Day 2

At some point during the night it cooled off enough to sleep, but barely. The humidity is a killer here. Ryan and I were both up at 6 so we decided to take a walk around the campground. There was a lake next to the campground that was perfectly calm this morning. I love how you could almost flip these pictures upside down and not be able to tell!

One of our visitors returned this morning. I think there is some kind of food nearby they just can't resist. Unfortunately they also seem to be very used to humans so I'm assuming many people have fed them before.

After a quick breakfast of zucchini bread and watermelon we packed everything up and headed to the showers. I've learned over the years to never pass up a shower opportunity - especially a free one! And while I would usually welcome a very hot shower on most camping days, today was not one of them. There was only one option though and it was HOT! By the time we got into the car we were all sweating again but at least we were clean sweating!

The next three days would be Ryan's first stint with Grammie. She was excited to see her "Grammie travel bag" so I barely got a goodbye from her! I planned a few stops in Austin since we'd never actually made it through there but after a harrowing drive through Houston and traffic already starting outside Austin I made a quick GPS adjustment and just aimed us at our next campsite. I knew there was lots of water to explore so it would improve all our moods.












Once we were set up we stopped by the bathrooms to show Grammie and Brayden a neat display she'd noticed when we were exploring. These sinks are outside the bathrooms. Notice the dark area at the top of the picture. Any guesses what that is? It's not dirt.

I was surprised to see it was a very large group of daddy long leg spiders! We'd just watched a show about caving in Carlsbad with caves full just like this!

Brayden was not so happy to find this out. Every since our very first trip he has had an affliction for these guys. It is a myth but I believe he read somewhere they are very venomous but are unable to bite us.

Next we headed to the river. The campground host told us we would be able to find a great spot near our camping spot so we headed down the trail to find it. It was 99 degrees so it didn't matter if the water was purple, we were going to get in!










Sadly we were welcomed with a beach full of garbage when we got there. The kids spend a few minutes picking it up and we vowed to bring it all out with us when we left. I was shocked people would be ok with leaving an area like this. We passed a group of about 20 people on the way down but even if it wasn't their garbage I would have thought they would have cleaned it up.

They water was very refreshing though and made up for our disappointment. There were rocks and boulders scattered all along the bottom of the river so we all had to figure out how to get around without hurting ourselves. The kids had to add rocks to the piles as we have done all over the country since our third trip. They spotted some piles down the river so I gave them some courage by floating down there with them. Of course by the time we got there they wanted me to take a picture so I fought the current back to take it. See Ryan's bright shirt way down on the rock?










After a little while they headed back to our little beach spot and we enjoyed the currents all around us. None of us were looking forward to getting out into the hot weather so we stayed until our fingers were all wrinkly.

While the kids played what looked like a weird dunking game, I grabbed the camera and headed to the middle with all the dragonflies. They'd been landing on us the whole time as if we were rocks and now I noticed them all scattered resting on the dry rocks in the middle of the river.










The garbage was gross but I gathered it all up into one bag and declared it was time to go.  After "One more time pleeeeeease?" of the game they were playing we headed back up to our campsite for dinner. Ryan stopped with the camera for a quick wildflower picture.

Lucky for us Grammie had prepped another dinner back home so all we had to do was show up! Cooking outside in this heat would be the pits.

Laney and I took Lola for a walk and they dishwater to the sinks this night. We were treated with a glimpse of a doe and 2 fawn as they quickly passed in front of us into the woods. They were cute and I was glad they were afraid of us here! Laney's faced changed to surprise as we got to the sink. The majority of the daddy long legs were gone! Now we have a mystery on our hands.

Once we got back Ryan wanted to play a game but we only lasted about a round before I called it quits. I was hoping we were going to have a cooler night for sleep. We gambled and took the rain fly off the tent in hopes of a breeze or at least less heat held inside! I told Brayden and Laney stories of our first trip with all the rain we endured. It could always be worse.