Ted
finally decided to make an appearance on a camping trip. We
were again looking to keep it close to Austin so we settled on
Pedernales Falls for a two night trip. We headed out on
Friday as we typically do and the forecast called for rain (again).
After a few detours due to flooded roads, we got to the park in the
early afternoon.
On our trek to the primitive camping site, we were passed by a few younger guys on bikes with carriers attached to them lugging ice chests and other random things. We realized that being close to Austin will result in larger crowds, but we weren't quite expecting this. Once we found the camping area, we tried to find as isolated of a spot as possible, but we were still within a couple of hundred feet of the next closest group.
We still managed to enjoy ourselves. The campsite was perched
atop some unusual cliffs. The front edge separated and created
a slight gap that allowed you to see all the way to the ground, or
about 30 to 40 feet. It also broke up so you could (more or
less) climb down to the bottom. We hung out, overlooking the
flooded river, smoked a couple of
stogies and debated my vegetarian eating habits. Good times.
As night started to fall, Ted was adamant that he wanted to sleep outside. Dale and I were fine with that since that gave us more room in the tent. The weather looked like it would hold up, but just in case, we tied a tarp to some trees in front of the tent to give some shelter to Ted. Later that night, it began raining. At about 3am, Dale and I were startled to find Ted trying frantically to get into the tent. Evidently, the tarp cover only managed to collect the rain water until it finally broke, dumping all of it's contents directly onto Ted. If only we had pictures of that!
The
next day, we did some hiking along the flooded trails. In the
process, we encountered a wide variety of spiders who set their
traps directly across the trail. Dale always was sure to let
me go first. We also came across a most unusual tree that was
covered with thousands of daddy long leg spiders. Ted
mistakenly went to lean against it when the tree suddenly came to
life. It literally looked like a hairy tree.
Amazing!