Austin City Limits

Ozona, TX to McKinney Falls State Park Austin, TX

Mileage; 3620

We’re in the land of Texas, meaning that cowboy hats are becoming more common, accents are changing and a majority of the people we come across are incredibly friendly and gracious. We are finding ourselves starting to talk with a Texas drawl, just because it’s fun.

McKinney Falls State Park is an oasis 15 minutes SE of the city of Austin, it’s really hard to believe how close we are to the city. It is lush and green, trees everywhere (many are cypress). Its a birders paradise here too; Cormorants, ducks, hawks, herons, blue birds, cardinals, barred owl, and woodpecker. There are deer, turtles, big carp and we've heard, but have not seen the coyotes. The cherry blossoms are blooming and there is a familiar smell in the air that reminds us of home (PA). The temperature here is much warmer 64 degrees and layers of clothes are melting off. It has been raining, foggy and humid and the rangers have informed us that if there is a flash flood warning they will have to evacuate us, that sure makes for sound sleep.

We ate superb chile rellanos (one del mar and one with corn) at a wonderful place on Congress St. in downtown Austin called Manuele’s. Afterwards we went to the Elephant Bar just across the street and steeped ourselves in good, live progressive jazz and then called it a night.

We’re camping right next to the creek that runs through the entire park, there is a nice trail that loops around the park and passes by two falls the upper and lower. We’ve seen a lot of fish in the water and it appears to be a popular swimming and fishing spot. The trees overhanging Onion Creek are decorated for a fisherman’s Christmas, there are bobbers hanging from every tree.

Because of the wet weather our climbing plans have been spoiled, so far… however the rain has brought us back into the city earlier than anticipated and we had a late lunch at McCormmick & Schmick’s and a couple beers, it was great. We found a fantastic park down by the water across the bridge from 1st Street for Addy to get some of her pent up nervous energy out and ran her ragged, she also made several friends. Later we hit 6th street, played pool at Buffalo Billiards, ate some great crispy pizza and bar hopped to see different bands, it was incredibly fun, there were so many choices. Our favorite was a band called Green Diamond (reminiscent of Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan) at the last place we stopped called Friends.

Day 2;
Everything in sight was still really wet, we were inspired to try out the overhanging bouldering walls in the park as they were protected from the rain and were mostly dry. The bouldering problems were pumpy and fun. It was a bit unnerving reaching our hands into holes once we found a scorpion and knowing that Black Widows like dark cool places.

Considering that we have an early morning start tomorrow we stayed in this night listened to the raccoons using their hands to find food and communicating with their little chirping coos from across the stream while the coyotes raucous yips and howls filled the night air, all while we had a nice dinner by the campfire with a nice Cab. Then we called it a night.

Despite the added struggles and sometimes frustrations of camping you just can't get the same experience from a hotel or RV.