After our leisurely departure from South Llano River and a short drive to North San Antonio, we were set up at a lovely campsite just in time for dinner.

With plenty of daylight left after eating, we drove to the riverside park to scope out what we could get into the following day. We were thrilled to discover a beautiful section of crystal clear river shaded by towering cypress trees with a limestone cliff as the backdrop. AND there were only like 5 other humans there (and a few creepy buzzards milling about 😆).

And by the looks of the huge parking lot and overflow parking available for the spot, it appeared it could get quite congested at peak times. We decided to take advantage and planned for an entire day of lounging riverside for this visit. After a little more exploring, Weston made a fire and we enjoyed s’mores and hanging out at the enormous campsite.

The next morning, we had a laugh to discover the local raccoons had helped themselves to our yeti cooler in the middle of the night and ate ONLY the rest of our chocolate bars for s’mores. We had been warned they were crafty, but underestimated their ability to adapt to current ice chest latching systems! We were lucky they didn’t clean us out entirely, just satisfying a sweet tooth. 😉

Our day of river play was so relaxing and perfect. A few people trickled in and out during the day, but we still felt like we had the river all to ourselves. The kids chased minnows, built rock dams and floated. Sally and I lounged on the shore and waded around occasionally. We finished out the R&R day with another campfire (without s’mores unfortunately) and a good night’s sleep after locking the ice chests in the car of course.

It goes without saying, we barely touched on what this park has to offer. We have to go back. For starters, we missed out on touring the Honey Creek State Natural Area (part of our total count) that’s within the park’s boundaries as it’s only open on weekends. We didn’t hike a single trail either and there’s a whole section on the other side of the river.

This park ended up being our last stop of the tour. We had 2 more nights planned at Choke Canyon State Park, but after learning the park was under a boil water notice and plans developing for a trip to Rocksprings that weekend following our return, we all agreed to cut the trip short and headed straight for home.

While we didn’t meet all the goals I had in mind, we hadn’t pulled a trip off like this yet! Camping at the height of summer definitely had its draw backs, but we did eventually acclimate and when we returned to our 76* home, that temperature then took some getting used to! Haha. And even though I had planned on 14, being gone for 12 days was still the longest we have achieved. It makes me optimistic about our ability to venture outside this massive state now that we live at the bottom of it!

– Lindsay