Tuesday 23 April 2013

Visiting LBJ and Pedenales Falls State Parks


Last Thursday we left and went camping with the kids to Pedernales Falls State Park.  We arrived just before dark and barely had time to set up our tents before crawling into our sleeping bags for the night.  It was not a good night.  We all froze!!  And Nicolas was up every half an hour, I swear.  And our air mattress bit the dust.  It was so miserable in fact, that I jumped out of bed at 6:30 AM to start a fire and make hot chocolate, because I figured that was my only chance for warming up.  
 After staying huddled by the fire for the next two hours, we took down our tents and repacked everything away, because, stupidly, we had reserved a primitive campground.  Umm, I don't know how I missed this glaring fact, but the primitive campground required a 2 mile hike one way and didn't allow campfires.  Unfortunately the rest of the campground was reserved so we were stuck.  (My only defense was that I was thinking it would be like the "walk-in sites" at Bastrop which are a bit more private and require walking maybe 100 feet or so from your car.  Anyway, we packed up and headed to LBJ State Park.   It also included a living history farm where most of these pictures are from.

 Wild grape vines.
 The cow was cute.  My kids were wild though.  Or let me rephrase that,  Isabel was wild.
 We need a table like this at our house.
 The wash house in this building connected to the windmill-pump.  It was neat.
This had been a immigrant German family's farm.
I really do want to have this plant stand in MY house.
The meat house (or smokehouse?) behind the house.
I decided that if I was forced to live in Texas, I want to live in the Texas Hill Country.  Seriously, it's so beautiful.  We drove through Fredericksburg (an old German settlement) and I loved it.  The yellow limestone used in these buildings is used all over and is really pretty.  There's tons of vineyards and peach orchards, and they call it the Tuscany of Texas.  Fredericksburg reminded me of Durango or Moab.  Loved it!
Texas bluebonnets in case you've forgotten we're in Texas.  Actually, one of the reasons we went to LBJ state park was to see all the wildflowers, it's supposed to be lovely in the spring.  The lady at the visitor's center apologized profusely though because there hasn't been that much rain so there weren't that many flowers.  :(
Ana trying to look prim in the parlour.



In the kitchen.  The house was supposed to be decorated and set in the time of 1915-1918.

I love poppies!
The first cabin was from the 1869.

You can see the windmill and water house thing.

And then I had to drag my children away.  Isabel was chasing chickens and Elena was crying and upset about something, (I forgot what) but she was adamant that she hated us all and wanted to be out of our family.  Sigh.

Seriously, that child had no fear.  Those turkeys are practically bigger than she is.
Sebastian joined in.
More animals.  They had sheep too.
And of course, what would be Texas farm without a longhorn??!?!?!?
And this is where I took a nap in the car while Leo took the kids around LBJ's ranch house.
Air Force 1.
Sebastian obviously loved the plane.
And then we played at a park at the park while again I took a nap.  And then we went back and had dinner at a picnic area (because we had no campsite.)
We saw deer, rabbits, and wild hogs here.
We also made the decision not to hike 2 miles to the campsite, but instead  we slept in our van.  It was a much better night than the first one.  We were warm, and Nicolas only woke up once. (Hurray for the benadryl we gave him at bedtime!)  He had a cold and that was why he was so miserable. Now I have that cold.  Ruff.
Anyway, all in all it was a lovely day, and the pie irons made delicious ham and cheese sandwiches, yum!

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