Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Fort Richardson State Park Trip

We had a full weekend at the end of April, we started by taking our Treck tandem to the German fest bicycle rally in Muenster. This is a great rally and your entry includes admission to the festival and 2 drink tickets for soft drinks or beer(Shiner Boch). We were going to ride the 65 mile route but with extreme winds and the many challenging hills we wussed out and rode the 42 miles, the upside being we got to the festival early. After the Rally we took the pop up camper to Fort Richardson State Park, we were pleasantly surprised, I thought it was just an old fort site, it is that and much more. We toured the fort that dates to the 1860's, took hikes and rode the mountain bike trail.
We stayed Sunday night and in the lower camp ground we had only one other camper in the valley. we picked a spot that backed up to a limestone bluff with this little spring fed creek gurgling right by our trailer, nice to sleep by.

We rode our bicycles on the 9 mile off road trail to Lost Creek reservoir and back for 18 miles of nice improved trail with great views and a few challenging area's. At the Lost Creek Park where the ride loops through the park and then returns we met the camp host. This guy lived in a nice motor home and said he started as a host working about 12 hours a week for a free campsite for a 3 month term. Some 2 years later he loves this place and now works part time for the park system receiving a free full hook up campsite and a small pay check for doing work he likes.
On our bicycle ride around the park at dusk we saw 24 deer like the one in this picture.
We also took Sprocket on a hike to Rumbling Springs where he drank and splashed around and seemed to have a great time, a short video follows, or is supposed to, my first try at this.
I caught bass in the quarry pond, hiked all the trails, had a great bike ride and will return again to this park less than 2 hours from home.

Who knows where we will go next.
Dennis

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Delighted to read of your discovery of Fort Richardson! It is one of eight historic frontier forts along the Texas Forts Trail and one of three forts that host the "Texas Forts Tour" bicycle ride on Columbus Day weekend. If you're interested in this event, check out the website at texasfortstour.com - Margaret Hoogstra, Texas Forts Trail