We were able to snag the four days before Easter this year and completed our visits to the remaining parks in the East Texas region! Not only were we excited to accomplish this, we were looking forward to camping amongst the pines and using our kayaks once again. Aside from Caddo Lake, B.A. Steinhagen Lake that the park’s shoreline covers a portion of is well known for towering cypress tree groves. We were ready to do some paddling trails!

Day 1 of our trip was rather long after daytripping Huntsville and Livingston State Parks along the way, but we were able to set camp up with enough daylight and it was a beautiful set up! We had a neighbor close on one side and the near by highway noise was noticeable, but the trees and water front scenery were picturesque. Even after the long day, the kids convinced me we still needed an inaugural camp fire. They were right!

Day 2 we delayed our paddle trip hoping for warmer weather on day 3 and drove an hour away to daytrip Village Creek State Park. That day ended with chips and dips from a Casa Ole we saw on the way back and another camp fire.

On day 3 our faith in the forecast was rewarded and it was a beautifully sunny and warm day. Since we still only own 2 kayaks, we went to headquarters to rent a double kayak and 3 life jackets since I learned last minute that Ashlyn’s lifejacket was the only one in good shape/fit. We were surprised to learn that since the double kayak only seated 2 people, they would only loan 2 lifejackets and paying to rent additional lifejackets isn’t an option. HOWEVER, their canoes are rated for 4 people and we could get up to 4 jackets included in that rental. OK. Seemed to me this was far more complicated than it needed to be, but I was also the person short on life jackets. Beggars can’t be choosers, right? So that day, the boys and I learned how to operate a canoe haha! The launch area was located in a narrow slough section of the paddling trail and all of the kayaks and canoes were already set up along the shore ready to be launched. With a little creativity, we got our kayaks over to the site and were ready to go!

Ashlyn took on our 10ft kayak, Weston started out on the 7ft kayak and Archer took the bow of the canoe. The trail we chose is a little under 3 miles and would take us around the entire unit of the park that was actually an island. We thoroughly enjoyed the dynamic scenery and paddling experience as we fought the wind to pass the mouth of the Neches River to then riding the swirling current, passing our campsite, then re-entering the slough and working our way through the cypress trees like a maze. Around half way through, we beached near the boat ramp for a snack and the boys switched vessels. Archer did an awesome job manning a kayak on his own for the first time! We also really enjoyed the canoe and will likely continue renting those over double kayaks.

After dinner that evening, we drove across the highway to check out the other unit of the state park. It featured a completely different view of the lake and it’s shoreline was set up more on a bluff. Only primitive camping was permitted in this area, all of the rv sites were tucked back into the woods. We hung around the fishing pier for a bit and then called it a night.

We woke up on Good Friday ready to load up and drive the 5 hours home to enjoy the holiday. And perfect timing! Starting the evening before and over night, the campground filled up and it was complete chaos at daybreak! I don’t see myself ever needing to spend a holiday weekend at a state park, haha. I definitely understand people’s tendency to crowd in there when they can, though. Martin Dies Jr. is a whole package type park that offers a quintessential camping experience.

-Lindsay

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

Sunday morning of our whirlwind weekend at the border, we woke up in Laredo and headed out for our 5th and final state park before the return trip home that day. Lake Casa Blanca is situated on the northeast side of town and neighbors the Laredo International Airport.

We decided we would spend at least an hour there with a picnic lunch and pulled up to a line of cars at the entrance. Seemed like a happening place to be on a Sunday afternoon. Most everyone was heading to the playground area and boat ramp, so we found a secondary picnic table area by the lake and snagged a shaded table. We were amused during our lunch by a woman across the clearing blaring music and repeatedly fireballing lighter fluid under whatever meat she was cooking. And, no, I didn’t take a picture of it 😉

We hung out for a little bit longer watching the water sports that the lake seemed popular for and decided that was enough. While we were situated on the “camping” side of the lake, the park wrapped around its shoreline and across the cove we could see more day use amenities, but the access road inside the park was washed out and we would have to exit and enter from the other side of the lake. We didn’t find that necessary as that area was getting packed as well. This was probably our second shortest state park visit at just 45 minutes haha. It’s location and amenities made for a great city park, but I saw little appeal as a nature or camping destination.

-Lindsay

Along the way to Laredo on Saturday, we marked our 4th state park of the trip off. Falcon State Park is located on the massive Falcon Reservoir created by a dam across the Rio Grande technically making it an “International Reservoir.” The border line runs parallel to either shoreline splitting the body of water in half between Texas and Mexico. The park is a decent size covered in numerous campsites with only one loop trail around them. So, for this visit, we would just check out the lake.

Much of Texas’ lake levels are suffering now in the extreme heat and drought, but this lake has evidence of YEARS of low level struggles. The boat ramp was a bewildering sight to see with its lengthy extension in an attempt to reach the receding lake years before and even that be in vain now.

While we were exploring, a truck pulling a boat drove up out of the brush on a dirt road that seemed to lead to the lake. At first glance, you would think the road is just a wide hiking/biking trail, but then we starting observing other vehicles along the shoreline and figured we’d give it shot, haha. We hopped back in the car and started down one of the dirt roads and found a labyrinth of trails in all directions. We just kept turning on roads that seemed to head down hill until we indeed hit a beach area along the lake. There were about a dozen cars parked with families swimming and BBQing and a number of trucks with boat trailers parked long the shore. Apparently folks have just made their own boat ramps utilizing the rocky parts of the shore. What was truly bizarre was when Nathan pulled up satellite and map images of our location and our car should’ve been under water!

The water actually looked pretty decent to us, so we indulged in wading around a bit; even Sally! So now we have all been in the Rio Grande…technically.

Another bewildering moment was looking across the lake and realizing that was Mexico over there! We saw cars driving across the dam where a border crossing checkpoint was located, but I wondered what stopped folks from just boating back and forth. I guess as long as you don’t set foot on the opposite shore, its all good. There were posted signs everywhere about illegal border crossing…but that’s just information.

This park is to date the most “lawless” and “unstructured” state park we’ve visited. Usually vehicles are restricted to pavement and “trailblazing” is forbidden by standard park guidelines. But, park signage and swim area amenities like life preservers had been relocated to the off grid areas in almost a “they’ll allow it” sort of way. We never felt unsafe, but it definitely weirded me out coming from what I expect in state parks.

Still, we were grateful for the quiet scenery and cool-off before arriving in the crazy town of Laredo for one more overnight stay ahead of visiting our 5th and final park of the trip on Sunday.

-Lindsay

We started day 2 of our 5 park trip with a 30 minute drive from our hotel to the third and final World Birding Center state park. Meaning, like the others, it was a walk in style park and I was grateful to get an earlier start on it. This park also would be the closest we got on foot to the Mexico border.

We arrived a little before 10am and were greeted with the same lush landscaping and extravagant headquarter building as the previous parks, but were distracted by a rather large bird running around. It looked like cross of a chicken with a roadrunner!

After check-in, we set off across a bridge over an irrigation ditch and were surprised that we would be on the other side of the “the wall” in this park. Around the corner we came to the old headquarters building that is now being used as a nature center. We were told the tram was running today and starts at this location circling around every hour. But, no dogs allowed on it. Since the trailhead for the 2 mile loop hike for the Rio Grande would be an additional 3 mile roundtrip for us to get to, Nathan opted to hang out with Sally at the shaded pavilion while the kids and I zipped off to the trailhead on the tram.

On the way, the ranger driving the tram served as a tour guide and told us about his time in the park and a little about each trailhead we drove past. He also confirmed these parks get crazy packed in the winter months and we were definitely there in off season. He stopped at the Geological Survey Marker possibly placed in 1917 and then dropped us off at the trailhead for the loop that would take us as close as possible to the Rio Grande – aka the border of Mexico.

He also informed us that up until 5 years ago, you could take a cut off path down to a deck over the river, but a horrendous flood washed it all out and they felt it unsafe to rebuild anything if the river was capable of doing it once. Also, the area is not as serene now that it is covered in razor wire. But we enjoyed the well maintained pathway and acknowledged the turn in the trail when we were approximately 60 yards from the river. Not that we could really tell other than a little elevation change.

We finished our walk with about 10 minutes to spare before we were picked up and delivered back to Nathan and Sally who enjoyed their hour hanging out. Nathan spent the time researching the weird bird we saw all over the park and learned they are called Chachalacas and are hunted in Texas AND are supposed to be quite delectable. Sounds like we might have a Chachalaca meal in our future. Haha

That wrapped up our time at this park and we continued our trek Northwest towards Laredo that afternoon. Bentsen Rio-Grande was our most enjoyable visit of the 3 World Birding Centers with it’s historical and geographical features. It even made us do a little bird watching in the end!

-Lindsay

We are now over 2/3 of the way to our goal of hitting all 89 (the total number at the moment) state parks by the time Ashlyn is 18! It’s crazy to think about, but we have been chipping away at this for 7 years now and with 4 years left, it still feels achievable!

Estero Llano Grande was our second stop on Friday and was a whopping 30 minutes away from our first one. On the way, we drove a stretch of highway that was incredibly close to the border and got our first glimpse of “The Wall.” Took us a minute to realize what that structure was though!

Like Resaca de la Palma, this park is a registered world birding center and doesn’t permit vehicle traffic in it. It also boasted a grand, well landscaped entrance and headquarters. We spent some time on the patio that overlooks the wetlands and boardwalk system observing some ducks and ducklings before setting off on our quick trail to alligator lake. We’re not much on birds, but we’re definitely in on seeing some gators!

Along the way to the lake, we passed a marsh area that was incredibly lush for the time of year and interrupted an armadillo rooting around. We always love seeing those critters.

The alligator lake had 3 viewing areas along side its oblong shape, but we didn’t see anything for the 20ish minutes we spent there. But the walk was eventful enough and we had managed to go fairly deep into the park since it is quite small.

Parts of the trail were covered in blazing hot pea gravel and we pushed Sally to trot over those areas as fast as possible and would jump from shade patch to shade patch, but that poor pupper was not having a good time at this point in the day. So I pushed ahead with her back to the headquarters pavilion for a cooler rest spot while Nathan and the kids stayed at the marsh to see some more wildlife for a bit.

We only spent an hour at this park. For a birding enthusiast, this park is well maintained and offers numerous amenities for observation and exploration. But we were ready for hotel AC and enjoyed cold beverages that evening at Howling Rabbits and 5×5 breweries in McAllen. 🙂

-Lindsay

The stars had finally aligned and the time had come to tackle the 5 state parks that border Mexico. Since 3 of them are day use parks only and the other 2 are small and near cities, we opted for the whirlwind of hitting them all in 3 days. Even with Texas’ record breaking heat this year, now seemed like the perfect opportunity to check them off the list.

Starting off in Brownsville on Friday, Resaca de la Palma was one of two day use parks certified as a World Birding Centers that we would be visiting that day. In efforts to maintain a peaceful habit for birds, vehicle traffic within the park is limited to electric golf carts serving as trams. So, we parked in the lot outside the gates and proceeded to check in at the headquarters where they issued the adults wristbands. After that, we were free to roam any of the trails by foot or rented bicycle as the trams only run on weekends during the summer. The area around the headquarters was beautifully landscaped with numerous bird/pollinator habits and blinds for safe viewing.

We set off down the main paved road loop that crosses the resaca a number of times and links to other gravel trail hikes throughout the park. Resaca is the regions given name for the channels or oxbow lakes created by the Rio Grande. The main resaca in this park was dry at the time, but a ranger said it would fill again once the rain returns. Keeping aware of the pavement temperature and increasing lack of shade, we made it as far as the first crossing on the resaca and decided we had seen enough.

Once back at headquarters, Ashlyn and I wanted to do the quick trail that would take us out on the decks we saw from the main trail, but Sally was pretty worn out already. We hadn’t taken her out on the road much this summer and we could tell she was feeling out of shape. The guys stayed in the shade with her while Ashlyn and I zipped down the very cool and easy trail. We kept seeing scatterings of feathers along the trail and concluded that the birds must enjoy roosting and possibly dust bathing in that area. Ashlyn collected a few vibrant colored feathers and the signs at the end of the trail were quite helpful for identification.

We met back up with the guys and loaded up for the 30minute drive to our next park. And just like that, we marked #59 off! Apparently these southern most parks really come alive in the winter with both wild life and visitors. Not being birding enthusiasts ourselves, we’re just here to view and appreciate what TPWD continues to do for nature and wildlife conservation while giving humans a way to witness it.

-Lindsay