Saturday May 18 2024

May 23, 2024

Saturday May 18 2024

Saturday May 18^th

Another hot day forecasted – we got on the road at 10 am, our destination Lost Maples State Natural Area approximately 3 hours west of Austin. We headed southwest towards the town of New Braunfels for our first stop. It’s a small city between Austin and San Antonio with a big German influence. Our plan was to stop in the town at the oldest bakery in Texas and check out the farmer’s market. Afterwards we hoped to make a stop in the neighbouring town of Gruene, home of the oldest dance hall in Texas!

At bakery, we picked out some delicious looking treats (peach strudel and a pecan snail) and got chatting with a couple sitting at a café table outside the bakery. They were locals and had their travel van parked in front of the bakery. They were very friendly and knowledgeable about all things RV and had a number of suggestions for place to see along our proposed route through Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

The Farmer’s market was very busy, lots of stalls and interesting products and well as an outdoor music venue with attached beer garden. Lots of opportunities to drink beer around this town!

Lastly, we headed to Gruene to check out the dance hall. We were expecting a quaint little town where we would stop and have a look at the dance hall which had music starting in the early afternoon. As we approached the town, the traffic slowed, and we realized we weren’t the only ones with this idea. We crawled through town and saw there wasn’t a hope in hell of finding a parking spot that would accommodate the truck and trailer. We circled around one more time then conceded that it wasn’t going to happen, so we set our GPS to Lost Maples.

The drive to Lost Maples State Natural Area was picturesque. The park is nestled deep in the hills of west Texas, very rugged countryside with all the hills covered in forest. The park is remote, and has only 30 campsites. We arrived Saturday afternoon, so being the weekend, it was almost full. There were a couple of scout troops there for the weekend so lots of kids being active in the fields around the campground. We really liked this park, very peaceful and very “country” compared to Mckinney Falls, our last campground just outside of Austin. We settled in, had dinner and went for a walk to the picnic area which is also the trailhead for many of the hikes in the park.

Sunday May 19^th

This morning was a bit overcast – a recurring theme we’ve noticed. When it is super hot in the afternoon, the following morning is very dewy and the clouds are thick and low and don’t burn off until noon.

There are a number of hikes in the park, so we set off to do a nice loop, about 10 km. The terrain in the park is hilly and wooded with lots of exposed rock cliffs and outcrops. The area has been quite dry but there were a few streams and ponds scattered through the park. We made our way along the Maple trail, the Grotto trail and then closed the loop on the East-West trail. There were several nice overlooks, lots of birds and interesting geography along the way.

By the time we arrived back at camp it was smokin’ hot, so we put our camp chairs under some shady trees at the back of our site and proceeded to chill.

Later in the afternoon we took a drive down to Utopia, a little village 20 km south of Lost Maples. Not much there – a bit of a cowboy town. We passed a lot of ranches on the road to Utopia so that explains it.

Rewarded our excellent day with burgers on the grill.