We had arrived and set up camp the night before at Martin Dies Jr. State Park and were excited to explore the paddling trails there, but the forecast for day one was cold and overcast. So, we decided to hop back in the car and daytrip Village Creek State Park an hour away. The park is quite small with only 25 campsites and a handful of trails that loop into one another. This and the location being at the back of a neighborhood makes the place feel more like an elaborate city park.

When we arrived at 12:30, the headquarters were closed and no one was registering visitors, but the gate was open, so we continued on. Thankfully, our park pass waives day use fees for us, but this was a first time seeing one of these headquarters unmanned! We didn’t get very far in the park before discovering the bridge to the day use area was closed due to construction. At least its a small park! We parked the car near the campsites bathhouse and were able to walk a narrow path beside the bridge.

Then we were able to access trails that led back to the creekside picnic area. Along the way, we passed through a large area where the park is undergoing a restoration of longleaf pines. Every flagged spot marked a native variety that had been planted for the project and there were ALOT.

Once we were at the creek, we ate our lunch and checked out the amenities. The park offers a large fleet of canoes and kayaks for rent and the launch area looked pretty decent. The water was murky, but it would make for an easy going paddle. There is a large sandbar area around the bend that is popular for splashing around, but access to it by foot is a 2 mile one way hike. We weren’t in the mood for that haha.

We chose a different trail for our short trek back to the car and were highly entertained by the workout stations that were placed along the way.

On the way back to Martin Dies Jr., we spotted a Casa Ole in Silsbee and decided chips and dips would pair well with our campfire that night and it was perfect! 🙂

-Lindsay

Carrying on farther east from Huntsville State Park, we arrived at Livingston by 4 pm. I felt like we were running about 2 hours behind since we still needed to finish our day out setting up camp at Martin Dies Jr. State Park. Fortunately, Livingston is quite small and we managed to hit all the highlights in under an hour!

There’s only 6 trails in the park with the longest being 2 miles roundtrip. We chose a 1 mile loop called the “Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail.” The entire trail is, in fact, an elevated boardwalk and we got to check out a couple of nature viewing areas.

The majority of the property is waterfront centered with a massive boatramp that also boasts a retail shop, docks, piers and a CCC built observation tower. Most of the campsites have beautiful views of the large lake. It was odd to see residential homes immediately beginning on either side of the parks waterfront boundaries, though.

Like Huntsville, we had the park to ourselves on a Tuesday afternoon and we enjoyed the peace and quiet. It seems like it can get just as packed during peak times as well. We also found it had more luxury type amenities; but agreed that if we had to pick one to go back to, we would choose Huntsville. It’s trail availability and remoteness have more appeal to us.

-Lindsay

We’ve now visited all of the East Texas Region state parks! I snagged 4 days out of our busy spring schedule and we completed the last 4 parks in the southern part of the region. We daytripped Huntsville and Livingston state parks on the way to Martin Dies Jr. State Park where we set up camp for 3 nights. We also daytripped Village Creek state park from Martin Dies Jr.

We were on the road a little after 7am Tuesday and hit Huntsville around 12:30 just in time for a picnic lunch. We had the day use area all to ourselves and the kids enjoyed exploring the playground and CCC built lodge. The swim area is closed with caution tape roping it off due to alligators frequenting the area more often the last couple years, but the water had little appeal to us anyway.

After our lunch break, we drove to the other side of the park for a 1.5 mile hike. The trail along the lake was beautiful and we got our chance to see some alligators! The loop also took us by a boardwalked portion of the trail that goes all the way around the lake. After exploring a little bit of that area, we finished our stroll through the trees the rest of the way back. Once settled back in the car, we continued east to Lake Livingston State Park.

We really enjoyed the scenery and tranquility of this park! I’ve opted out of camping at it due to its proximity to Houston and I-45. I just felt like it would be a madhouse; even during the week. But it was so quiet and many of the campsites have lovely views of the peaceful lake. We will probably try to go back at some point to relax and spend some time on the numerous trails. We’ll still avoid the weekends, just to be safe. 🙂

-Lindsay

Keeping with gifting a trip for Christmas tradition, we chose a long weekend in Austin for this year. Our main goal was a stay and play at Kalahari Resort in Round Rock and then the rest of the time was pretty easy to fill with other area attractions. We booked only a Thursday night at Kalahari and then 2 more nights at Best Western on the Southeast side of Austin. The policy at the resort is on the day of check-in you can access the waterpark at noon if your room isn’t ready as check-in time is 4pm. The following day, while you have to clear out of the room by 11, you can stay in the waterpark until it closes. So, that was our plan, maximize waterpark time Thursday and for as long at we could stand it on Friday before heading down to Austin. The kids did great patiently waiting for February to roll around and having 2 days to play indoors in heated water while it was winter outside was so worth it.

I venture to say that this particular Kalahari is twice the size of the Great Wolf Lodge we visited a few times in the Dallas area and definitely appeals to older kids and adults more. The water park has more thrill slides and more strictly monitored adult only areas. The arcade area has a massive ropes course and indoor rollercoaster! We spent hours running amuck in the waterpark without any wait lines for slides and little crowd anywhere else until dinner time. Then we went up to the room and had a simple microwave meal. We decided to spend extra on arcade time for the kids instead of one of the numerous restaurants onsite. The kids spread out all over the arcade with their own swipe cards while Nathan and I held down a checkpoint location at a bar overlooking the room. We called it a night once the kids burned through all the their credit and acquired their treasures haha.

The next morning we were packed out of our room and heading back into the park by 10:30. However, the crowd had significantly increased over night and Weston and I were done after an hour. We found it difficult to even move around the park much less enjoy activities. We opted to instead to stroll around the grounds outside checking out the statues and landscaping while Nathan, Ashlyn and Archer played hard for another 2 hours! lol! We all agreed the resort is a phenomenal time and Nathan said he would take 2 weekdays off next time to come back and enjoy it the way we had on Thursday.

Once everyone was in dry clothes, we headed down to Austin, stopping along the way to hike Mt Bonnell. It was a fun little excursion and was surprising to see the views you achieve between the drive up there and elevation gain on the short hike itself!

We had worked up a good appetite by then and had dinner at El Arroyo “famously” known for their viral billboard one-liners. The food and margaritas were delicious and all at a very reasonable price! Always nice to find a place maintaining authenticity!

Saturday morning we headed to the Austin Zoo located out by Lake Travis regardless of the bitter cold front that had blown in over night. Thankfully, its a small zoo and we briskly made our way through and were able to see all the exhibits in an hour and a half haha! But, what they’re doing at this facility is really remarkable. Every animal had been rescued by or relinquished to the zoo to live out their days with proper care. Each exhibit had information on the animal and where they came from.

After the zoo, we visited 2 breweries near the lake including Oasis Brewing located in The Oasis just in time for the sun to come out.

We had a lovely dinner at Sundancer Grill enjoying the unique views of the marina and lake at such a low level.

The next day, before heading home, we visited The Capitol Building. During the Austin Marathon apparently haha. But, Nathan did great navigating all the road closures and it was the perfect wrap on our long weekend in Austin.

-Lindsay