Monday, February 13th – Saturday, February 18th
Village Creek State
Park – near Beaumont, TX
The drive to Village Creek S.P. was a long day. It was a
familiar drive and campground, as we had camped there in 2014. This Texas S.P.
is very nice with a great paddling creek running through it. The creek winds
through the forest and has many white sandbars along the way. We were able to
paddle an 8 mile section of the creek with an RV couple who also had a kayak,
so we ran our own shuttle from put-in to take-out. There were many
hiking/biking trails throughout the park, which we enjoyed with the dogs and a few
times riding our bikes. This park was also in the process of repairing flood
damage that had occurred in the last couple of years. While there we did eat
out for Valentine’s Day at a local Mexican restaurant in Lumberton, the nearest
town. Again, we noticed the growth in the area since 2014. We keep seeing this
population/building boom in places where we have been before. It seems that one
day we will have to move back out to the boonies to get away from the sprawling
cities and towns. After six days there, we continued westward to a new
adventure in Texas.
Sunday, February 19th
– Thursday, February 23rd
Bastrop State Park –
Bastrop, Texas (southeast of Austin)
We found this State Park while looking for nearby great
mountain biking trails. Also, this was a highly rated State Park campground,
with full hook-ups for our RV. We were able to schedule a full week, with the
plan for a lot of hiking and mountain biking. After taking the back roads like
we prefer to do, we arrived at the park, where we were able to see the effects
of the “Lost Pines Forest” fire in 2012. The fire burned 34,000 acres and
destroyed 1660 homes during a bad drought period. It has been known as one of
the worst fires in the state. The forest is beginning to regrow, but very
slowly. There used to be a golf course on the property, which was also
destroyed during the drought and fire.
The dogs enjoyed hiking off leash with us in the park, the
trails were along the steep hills and were mostly rocky, red dirt and mud. The
whole park was very hilly with steep roads. The campground is well maintained
with spacious campsites. The second day there we drove over to the mountain
bike trails, Rocky Hill Ranch, near Smithville. After arriving we checked in
and paid the small fee. There were no other riders there and we proceeded onto
the trails. After about 3 miles of riding the trails we rode back into a forest
area, where we found the trails extremely muddy and not rideable. Our tires
were caked with about 1-2 inches of red mud, making it impossible to ride; plus
it is a known rule not to ride muddy trails as it will destroy them. There had
been a couple of previous days with a lot of rain. So we turned around and headed
back to the truck. Wow, what a disappointment, we had planned to ride there at
least three days. As a side note, while looking at the satellite view of the
trails, we noticed a huge field with carved out letters, LUEKE. We googled this
and found out this was on an adjacent ranch and is the farmers name. He carved
the letters by removing pine trees for cattle grazing and left the letters for
his name. It was designed so precisely, that NASA uses this view to measure
photos taken from the ISS space station. If you want more information on this
interesting story, check it out: http://www.cntraveler.com/story/the-luecke-farm-landmark-you-can-see-from-space
The remainder of the week, we drove around through the Hill
Country, hiked some more trails and rode bikes around the park. We also used
the time to get some maintenance done, work on/clean our bikes, shopping,
laundry and a night of great TexMex food. We really enjoyed the town of Bastrop,
which was much bigger than expected. Texas seems to also be growing in population
and development. However, the Hill Country around the area is so beautiful. This
wouldn’t be a bad place to live, as long you one is out in the country.
On to our next adventure in Texas, it’s a big state!