Well we found ourselves farmhouse-less for labor weekend. So why let a 3 day weekend go to waste?! I had warned Nathan that if we weren’t getting a farmhouse, I wanted to be floating on the Frio. He thought I was kidding. When I started looking at cabins the Monday before, I was striking out. It was obviously going to be a crowded weekend and I didn’t care to get into that anyways. This was going to be the first year all 3 kids floated with us and I didn’t need the added drama.
I had seen a few pictures of the Medina River on Pinterest and had earmarked it for future reference. Time to refer to it! After a quick search, I found a very affordable house and floatable river area in Bandera! I promptly texted Nathan, “Frio out. Medina in.” 😄 We then decided I would leave from Mom’s with the kiddos Friday am and Nathan would leave from Houston Friday evening after work.

The kids and I left at 8am anticipating almost a full day in the car. Glad we gave ourselves that! TEN hours later, we pulled in the drive of this cute little blue house 3 blocks away from the heart of Bandera. Along the way we stopped at Common Grounds in Waco, played at the most epic splash pad ever in Georgetown, drove the very scenic 1431 to Marble Falls and stopped in Boerne for groceries at HEB.

(BTW the boys are not actually pissed in this picture. They have decided that this is “posing” for a photo 🤔)

It was the farthest and longest drive I’ve made solo with the kids so far and we ALL did really well! There was only one quick side-of-a-desolate-road pee break needed for Archer! 👍🏻

Nathan got to the house by 10:30 pm and the kids were stoked to see him when they woke up this morning. I learned that this weekend was The Bandera Days celebration and that today Main St was going to have a parade led by a legit longhorn cattle drive! We weren’t missing that! And we weren’t disappointed either!

With the heat of the day upon us, we decided to load up and drive the 15 minutes to Hill Country State Natural Area, one of the 95 state parks on our list. I had already learned that it was primarily geared towards equestrian use, but we managed a quick half mile hike to the top of a hill to take in some views.

The park offers 40 miles of trails with horse-friendly campsites scattered around the 5,200 acres. Hitching posts and corrals were everywhere. I imagine if you get a desire to camp out cowboy style, this would be a really fun place to do it!

After some rest back at the house, we ate out for dinner at “TJ’s at the Old Forge” across Main St from our house and had a great dinner, which included bacon wrapped quail as an appetizer, while listening to live country music.

Tomorrow will be our float day on the Medina River and I just know I’m going to have great things to say about it too. Hopefully Monday we can stop at Government Canyon State Natural Area on the way home to make lucky number 13 on our list. It has dinosaur tracks!