Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mother's Day at McKinney Falls State Park

I know, last time I posted about McKinney Falls I was not impressed.  But I decided to give it another chance as a day trip and I am so glad I did.  We went for hiking and geocaching today and has a great time.  We have had a good amount of rain recently so the falls were flowing nicely, but not scary.  We found the cache and got our 2nd path tag (www.pathtags.com).  We hiked to the lower falls and followed the path that went by the Indian Shelter up to the upper falls.  We had fun taking off our shoes and crossing the creek just above the falls.  Patrick and I managed to slowly make our way across without falling.  Shawn took Natalie and she was not so dry when they came back.  She fell in the water and almost took Shawn with her.  So she made the drive home wearing a skirt that I forgot to take to the dry cleaners.  We saw some amazing insects.  Huge walking stick and leaf bugs by the bathrooms.  A fuzzy not yet identified caterpillar, gulf swallows and gulf fratillaries were enjoying the wildflowers.  The Indian Blankets, Texas Thistles, black eyed susans, sunflowers and white prickly poppies were everywhere!  We saw cardinals, scissortails, doves, and a variety of wrens, larks, and sparrows.  We saw "old baldy" on our hike, a 60 foot tall 600 year old cypress tree.  Such a fun way to spend the day with my family!