Mineral Wells State Park

There seems to be a trend with Easter camping in our family.  Somebody has to puke.  But good luck shines upon us, the plague passes and the camping continues.  We visited Mineral Wells State Park up in Mineral Wells, which is near Ft. Worth.  It is a bit of a haul from our house, but we were lured by the trailway, a lake, and fossil hunting.  The campsites are heavily treed and right next to the lake.  We had to climb down through the rocks and tree roots to get to the low lake, but there were plenty of things to hold on to as we climbed.  After P developed a sinus infection and fell asleep in the tent at 6:30, we were not sure about staying.  But I am very glad he perked up for some fishing the next morning.  Shawn caught a catfish that I did not want to clean, so we named him Leonard.  OK, I named him.  We rode our bikes around the park and enjoyed our morning.  That afternoon, we went into town to the Fossil Park.  This is a piece of land that was used for fill dirt and it was discovered that it contained huge numbers of marine fossils.  People are welcome to come and dig and take home what you find.  We found a whole bowl of stuff and had good dirty fun.  This is not the place to go if it is very sunny or hot.  There is no shade or water.  That evening, Natalie and I went to a Cowboy Poetry event at the park.  They told stories, sang songs, and taught the history of the park and surrounding area.  We learned a lot and connected the stories to a few we had heard in Pal Duro.  This is a great park for fishing and kayaking.  The park staff is wonderful as always and despite the lake being low, it is very pretty.

Hikes, Bikes, and Trips

This post was actually written in March and then completely forgotten about.  Oops.  But it was a good showing of what we did between November and March.  So. let's just pretend it is March. And chilly outside.  Brrr.
Building a house sure does take up a lot of weekends.  We have had a cold winter here in Central Texas and have missed out on some good camping months, but freezing temps are few and far between in the grand scheme of things.  We managed to fit in a few hikes, two bike rides on the trail (1 in Florida and 1 here), and even a day of swimming.  Ok the swimming was in Florida too, but it was still a nice break from the cold.

Over Thanksgiving break we explored Lake Georgetown.  This park is run by the Army Corp of Engineers and is very close to our land that we purchased.  It has a 28 mile trail around the lake and 3 camping areas.  We were very pleasantly surprised by the quality and difficulty of the trail, view of the lake, and scenery.  I took a few pictures but am not sure exactly where in cyber space they ended up.  I will work on finding them and getting them posted to this entry.


We enjoyed a day after Christmas hike with my parents again.  Last year we went to Inks Lake and this year we tackled Enchanted Rock.  It was a beautiful day and not terribly crowded.