Adventurenet.net

Tuesday April 16th, 2024

Good morning from Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site.

As it is the last day of the adventure and because I don’t want it to end, I slept in.

This is one of the few times I’m tearing down my tent without worrying about waking others.

This was a nice park to spend the day at.

It didn’t feel too busy, nor too empty.

It helps that I am showing up on a Monday rather than a Friday or the weekend, I’m sure.

I was worried about how much fuel I had in the car and if I could make it to the next gas station and so I stopped here to top off the car.

Normally I start planning for getting additional fuel when I get to half a tank so that I can top off the car at a place with lower prices, but timing was an issue yesterday as I wanted to spend as much time as possible at Big Bend and still make it to my state park campsite before the ranger HQ closed for the day.

As I had finished my cooler full of goods the night before I decided it was time to treat myself to some warm food at a restaurant.

I found a nice small town burger and shake place, but the map listing for them had incorrect hours and the place was closed, but next door was this delightful eatery.

Burger and a Coke. Classic.

The young man working at the counter is a ranked Madden player.

Also, I see in this picture that I brought my notebook with me and I must not have written anything down, because I have no notes in there about this day and I’m writing all of this based on memory and pictures.

I was hoping to visit Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area today, but it turns out they are closed on Mondays & Tuesdays.

The top location to visit today is Garner State Park.

I was looking through a list of the most popular state parks in Texas and this is listed as one of the best.

A visit to this popular park is a good use of a spring Tuesday morning.

Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally made a bunch of people climb a mountain?

Lauri & I went to visit an uncle in Utah and there was a park there with a cave.

I glimpsed over the instructions and saw that the cave was a mile and half away from the park HQ and I thought to myself “That’s not too long of a walk.” and I stopped reading.

I scheduled a visit, we listened to the intro where we were warned about the dangers of the park and then we began our trek to the cave.

Up a mountain.

I should have read the whole guide. That’s on me.

Well today I am at Garner State Park and I see that they also have a cave and so this will be my main visit!

Check out this lizard.

Off to Crystal Cave!

Great news! This is also up a mountain.

Again I did not read the full text and find myself accidentally climbing a mountain. 🤔

I took many breaks.

But I made it!

It is a very hot day here in Texas.

But it is also twenty degrees cooler inside of the cave.

Watch out for that head conker.

I was warned by previous visitors about the slippery spot.

No slips were had.

You can see in the following image how this cave got the “crystal” part of its name.

This was a lovely visit.

Everyone at the park was very nice and there is so much to do here.

I can see why this is a top Texas State Park.

This officially goes on my top three with Inks Lake & Taylor.

It was a good four days away from work to adventure, but I wish I had taken more days off. I think a fifth or sixth day added to the trip would have gone a long way.

But I am in the middle of packing up everything to move to New York City and to sell as many PlayStation 2 games as I can to help pay for the move, so time is precious.

It is good to explore.

Remus says “Hi.”