With the advent of spring came some desired to grow and explore. So we ("me" has multiplied to "we" in the past 2 years) started growing some flowers; and some pictures of them will duly follow. The desire to explore saw us driving West on US-290, two weeks back, towards Austin: the city of the wise and the old and the wild and the young. We had reserved online a camping site at Pedernales Falls, which is West of Austin near Johnson City, hometown of an ex-president with the same name.
We reached the state park on our trusty steed with our pots and pans tailing, to find that our reservation is in fact for a "primitive camp site", which means that we had to hike about 2 miles from the parking lot through a fairly dense forest to reach the edge of a river, and of course there were no toilets there. We tried to hike without backpacks (were not prepared) with all our pots, pans, coal grill, sleeping bags, ice-chest and sun-tan lotions, and made it almost 150 yards after which my right arm fell off and our sense of humor kicked in.
We laughed out way back to the park ranger's office and pleaded for sanity. They looked around and found some pity. Viola! we had regular campsite equipped with a tap, an electric outlet and a fire-pit, after the experience with the "primitive site", this seemed like a fully furnished 5 bedroom mansion.
Later that evening after settling down with camping, serendipity sent two deer running/jumping right through our campsite. The park is far away from city lights and it has a stargazing field, that is away from all the camping areas, which renders this field really dark and perfect for looking at the sky. The sky was very clear and some airplanes were seen flying in/out of the nearby Austin airport. I photographed some constellations and here is one of the pictures.
We explored the nearby german settlement town of Frederickburg the next day, and stuffed ourselves with german food and beer. The town is actually quite un-texas, nothing was big and nobody was selling furniture. Instead the town has a lot of people walking and browsing the streets lined with mom and pop type stores selling mom and pop type stuff at mom and pop prices. At dusk we hurried back to the camp to take some pictures of the waterfalls in the park at twilight. I took some long exposures of the water in sun-setting light, here is one of the pictures.
The park was well maintained and the facilities were clean, I would certainly recommend anyone going there, reservations are a must in advance. More camping stories coming soon, tomorrow we are visiting Huntsville state park and spanning the forest on foot.
