A Visit to Garner State Park

April 26-29, 2018

When I was setting up a schedule of visits, my daughter invited me to go camping with her to Garner State Park. I had only ever stopped by for a few minutes when passing by before discovering I had accidentally taken my host's camera and left him mine. The evening was even more memorable because a deer totaled my car. (I did make it home safely, before finding the car would be totaled. )

My daughter has an Airstream trailer, so I would be doing a very different kind of camping.   Packing up was pretty easy and we drove over after work on Thursday.  She had to work on Friday and I messed around, doing a little exploring. Saturday we did a short but strenuous hike after I spent the early morning hours chasing birds and scenery. We also got in our river time both Friday and Saturday. She planned to train her five month puppy to retrieve in the water and to ride her paddle board. The puppy was perfectly happy to swim out after a ball and put her nose under water but not dive after it.  And she hopped on the paddle board and was perfectly happy to go riding with Kris. I enjoyed taking pictures and playing in the clear water. And Kris enjoyed the idea of having a paddle board buddy.

I also enjoyed lots of hammock and rocking chair time. And since, the park was almost to capacity at over 500 campsites, I enjoyed the white noise the trailer fans produced.

Our campsite - we are "cooking" stones to comply with the small cooking fire rule

Karma enjoying supervising us while setting up

Birds were really fun at the park.  Since it is so popular, the local birds are all knowledgable about snacks and came to help themselves to our nuts.  One titmouse was willing to get within two feet of us. And lots of migrating birds were passing through, including chats, white-eyed vireos, and several warblers I couldn't identify by sound.  We also saw and heard several summer tanagers.

A male summer tanager

The far side of the Frio River is lined with cypress trees

And is so clear you can see fish swimming

Star sedge, Rhynchospora colorata is my favorite sedge because it attracts pollinators, so I was excited to see it again, growing just at river's edge

This chat was making his rattling noise when he looked like this

And making more of a whistling call when he opened his beak

Dewberries are almost ripe- I would have picked the ripe one had I seen it while taking this picture

Summer flowers were starting to bloom

Sometimes in great profussion

Jack rabbits were everywhere at night and early in the morning.  I loved their headlight ears. 

The next set of pictures are from our short, strenuous hike to Crystal Cave.

We started just before this grove of trees

A lot of the trail was climbing up slick rock - Kris's picture of me

Kris and Karma at the mouth of little Crystal Cave

View of Old Baldy - I thought about hiking it Sunday morning but slept in instead

Another view as we started the down part of the loop. Luna the chihuahua managed to be in this picture.
She can hike five miles and is great at bouldering

Karma the paddleboard dog

Kris and Karma

 I'm writing this the Sunday evening we came home. It was a very relaxing trip. I'm getting stoked to go camping the last week of my travels until I get too far north to find open campsites.