The week before Thanksgiving, the kids and I embarked are our longest and farthest trip to date. We covered 3 new parks and were gone 6 days. This was also our latest in the season camping trip. I had been watching the weather a few weeks before and realized we were just going to gamble with rain chances and overnight lows, but upped our preparedness.

Lost Maples is aptly named for a grove of maple trees that appear to be lost in the cedar/post oak hill country. So the Fall is a particularly beautiful thus busy time of year for this park. Their small camping loop was booked, but we lucked out with availability at 30 minute away Garner State Park. We previously marked this equally as stunning and attractive park off our list in 2015 as tent campers, but Garner isn’t one of those places you tire of easily.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and had the camper set up in 30 minutes! We learned our lesson after Cleburne to survey the site before backing in and we were able to get level on the first try at each park. With a few hours left of daylight, we opted to explore the Frio River bank behind our campsite. We had a great time burning off energy and stretching our legs after the 7 hour car ride.

Our first night cooking dinner in the dark and doing dishes by flashlight presented its own annoyances that I hadn’t originally accounted for by camping in the Fall, but we managed and turned in early. We had a scheduled day pass reserved for Lost Maples the next day.

I’ve never been to Lost Maples during peak season and was unsure of what to expect, but having the day pass secured made me sure we would at least get in. And we would just hope for the best that we wouldn’t be elbow to elbow with others. I had also preselected a 4.6mile roundtrip hike to maximize our experience. The kids were well warned and we came prepared for a full day lol!

Our hike began in the heart of the maple grove and it was already apparent that our “crowd” was the occasional elderly couple and we were off to a delightful start.

A little over a mile in, we came to a formation named “Monkey Rock” and immediately saw the reason. Weston theorized that this was the result of old river flow AND a waterfall.

Another mile of rock formations and creek crossings, we came to the “Grotto.” This area was fascinating with the ground water seepage causing stalactites and feeding the ferns hanging from the rock surface.

From there, we began our uphill climb. And were rewarded with fantastic views!

Downhill was slow and tedious and fatigue had definitely set in. 1 mile more and 4.5 hours later we had conquered the kids’ longest hike! In the end they were quite proud of themselves regardless of the intermittent whining and complaining throughout the hike. 😉

Once back at the camp in Garner, the kids talked me into letting them wade ankle deep in the river to a rock island.

One more dinner in the dark and then another early bedtime in preparation for our drive out farther west the next day. There was a lot of potential for rain and scattered thunderstorms during our 2 nights and days in the area. It was certainly overcast, but we never were rained on and temps were in the mid 70s and only hit low 60’s. We even ran the AC at night! Perfection. Lost Maples State Park is one of the elites. Along with Garner. We won’t pass up the opportunity to revisit these places in the future.

-Lindsay

In celebration of my inlaws’ 50th wedding anniversary, we put together a weekend getaway with them to Czech country. I had read about a “kolache trail” that had been mapped out some years ago and thought it would be a delight to experience with them. There are 10 recognized on this particular trail spanning all to the west of Houston and as far south as the Freeport area and north as Waco. We selected 4 for geographical and time convenience to achieve on a Saturday.

We left my inlaws’ house in Houston about 8 am and arrived at bakery #1 in Chappell Hill an hour later. The lovely log cabin feel and coffee smell of Chappell Hill Bakery were quickly trumped when we saw the display case. Kolaches and “meat kolaches” for days! Nathan insists that the meat variety be called klobasneks, but I have a heck of a time saying that for some reason, so meat kolache is easy. Archer selected a bacon, egg and cheese “kolache”, and Ashlyn a ham and cheese. They surprised me with their disinterest in the sweeter side of things. Weston went for a monster cinnamon roll and the adults selected cream cheese, poppy seed and peach kolaches. Ashlyn and Archer were very pleased with their savory choices, but the rest of us found something lacking in our fillings. Perhaps not enough? But we were excited to have kicked off the taste test!

Stop #2 was about another hour away in La Grange. We were initially thinking we would have lunch at Weikel’s Bakery as well, but it was only 10:30 and we just weren’t ready yet. Weikel’s was not as grand of a display, but they had quite a variety! Including kolaches the size of a dinner plate! Ashlyn and I selected a cream cheese and chocolate pudding kolache while the others kept to their previous flavors for accurate comparison. The boys bowed out this go around. Shocking! Also shocking was how much better these were than Chappell Hill’s! We had a new leader, haha.

For stop #3, we switched back a little bit to Ellinger for Hruska’s Bakery. This was the busiest one yet. We were lost in a sea of burnt orange…game day I suppose for a certain university ;). We put in for an order of burgers and grilled cheeses and the adults powered through on our quest and selected another round of kolaches. I deviated with a pumpkin pie and cream cheese one while the others kept their consistency. There were no complaints on the baked goods, but they still didn’t have whatever Weikel’s has. The burgers were excellent, though!

At this point, it was only 12:30 and we were 30 minutes from our final destination with one last bakery and our hotel in Schulenburg. I had anticipated the bakeries being more time consuming. Nathan and I quickly pieced together an along-the-way itinerary viewing some of the area’s well known “painted churches.” Yay for being spontaneous planners!

We started the tour with the Hostyn Grotto at Queen of the Holy Rosary Church outside of La Grange. There were numerous shrines and grottos surrounding the church, including a pair of Civil War cannons in memorial of a father and son that fought on opposite sides and were both buried in the church’s cemetery. The main grotto depicting Jesus’ tomb was built in 1925 and was made of rocks quarried from the Colorado River to resemble a shrine in Lourdes, France. We were all very impressed with the craftsmanship of all the structures on the property.

Ammansville with St. John the Baptist Church was our next stop. The Church we saw was the third for the site being built in 1919. The first two were destroyed by a storm and then a fire. And it was pink. A lot of pink! We encountered a tour group at this one and by the sound of it, if you had time in your day and extra interest, I would recommend scheduling and paying the $10/person to Schulenburg’s chamber of commerce for the guided tour.

For our next stop, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in Dubina, we lucked out with another tour being present and were granted access to enter the building instead of viewing through a gate. It was built in 1912 by the area’s Bohemian residents and they put their bright light and color pallet into it. Incredibly beautiful.

We had to skip one Church after reading online that it was closed for the day for a wedding, but we still had St. Mary’s Catholic Church in High Hill. Except when we pulled the up the parking lot was SWAMPED. Apparently the tour website didn’t get the memo that this Church also had a wedding going on. Oh well. It is supposed to be quite impressive on the inside with statues imported from Italy, stained glass from Germany and a reproduction of Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” Some other time, perhaps.

By now it was 2:30 and we were ready for our final Bakery in Schulenburg. Except Kountry Bakery closed at 2pm. Oops. On to the hotel then. Once situated and freshened up, we headed out to the historic Sengelmann’s Hall for dinner at “Mama’s Restaurant.”

This place is so cool! This 1890’s saloon and dance hall shut down in the 1940s but brought back to life in 2009 to include a restaurant. They do quite the business with weddings now and we counted ourselves lucky they were open for usual business this Saturday. In fact, we had the place to ourselves! Yay for early dinners. Our meal was fantastic and the beer was cold. 😁 After dinner, the kids and I explored and we found our way up to dark dance hall upstairs and out onto the balcony behind the Sengalmann sign. My old timey dancehall loving self was in heaven.

After a good, hard night’s sleep we checked out of the hotel and introduced everyone to the awesomeness that is the Oakridge Smokehouse Breakfast Buffett. In fact, we DID bring Ma N Pa! It was the cherry on top of a weekend full of eating and having not been there in 8 or so years, I was so happy to see not a single thing had changed. I find that refreshing from time to time.

-Lindsay