Lake Brownwood State Park - August 14-17, 2014

We made a kind of last minute decision to take a camping trip this weekend!!!  :-)  Daniel had a job he had to be at in San Angelo on Friday.  His Thursday was pretty clear and ours was able to be cleared so we decided it would be fun to find somewhere towards that direction to go camp out.  This way he wouldn't have to get up so early Friday morning to get to his job, and we could have a fun camping weekend!

So we decided on Lake Brownwood State Park.  This was a really neat park!  They still have a LOT of CCC structures all around the park.  There were hiking trails that ran along bluffs around the perimeter of the lake.  The lake was down about 15 feet (so we heard) but thankfully it is a huge lake and there was still water in the lake (last year we went to San Angelo state park only to discover that it's lake is completely dried up)!  It was kind of sad though to drive by and see lake front properties with boat docks that cannot be used due to the low levels.  That area of the state really really needs rain!

The kids did road school on the way on Thursday!  And then Friday morning when Daddy left we went on a fun hiking trip.  We came back to the camper for lunch and finish up what school we didn't get finished on the road Thursday (mainly due to the fact they found it hard to concentrate in the car), rested with a movie, and then we went swimming (in the lake of course).  Daddy got back right at supper time!  We enjoyed the rest of the time with him.  We went hiking some more, hung out at the camper, watched movies, and even went for a trip to town to get ice cream!  It was a nice weekend!

Here are some picture highlights of the trip!

 Hiking our trail on Friday morning

 Good spot to stop for a photo!

We stopped at one spot of our hike on Friday that was nice and shady and sat down and drew some prickly pear cactus (they were ALL OVER the park) in our nature journals.

 Alyssa's cactus

 Seth's drawing

 My drawing

 Aaron's drawing

 kids swimming in the lake

Our camping spot had a nice view of the lake - and it faced west so we got to see a beautiful sunset every night!

On Saturday we went around and checked out some of the neat CCC structures around the park.

 Seth was tired!

 This was the top of a huge stair case that led down to the lake (and of course we forgot to get pictures of the stair case as we went down)

On Saturday evening we took a hike and enjoyed the sunset as we walked along!

 And of course Seth HAD to find a tree to climb!

 The kids enjoyed riding their bikes!  I think Alyssa has plum worn out her tire on her bike!!  In fact the whole bike is in bad shape!  I think she is ready for a new one!

The boys decided to put their bikes on "display". 

I am glad we made the decision to go!  We had a really fun time!

Until next time,
Kellie