Camping Texas Style

We started our Texas style camping trip in Austin at McKinney Falls with a hot and humid bike ride/run. 

There was an awesome 3 mile trail loop right by our campsite. Scott, Kristen, and Boston rode the bikes while I ran. I know my sweat mark is nasty, and I almost deleted this picture because of it, but hey, that's what running in 98 degree weather plus humidity does to you. It's just part of the Texas camping experience. Boston pretty much fell asleep on the bike ride, as you can see. It was past his nap time. 

We thought the end of May was a little past the camping season here, but then we realized it's actually the perfect time to go camping as long as you have lots of shade, and water nearby for swimming. 

McKinney Falls had the perfect little swimming spot. It was so fun. 

It felt good to get in the water after our hot bike ride/run.

After our swim we went back to the campsite to shower and eat dinner before heading to a track meet at the University of Texas. It was the NCAA Regionals, and it was one of the reasons why Kristen came to visit. She just finished her Senior year of running track at Weber, and she knew a lot of people running in the meet. 

Boston got to play a little catch with his dad while the tinfoil dinners warmed up. 

Our tinfoil dinners were yummy. We all made our own that morning and cooked them at home, so we just had to warm them up when we were ready to eat. 

Boston looks so cute in this picture. He did a really good job entertaining himself at the track meet for 4+ hours. Especially considering that it was hot and humid, he had missed his nap, and it was way past his bedtime before we got back. 

I didn't take any pictures of the runners, but I did take a picture of how cool the city of Austin looks. Boston zonked in the car before we got back to the campsite, so he missed out on s'mores that night. Don't worry though, he had some for breakfast the next morning. :)

Another part of the Texas camping experience is all the weird bugs. None of us had ever seen stick bugs in person until this camping trip. These bugs were all over the place there. 

I don't know what these bugs are called, but they are everywhere too, and I'm pretty sure they're responsible for the really loud cricket type sound that you hear at night in Texas. (You'll be able to hear it in the video at the bottom when Boston is roasting his marshmallows.) Seeing this picture just reminded me that when I went to grab my swim suit the next morning after it had been drying on a tree, one of these lovely bugs jumped out of it, and yes, I screamed.  

Here's Boston having his marshmallows for breakfast. We only camped overnight, so we couldn't let him miss his favorite part of camping. He doesn't actually eat the marshmallows anyway. He just likes to put them on a stick and burn them. He also sings the Happy Birthday song while the marshmallow is flaming, and then he blows it out. It's really cute and funny. You'll be able to hear him singing Happy Birthday in the video at the bottom if you listen closely. 

The next morning we did some more biking and running on the pretty trail, and then we did some real swimming. Friday we just splashed around, but Saturday we had fun jumping off the rocks into the lake. 

After we finished swimming we cleaned up, packed up, and headed to our favorite Austin restaurant, Hula Hut. We can't go to Austin without eating at Hula Hut! 

Boston fell asleep on our drive to Hula Hut, and it was too hot to wait in the car, so we took the car seat out and waited in the shade for about an hour until our little buzzer went off to be seated. It was very convenient that Boston slept through most of our wait time. (Isn't his little pouty lip cute? Sometimes he does that when he's sleeping.)

Hula Hut was awesome as usual, and I love this picture! 

You can watch Scott and Boston jump in at the end of the video. I have to explain that Boston really wanted to jump off the little cliff by himself, even though it kind of looks like we were trying to force him to do it in the video. It was about the same distance as jumping off a diving board, so we thought we'd let him with his floaties, and have Scott catch him at the bottom. Once he got on the ledge though, he got scared. He eventually let Scott jump off with him, and he loved it, so they had to do it again.