Saturday, April 20, 2013

Cub Scout Family Camp-out

My youngest brothers is in cub scouts and they have two family camp-outs per year so I'll probably post about those camp-outs too :)
Last weekend we went to Camp Constantin Boy Scout Camp for the family camp-out. It's not a state park but I figured I would post about.

The bathrooms were pretty gross but we made it through the weekend. It was really pretty though. There are a few hiking trails and it's right on a lake. We saw a 3' long snake, we think it was a rat snake, lizards, and there were tons of really cute mini grasshoppers :P

I didn't bring my camera with me, it broke a few months ago, but my friend took a ton of pictures so I'll post those as soon as I get them!

I put myself in charge of the food for the weekend. There was a burn ban so I had to plan stuff that was already ready to eat. I'll post our food plan a little later. :)

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Pedernales Falls - Meal Plan

Friday

Dinner - Chick-fil-a - We got a late start and didn't get to camp til late Friday night.

Saturday

Breakfast - Biscuits with Sausage and Gravy
Lunch - Sandwich Wraps
Dinner - Turkey and Apple Stir-Fry - Super Yummy!

Sunday

Breakfast - Homemade instant oatmeal packets
Lunch - Taco Bell - we were on the road home

(Sorry this was late)

Ceder hills

So ceder hills state park was fun. My brother had a cub scout family campout there and I didn't do much exploring.
Here is a bathroom reveiw done by another camper
"The bathrooms were clean and bug free for the most part. Towards the end of the day, some trash was around the stalls but they were clean the next day. One of the 3 sinks didn't work but it never was so crowded that we had to wait for a turn there. The showers, however... The shower curtains were a bit transparent AND backlit by the shower lights which is a rather  unfavorable combo. The water constantly switched back and forth from hot to cold and also when the toilet was flushed and the pressure was pretty light. I'm glad that I brought my flipflops because a previous showering person left a rodent-sized ball of human hair behind and I think I recall the drains pooling a bit. It wasn't a terrible experience but there is room for improvements."
As for our campsite, some of it was on a slope. We had three tents plus a one-person tent and we were able to set up most of the tents on level ground, Just make sure that if you set up your tent on a slope you sleep with your head at the top of the slope :)

Sadly we were not able to make it to Cleburne SP.
We will be taking a little break from camping this month.
More to come :)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Next park

The next state parks we will be visiting are Ceder Hills SP and Cleburne SP.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Pedernales Falls rating & review

Bathrooms - The bathrooms were very nice. We stayed at campsite #11 and it was a little walk to get to the bathrooms but they had showers so it was worth it. Bathrooms = 5

Trails - They had some biking trails and we brought our bikes so Dad and I explored some of them. There are some hills and rocky areas that would be hard for some people. If you want a long trail to ride then you could go on the trammel crossing one. We didn't go farther then the crossing and it was craziness trying to ride back up the hill :) Trails = 4

Activities - Pedernales had no park activities the weekend we were there but there was plenty to do.

Friendly and knowledgeable staff - N/A I was not able to meet any of the staff.

Wildlife - As far as wildlife goes they have a bird blind and I heard, from brothers, that it was pretty cool. We saw a centipede and dung beetles. There were people catching fish in the falls area. We also saw a really cool racer snake. Wildlife = 4

Overall = 5 Fun!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Pedernales Falls

 Last weekend we visited Pedernales Falls.
They do not have any cabins so we slept in tents :)
I think we are going to bring Casey to all our weekend camp-outs.




There are tons of little nooks and crannies in the falls area.



This was a little underground river.




A cave on the other side of the falls.

More little caves.

I think some people call this rock the skull.



Heart :)





Casey enjoyed the water.

You would think that all the rocks at the bottom are slippery but they are not!
It was very nice!


Look at the awesome dam we built!
After building it the current at the end was very strong.


The swimming area.
Dung beetle.
They would walk backwards as they rolled their dung ball.

My way of playing with fire is with photo editing :)
I know I said we were going to visit Enchanted Rock on Sunday but our plans changed,
due to rain, so we will visit that SP another day.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Our next park

The next SP we will be visiting is Pedernales falls SP, Friday to early Sunday. We are going to wake up early on Sunday morning to pack and we will spend some time at Enchanted rock SP. We are going to bring our bikes on this campout. We will have a campsite, no cabins this time.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Caddo Lake rating & review

I will be posting reviews only for the parks where we stay overnight.

Bathrooms - If you are fine with moths, frogs and spiders in the bathroom then, on a scale of 1-5, I would rate them a 4. If you don't like moths, spiders and frogs them I would rate them a 1.
One of my brothers loved the bathrooms because it is a great place to capture some bugs.

Trails - We only went one on trail but I thought it was pretty cool. They had some cool old buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps aka CCC. I don't have much to compare state park trails to but I would rate it 4.

Activities - This park had a few activities that we took part in. They had an owl watch, a nature hike, fishing and a canoe tour. I would rate the activities a 5.

Friendly and knowledgeable staff - The staff and rangers were very friendly and the one guy that did all the activities had an answer for almost every question we had. I would give the staff a 5.

Wildlife - What wildlife did we see? We saw toads, frogs, moths, including a Luna moth. We went for a little walk on Saturday and caught a glimpse of a wildcat. They have beavers but we didn't see any. And tons of birds, especially egrets, and fish. We saw a catfish that was about a foot long. wildlife will get a 5.

Overall - Overall Caddo lake is very family-friendly. I'll give it a 5.