Colorado Bend state park: about 1.5hr outside of Austin
All easy trails
River overlook
Gorman Falls: calcium deposits for travertines. 70ft high, 650ft wide, 60ft thick! Took millennia to form.
Gorman springs: nice easy walk along Gorman creek (many lily pads) with few creek crossings. Porous limestone high up soaks up the rainwater, which flows underground, and comes up out of the spring. Supplies water even during drought!
Saw several armadillos. They look so fake.
Riverside trail; pretty, along the colorado river. Good for biking.
Camped, almost no one else showed up even though all reserved.
Spice wood spring trail: a lot of river crossings, mini waterfalls. Favorite hike in this park. So much fun!
Longhorn Cavern State Park
To enter the cave, you have to go on a tour. Walking tours every half hour ($20). The wild cave tours where you go with gear are only Sundays ($65).
Carbonic acid opened up limestone and carved out the cave (abrasion cave).
Civilian conservation corps (ordered by roosevelt) removed more than 3k dump trucks of debris from cave at $30/hour!
Rainwater come through limestone and pick up calcium carbonate (like tums) and formations made. Soda straw took 100 yrs to form (1inch). Oils on fingers prevent growth.
Calcite crystals in Crystal room. Hardness 3/10.
Tricolor bats (2nd smallest bat), chicken nugget size. Lives solo. Eats 1/4 of body weight.
Queen's throne room. Previous couples touched it, so stopped growing for 100 years.
Rocky, the rockweiller (magnesium and limestone.
Indian council room: came to find
Chert, to make arrowheads, etc.
1932-1934: world's only underground nightclub built in here to compete with carlsbad cavern. It had a restaurant, band, dance floor. 2018, wedding in Indian counsel room
Bat guano boiled down makes Potassium nitrate with other ingredients, makes gun powder during civil war. Also eye liner.
1960-1989 cave designated nuclear fallout shelter during Cold War. So barrels scattered throughout cave.
Moon room?
Lumbego alley goes to hall of marble (actually dolamite, mix of mag and limestone).
Formation room. 17000 years form tallest stalagtite
Deepest room: 130ft below surface. Length: 8 miles
Room of diamonds: rock fracture. Calcium carbonate water floods into it. Carbon dioxide left, rest of molecules crystalized, forming calcite crystals. Used to be called hall of gems.
Found wholly mammoth bones here.
Enchanted Rock State Park
Summit trail closed when raining.
We did turkey trail, still really fun too
Crystal hilll scattered with crystals+ looked like snow!
Echo canyon met up with summit trail. A lot of creek crossings!
Fredericksburg - it snowed here on New Year's Eve:
Cute little shops.
Beautiful lights at Marktplatzp
Christmas pyramid 26ft tall (tallest in USA): German Christmas tradition.
Christmas tree started in Germany.
Ate delicious German food from Australand restaurant: jaggerschnizle (great), rouladen (not as good), apple strudel.
