Falcon State Park, 12/26 - 27/17

56. We stayed in Air-Conditioned Shelter #23 because of other travel considerations and it worked out nicely.  The Air-Conditioned Shelters are big enough for 2 very sturdy, wooden bunk beds, a large aluminum table, 3 windows, 2 outlets and the air-conditioner, which also heated very well.  Unfortunately, the weather did NOT cooperate with us - the morning of the 27th we awoke to 42 degrees and drizzle.  The birds (who were the main attraction) had hunkered down and the trails were muddy, so we decided to leave that morning (we'd originally planned to leave on the 28th). The park staff were super nice and even refunded our money, which we weren't expecting at all! 
A note for future shelter use: bring the biggest (widest) twin mattress you can find (park doesn't provide mattresses or bedding), bring extension cords so you can reach your phone while it's charging, and bring a small table on which to set things that are plugged in 4 feet above your head!  :)

Inside the shelter.

Shelter 23.

Crested Caracara.

Osprey with dinner.

Falcon is near Zapata and Roma.  Zapata is a county seat; its new courthouse is built to look old and gorgeous (most newer courthouses are modern-looking).  Zapata has grocery stores, restaurants, antiques and other places of interest.  

Roma is closer, but is much smaller with fewer amenities.  However, Roma does have it's own World Birding Center and between Roma and Falcon are at least 2 more renowned birding sites.  Roma's old part of town is lovely, but not well cared-for.

Copper Breaks State Park, 11/22 - 11/25/17

55. Copper Breaks State Park - Scampsite #3.  This is a smaller park, but full of interesting terrain.  It is completely walkable if you walk a lot already, but many people brought bicycles for getting around.  We were there for Thanksgiving, and so were several large family groups.  Once the park got dark though, things got very quiet. Copper Breaks is a small, muddy "lake" that is dammed up perpendicularly to the Pease River.  There was almost no waterfowl, but lots of sparrows, robins, bobwhites and redwing blackbirds.  The landscape is hillier and rockier than Lake Arrowhead was, so the hiking was more interesting.  We hiked all of the Bull Canyon trail, Rocky Ledges Loop, and Juniper Ridge Nature trail. 

View of Lake Copper Breaks at sunset.

Our Scampsite at sunset.

Pease River.

3-D map of the park.

Scampsite #3.

Permian-era ripples in the sandstone.

Copper Breaks hiking.

Copper Breaks is located between Quanah and Crowell, both of which are county seats.  We did some grocery-shopping in Quanah and the courthouse there is lovely.  There is also an old building that has been turned into a museum.  When we visited Quanah while we were courthousing, the town had miniature replicas of the courthouse made and for sale, although that particular day they were out of stock.  Quanah is proud of their lovely little courthouse! 

Lake Arrowhead State Park, 11/2017 - 11/22/17

54. Lake Arrowhead is a lovely park.  The lake attracts lots of waterfowl and there is a prairie dog community next to the lake.  We hiked all the trails, the northern end of the Onion Creek trail was the most interesting.  When we got to our Scampsite (#21), there were few other campers in the park, but by the time we left, it had filled up dramatically.  Despite being full it was still pretty quiet.  There is a functioning pumpjack near the bathrooms that makes pumpjack noises - our friends had tent-camped  there several months ago and were bothered by the noise at night, but we didn't notice it in our trailer.   There is also an 18-hole disc golf course here - it was too cold one day and then too windy the next to play, but it was pretty flat and well-tended. There were lots of people fishing on the lake and there is a boat ramp too, although we didn't see many boats.  The park also has a firewood vending machine, which we've never seen anywhere else and which was easy to use!  How clever!

Prairie dog.

Onion Creek trail has a tunnel under the road.

The Lake Arrowhead dam. 

Disc golf course map.

Scampsite 21!

The noisy pumpjack.

One of the holes on the disc golf course. 

Firewood vending machine. 

Lake Arrowhead is very close to Wichita Falls, which is becoming a more interesting little city.  There is a brewery in the making (Wichita Falls Brewing) that should be very good (the brewer made a name for himself at Infamous Brewing in Austin), there are restaurants, antique shops and hike and bike trails as well.  Wichita Falls is a county seat as well. 

Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site, 10/7/17

53. This is a day-use only site, so we had to get creative!  The Inn was lovely, our tour guide was a Park ranger named Adam, who knew tons about the Inn's history.  Since the Inn was going to be difficult for us to visit in anything other than a camping trip, and there aren't any state parks with camping nearby, we discovered Gibbons Creek Reservoir, which is the reservoir that cools the coal-fired power plant that serves several municipalities in Texas, including Bryan.

Rainwater collection to the cistern.

Dining room for the Inn.  Notice the fans, also known as "Shoo-Flies".  

Room refurbished as if Sam Houston, the Inn's most famous guest, was staying there.

The cheap quarters.  There were 3 of these beds, plus the pallet on the floor.  3 adults, 4 if at least one body was a child, slept in one bed, along with all their bugs, weird habits, and diseases.

The Inn, from the picnic tables.

Tack for the mules who pull the stagecoach, Waylon and Willie. 

The Inn was located at the junction of 5 different stage lines, so they have a replica stagecoach.  Once a month, the Inn takes visitors on rides to town (Anderson) on the stagecoach. 

After our visit to the Inn, we proceeded to explore Bryan and College Station a little bit, notably the breweries.  Coincidentally, we picked the day of the Texas A&M vs. Alabama (currently ranked #1) football game, so town was a bit busy.  

New Republic Brewing, College Station.

We explored some dirt roads (190 & 192) and found Gibbons Creek!  The crossing is blocked off because the bridge has holes in it, but the creek is very pretty and apparently floods occasionally. 

Gibbons Creek and bridge. 

Gibbons Creek bridge. 

The coal-fired plant at the Reservoir used coal that was mined locally.  These mines haven't been used in years and the land is being monitored for contamination.  Theoretically, the lands will all be put on the market in 2020.

Our campsite, #9, at Gibbons Creek Reservoir.  

Gibbons Creek Reservoir.   The road to the campground goes on top of the dam. 

Gibbons Creek signage.

The power plant at sunset.  

Currently, it's not in use and is for sale.  Ideally, the plant and the reservoir would be sold privately as opposed to being decommissioned and draining the lake.  This is all due to the fact that solar, wind energy, and natural gas (of which Texas has a lot) are cheaper and less pollutive than coal-fired power plants.  

Other things to see and do in the area: Bryan has a brewery as well: Blackwater Draw and has a brewpub.  We tried to get BBQ from Fargo Pit BBQ, which was one of Texas Monthly's recent top 50 BBQ Joints, but being a huge game day, they sold out by 1:30!  Another time....

In the same warehouse-y area as New Republic Brewing was a distillery and winery (Perrines) and Messina Hof is also located in Bryan.  

Anything Texas A&M offers to the public will be interesting: football, vet school open house, etc. 

The Brazos County Courthouse has all new windows and looks better than it did when we first saw it, when some of the windows were covered with plywood, but it's still an ugly building. The old downtown part of Bryan is really cute and has great potential.  

Anderson, where Fanthorp Inn is located, is a sleepy little town, but it does have a cute courthouse and good antique shops.  Washington-On-The-Brazos isn't too far from Anderson also.

Martin Dies Jr. State Park, 5/27 - 29/2017

​

Colorado Bend State Park, 4/15/17

51. Colorado Bend is a gorgeous little park in the bend of the Colorado River.  There are tent sites right on the river, in the canyon, but the gem of the park is Gorman Falls.  We opted not to camp but to hike to the falls instead.  We plan to return in the dog days of summer to enjoy the river part of the park as well.

Gorman Falls trail

Gorman Falls, first glimpse

Gorman Falls

Gorman Falls

Black-throated Sparrow (I just think this is a lovely picture of a beautiful little bird and he had the loveliest song too)

Wildflowers along the Gorman Falls trail

View of Colorado River from the Tie Slide Overlook

Gorman Falls on the Colorado River

Gorman Falls on the Colorado River

Colorado Bend is nearest to Lampasas, which is the county seat of Lampasas County.  The courthouse is a stunning one, located just east of highway 183.  There are antique shops, restaurants, and a beautiful park at Hancock Springs.

Franklin Mountains State Park, 3/16/2017

50. We initially had reserved a Scampsite here, but upon further research, and after our micro-managed experience at Hueco Tanks, we cancelled our camping reservation and got a hotel room instead.  The RV "sites" are just parking spaces in a lot, with a couple of picnic tables nearby.  We knew there wasn't any water or electricity, but there wasn't even a composting toilet nearby!  And, we would have been schlepping the dogs around with us in the truck while we did other things in El Paso, so we decided that air-conditioning for the dogs and proximal restroom facilities were more important than camping in a parking lot.  

However, we did do the biggest hike Franklin Mountains has to offer and it was amazing: North Franklin Peak.  It was almost 8 miles up and back, and about 2000 feet up in elevation.  The trail is about half big rocks, half gravel.  The big (melon-sized) rocks made for challenging hiking mentally, as we had to focus on where we were putting our feet so as to not turn an ankle.  The hike was just as exhausting mentally as it was physically.  The views along the way are spectacular and we did see some cool birds, including Eastern Bluebirds!  If you do this hike, start EARLY (before 9 a.m. would be ideal), bring lots more water than you think you'll need, snacks, and hiking poles.  And don't forget the sunscreen - there is no shade on any of these trails.  (If you bring dogs, bring water and snacks for them too.)

We started at the You Are Here, took the West Cottonwood Springs trail to Mundy's Gap trail, to the North Franklin Mountain trail.  

View of the west side of the mountains from a little ways up.  You can see the parking lot at the center right.

East side of the mountains, Gordie is interested. 

Aaron and Lulu at the Danger sign.  This is close to the boundary between Franklin Mountains State Park and Ft. Bliss.

Once upon a time, people drove to the top of the mountain.  This car didn't make it; looks like it rolled down.

Contrail shadows.

The last (gasp!) hill up to the top! 

The HAM radio tower at the top.  My dad, a retired geology professor at UTEP, said the Knapp brothers wanted to develop the top of the mountain, so had a bulldozer scrape off 5-10 feet of the peak to create the flat area.  The Knapps also operated the HAM radio and may have been responsible for the rolled car in a previous picture. 

I found an interesting timeline of Franklin Mountains history, particularly 1978-1979:

https://franklinmountains.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/1c-historical-timeline-for-castner_final-july-2015-final.pdf

Franklin Mountains State Park is in the middle of El Paso, which is the farthest western point in Texas.  El Paso is also the location of the end of the Rocky Mountains, a county seat, and home to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).  The UTEP campus is built in the architectural style of Bhutanese monasteries and is one of the most energy-efficient university campuses in the US.  Juarez, Mexico, is safe to visit again, and El Paso has a burgeoning craft beer scene that is pretty good.  There are tons of things to do in El Paso, I highly recommend stopping and staying a while (and not just because it's my hometown :-).