since we have been here due to the weather, so this morning since it was warmer we enjoyed having our breakfast outside. Kerrville-Schreiner Park was much fuller this morning since it is the weekend. Lots of kids out playing. Parents biking with their kids. Nice.

Today we decided to stay in the park and hike and do some geocaching. There are several hiking trails in the park that wind all over the 517 acres. Today we hiked 11 miles and both of us got over 26,000 steps. Think we will sleep well tonight. Some of the trails went through areas thick with cedar trees. You could smell the cedar as we hiked through. We hiked up to the highest point of the park where there was a beautiful view of the surrounding area. We had a great day in the park!

 

Friday, February 1, 2019

The weather didn’t look that great this morning. We had some fog and drizzle again but it was warmer. We really debated about what to do today. In the end we decided we would go ahead with our plans to climb Enchanted Rock State Natural Area and we are so glad we did.

Enchanted Rock is about 18 miles north of Fredericksburg, or 44 miles north east of Kerrville on a Texas farm road. Enchanted Rock is a huge pink granite dome, think Stone Mountain. Enchanted Rock rises 425 feet above the base elevation of the park. Its high point is 1,825 feet above sea level, and the entire dome covers 640 acres. Climbing the Rock is like climbing the stairs of a 30- or 40-story building. We might have gotten better photographs with better sun but the cloud cover made for a much more pleasant hike. The scenery is amazing. It’s no wonder this small park gets over 250,000 visitors each year. We had so much fun hiking around on the top. There were other people at the summit but the area is so large you don’t even notice the other people. The granite is beautiful. There are huge pieces of it on the sides of the road and in pastures as you approach the park. There are lots of other hiking trails (about 10 miles) in the park in addition to the hike to the summit we took today. We will have to consider going back for more hiking another day. We will see. The weekends are always more crowded so we may hike more of the trails at the park tomorrow. Hope everyone has a great weekend.