Ray Roberts Lake State Park Rating and Review

If I had to use one word to describe this trip it would be "cold."
It was the first cold weather camp-out I've done but it was still fun :)

When I started this blog I know I was using a 5 star rating system but I sorta fell away from doing that so I'm going to try and stick with it for the rest of the parks.
I will be providing a review and/or rating for the bathrooms, campsite/cabin, Hiking/Biking trail difficulty, and the family activities.

Bathrooms - 4.8
The first thing I said when I walked into the bathrooms was"wow!"
No creepy crawlies, they had soap and a heater, which was super nice when you had to walk to the bathroom at 4am in 38 degree weather, and it was clean!
I will say that towards the end of the weekend some toilet paper did find its way to the floor but it was clean when we first got there!
The showers made me want to take a shower while we were there.
Yeah guys, I camp stinky style. No showers for me on weekend camp-outs. Judge me all you want but I don't feel the need to pack a towel, shampoo, body wash, and all the rest when I'm only gone for 2/3 days.
The reason I'm being weird and taking .2 off the rating is there was no hot water for the sinks... But the heater made up for it!! Just so you guys don't get worried, the showers did have hot water :)

Campsite - 5
We stayed at campsites 2-3 which were more like one big campsite.
There was a field nearby where we played frisbee. Beware of the anthills though!There were some big ones out there. Anyway, back to the campsite. There were not many options on places for me to set up my hammock but looking at the other campsites some of them had no trees altogether.
The bathroom was not super close to our campsite but it wasn't far away enough for us to feel the need to drive to it.

Hiking/Biking Trail Difficulty
We walked down one of the biking trails and it made me want to ride my bike on it.
We walked about two miles and it isn't a paved trail but its not super rocky. There were a few roots and rocks in the trail for tripping on if your not careful. Also, if you are walking down a biking trail one of the big things to watch out for is bikers.

Family Activities
We didn't do any of the activities the park had but I will tell you they were doing zumba in the morning, a nature journal thing, and a wildlife tracking class. The nature journaling looked really cool but at that time of day we were busy exploring the park.

I have some cousins that have been to the Isle De Bois park and here is what they have to say about it.
"We really like the lakeview sites, the fact they patrol often and enforce quiet time at night. We like the boat ramp for the most part, but sometimes it gets crazy as there isn't much supervision by park staff there.
Overall, we really like the park. We do wish they had sewer hookups for the campers, but they do have a dump station." "Oh...and I love seeing the deer! Tons of deer at Isle Du Bois!"

Although we didn't see any deer at the Johnson branch we heard a ton of coyotes both nights which I thought was really cool :)

One more quick thing, there is not a park/gift store. They had one on the map but when we asked they said they took it down about two years ago.

Ray Roberts Lake SP - Food and Pictures

Food? Well, we had to eat and of course we had hot dogs... But that's not all!

We had hobo burgers the we prepared at home. Basically, you make hamburger patties and wrap them in tin foil with some bacon, peppers, onions, whatever you want! And when your ready to eat them lay them in the hot ashes in you fire pit and let them cook for 30-45 minutes.

Apple pancakes for breakfast

"They're not burnt!" I love the slight camping burn flavor :)

Dad made a really yummy (and spicy) rice, chicken, and sausage dish in the dutch oven.

I found out that I like spicy stuff better when I'm outside freezing my fingers off :P

For dessert dad made his sopaipilla cheesecake, also in the dutch oven. Even better than the last time :)

Here are the pictures and I will post my ratings and review section tomorrow. Enjoy! :)

3 of 4 tents. I ended up not using mine (the one in the middle.)

I love my Eno hammock!!!

Just waiting for some food to be dropped...

This is my favorite picture from this weekend :)

He had a pretty big web. Found this little dude while walking around the park.

This is the swimming area. It looked pretty low... And cold.

Yes, we do bring devices to play on. Not all our time is spent on them though :)

I don't know if I've announced this or not but we have a new camping buddy :)
His name is smalls but he gets called little dude just as much.
While he gets motion sickness in the car and doesn't love the cold weather I think he has fun running around all the new places :)

There were some cool mushrooms.

We found these ones on or hike down the biking trail.

Going to Ray Roberts SP (and Colorado!!)

We will be marking Ray Roberts SP off of our list soon!
If you would like to join us on November 7-9 that would be awesome!
For a little more info on it check here
https://www.facebook.com/events/783227928404340/

Also, not SP related but still an adventure, I will be flying, alone and for the first time ever, out to Denver, Colorado for two weeks :D
So expect to see pictures probably in December :)

TFSPA Trailer

Our Texas family SP adventure trailer. It carries 3 paddle craft, 6 bikes, a large cooler, and camping gear. Now we can go on week long trips!
We still need to seal the side boxes, extend the coupler, and paint it.

Social Media

Today I worked on some social media accounts for this blog.
You can follow me on
Instagram @texas_family_sp_adventure
And Facebook https://www.facebook.com/txfspa

If there is any other social media that you guys would like me to make on account on please let me know :)

Mission Tejas State Park

Hello my sweet followers, we originally planned to camp at Purris creek SP but by the time we signed up for a reservation they were already full. So we decided to stay at Mission Tejas SP.

A few new items that have been added to our camping list, my Eno doublenest hammock, a dutch oven, canopy for the rainy days, and the most exciting thing? A trailer that a we helped dad make. It holds our bikes, up to three kayaks, and it has storage boxes on the sides. I will post a picture when I can.

The campsite we stayed at had a lot of space for us to spread out and had a perfect amount of trees. Not too much to where you were bushwhacking through it but not to little to where there wasn't enough shade.

The bathrooms were decent. There was about three or four spiders but not enough for me to feel gross. The bathrooms were not clean-clean but they didn't have a lot of mud, leaves, and such. And there was hand soap! Not all the state parks have that.

Saturday after breakfast and the rain we did some hiking and geocaching. After lunch some of us rode our bikes around and finished goecaching (we found all of them!!) The rest of the day was pretty chill. For dinner dad made fajitas and dessert was sopapilla cheesecake made with the dutch oven. So good!!!

This is the Rice home.

We stopped at Purtis Creek SP for lunch on the way home.

Camping plans!!! (Finally)

Wow... Last post was October 2013... Well, a lot has happened since then. I got a job, tried paddleboarding and loved it, started senior year of high school, and moved to a new church. But no camping has happen! I know, unbelievable. I'm not the one to blame for that. In spite of this horrendous news there is a light ahead of this tentless tunnel.
We plan to mark off Mission Tejas State park in a few weeks. It will be a weekend trip and I will miss my best friend's homecoming dance but hey, camping is fun and I really miss it.
Mission Tejas is a small campsite with a small pond and a lot of hiking trails. They have 12 campsites and 5 of them are rv sites. We reserved one of the last sites so they will be full but at this point I don't care. I want to go camping :) My plan is to chill, read, and maybe do a little bit of hiking. I don't have a camera right now but I might borrow a friends... Well, see :)
I'll post again when we get back! (Sometime in October)