Adventure 8.10 :: Enchanted Rock

Some of you may remember my post about wanting to go on road trips. I'm here to announce that we have begun making fantastic memories together.

We had a few obstacles to overcome. First of all, it was August in Texas, which meant that going out to the desert could easily lead to a miserable time at best or heat stroke at worst. Second, it seemed wiser to go somewhere a little closer for our first attempt, just in case it went horribly wrong at some point.

To solve the heat issue, we planned a modified version in which we left Austin at 4:00 PM on Friday, as soon as Robert got off work. By the time we arrived at 6:15, it had begun to cool off and the UV index was not "scorch you to a crisp in five minutes flat". We spent the night, and left as the heat began to pick up, thereby avoiding being out in the hottest part of the day.

We picked Enchanted Rock State Park for our destination. I went there last year in February with my family when I was 3 months pregnant with Tiernan, but Robert had not been able to join us. 

We hit some traffic leaving Austin, but Tiernan slept for most of the drive, so it worked out really well.

When we got there, we did some exploring behind the campground and climbed up the smaller sister dome. We played a bit of music, climbed around, and enjoyed the setting.

Tiernan had a blast figuring out how to deal with uneven surfaces. He usually tried walking up them first, but if they were too steep he would resort to crawling. He tried sliding down on his bottom, but found running down much more exhilarating. Needless to say, he needed to be watched pretty closely.

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I already posted this one on Facebook, but not everybody checks fb and it's too good to miss. There was a huge flock of vultures circling the top of the dome, and he thought they were pretty exciting.

I call this picture "The Little Explorer", and it's another one of my favorites. I think he looks like the esoteric pictures of the trailblazer standing on a peak, gazing off into the distance with triumphant music playing in the background...

From there, we watched the sun set together.

The original plan had been to sleep in the car, but we found this awesome campsite right at the base of the rock and decided to sleep there instead.

So we plopped our foam pads there on the ground and slept under the stars. It was truly amazing. The stars were fabulous...way better than Missouri ever saw, what with its humidity. The only other time we'd seen so many stars was way out in the Mexican desert south of Juarez. We also caught the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower. The only drawback were that the mosquitoes were very annoying. There weren't that many--not swarms or anything--but the ones that were there were persistent. Every time I would start to drift off to sleep, one would start whining in my ear or prick me somewhere. After a couple hours of that we prayed for wind to come and blow them away, and sure enough, a steady breeze picked up and we slept peacefully until dawn. Sure, Robert looks like he has measles now from all the bites, but we don't regret it a bit.

After breakfast we hiked the dome while it was still relatively cool. I carried Tiernan in the Moby wrap, and Robert carried all our supplies. It was actually significantly easier to climb with a 20+ lb toddler strapped on than it was with a peanut-sized baby in utero. We took one break on the trek up. We weren't watching clocks, but I think it took us about 20-30 minutes to mosey our way up.

Once you get about half way up, the wind blowing up the rock feels awesome. Here we are enjoying the breeze.

The view is amazing from the top. It is windy, wild and free. Robert took care of Tiernan for a bit while I got away to listen to the area and write some music. We hung out, enjoyed the view, and then headed back down to camp. Tiernan fell asleep in the Moby on the trek back, and took a decent morning nap. Back at camp, we recorded a rough take of the inspiration for a song I got while up on the rock.

It was starting to get warm at that point, so we packed up and headed back to Austin. We stopped in Fredricksburg on the way, walked up and down Main St, and ate some rather delicious homemade peach ice-cream from one of the orchard stands. We got home by 2:30, in time to clean up, nap, unpack, relax and enjoy the remainder of our weekend.

A couple things I learned for next time:

1) We don't need that much food. I think we ate approximately 1/3 of what I brought. So next time I will either have to bring a small army to eat what I prepared, or bring less.

2) Cheap Walmart gear is, well, cheap. While I'm sure Coleman thought it was genius to make a 5-gallon water cooler with a removable dishwasher safe spout, I think I would have preferred one that did not leak a steady stream. They should probably stick to stoves.

3) Take bug spray, a tent, or both.