Spring Break

We traveled to the Hill Country this past weekend to visit the Lake Travis/Enchanted Rock/Fredricksburg area for Spring Break. It wasn't too bad of a trip- only 4 hours to Lake Travis. In the morning we tried to get an early start to Enchanted Rock, but had some interesting encounters, most notably the "Great GPS" debate- Dick's Magellan GPS system versus Jer's wireless cell phone GPS. Both had their pros and cons, but neither one in my opinion was that reliable. Dick's GPS started off taking us to a bar in Austin called Enchanted Rock (completely out of our way.) Then when we programed the right place in, it took us through small windy back roads, interesting street names- Crabapple Ave, streets with no names, and areas with signs that said "Watch for Wild Animals", as cows sat on the side of the road. (We used Jer's GPS on the way back- it only took us through a couple of back roads and some scary low water crossings.) When we finally got to Enchanted Rock, the park was already full, due to Spring Break, and we were told to come back later. So off the Fredricksburg for a quick lunch! Along the way Victoria got sick on those up and down and windy roads. The picture above is of Carol and Bella at the neat restaurant we ate lunch- beer barrels for the tables and awesome sausauge sandwiches and beer.

After lunch, we drove back to Enchanted Rock and was told it still was too full and to come back later. So we drove to a little ice cream place about 10 minutes down the road. We were about to get out of the car when someone at the shop said they Enchanted Rock was once again open. So finally after much waiting we were able to hike the mountain. I know it doesn't look like much, but trust me, it really is quite spectacular- a giant rock in the middle of no where. It takes about 30-40 minutes to hike up and it really gets the heart pumping with a steep incline. They say at night the rock moans (caused from cooling down.)

Bella and Victoria loved this outing. They ran up the side of the mountain. I had to keep telling Bella to slow down. She had just gotten over a cold was was coughing something fierce.

At the top were all these shallow pools of water with plant and animal life growing in them.

The view at the top was amazing- you could see forever in all directions.

We took a different route on the way down. It was full of giant rocks that we had to jump on and go around- we followed the water/creek- it took us much longer getting down.

The next day we went to Longhorn Caves.

This is the entrance to the caves. There is a sign right before it that says "Danger Cave Entrance." My innocent little girls sat right in front of the sign and picked weeds, aka wild flowers.

This is the view from inside the cave up.

After the hour and a half cave tour, we went on a fast hike on a trail. We had beautiful weather the whole time. It never got above 78, which was a great thing because my air conditioning went out on this trip.

On the last day, the girls had a picnic and ice cream.