Fourth of July

The Fourth of July was the first non-rainy day here in a week, so we took advantage of the nice weather and drove out to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.  We'd been out here, oh, about 8 years ago, when we took a vacation to Texas while we were living in Missouri.  We haven't been back, even though it's only a little over 100 miles away.  There are so MANY different state parks to explore in Texas!  Anyway, the area is a beautiful expanse of Texas granite rocks, a couple of which are HUGE.  The walk we did, in particular, is the summit trail; it's basically 3/4 of a mile up the face of a big granite boulder (a 625 foot elevation change).  It's amazing what vegetation and creatures we found up there (huge spiders, lots of grasshoppers, and even shrimp).  We had a snack at the very windy top, Tim took some photos, then we climbed (rode) down for a picnic.  Maya made use of the carrier about half of the way up and all of the way down (she napped on the way down).