Our Trips --Page 7 (Bastrop SP)

The Kings' Camp Site

Our Trips --Page 7 (Bastrop SP and Oak Thicket Park)

Bastrop State Park

Bastrop, Tx.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/bastrop/

We almost didn't make this trip to Bastrop SP, located in central Texas, about 20 miles from Austin. The weather had been miserable and rainy the night before we left at home and the morning didn't exactly dawn bright and sunny. We decided to risk it anyway and headed on out in the midst of a slow, steady drizzle. Fortunately, once we pulled into the park, the weather had cleared a bit and, although cloudy, it was fairly dry.

Bastrop SP is located in the lost pines area of Texas , which is an isolated area of pines and hardwoods. The trees and surrounding woodlands are a beautiful change of pace smack dab in the middle of the Central Texas scenery. Another big surprise entering the park was the golf course which was located right near the park headquarters, complete with rentable golf carts.

Pool at Bastrop SP

Part of the Bastrop SP golf course, taken through the trees

As far as recreation goes, Bastrop seems to have something for all members of the family. There is a big playground a bit of a way past the headquarters with a nice looking pool next to the playground.Unfortunately, the pool was closed for the season, but it sure would be nice to cool off in if we had made the trip during the summer months. There are also several buildings that can be used for conference and meeting facilities and a beautiful, large building hall that was built in the 30's that was being used for a family reunion while we were there, so we didn't get to see the inside facilities but the outside was nice.

There are also a few miles of good hiking trails which proved to be a little slippery due to the rain earlier in the day. Most of the trails are coveres in pine needles so it's a bit hard to tell if you're on one or not, but there are frequent trail maps to show you where you are. The only wildlife we saw on the trails was a white-tail deer which we startled when it wandered onto the trail in front of us. Other than that, the trees were beautiful and we saw some really unusual varieties of large mushrooms along the way in colors of fuschia and yellow.

Down one of the hiking trails

The kids on the swings at the playground

The area of the campground that we were assigned to had full hook-ups and individual dump stations at each site. The sites were all pull-throughs (Bonus!) and had a fire ring and picnic table. We found our section of the park to be really quiet since most of the other campers were older people in their fifth wheels. I know they probably cringed when they saw us pull up with our three rowdy kids, but the kids kept it down and I think we gave a good name to pop up campers overall. We had a couple of friends from the area (Ginger and David) join us for burgers on the grill Saturday night and had a great time hanging out with them. The nice thing about Bastrop SP, is although it feels as if you are pretty far from civilization once you're in the park the closest WalMart is only a few miles away and the town of Bastrop has quite a few restaurants and even a family entertainment center within a mile of the park. Despite the ever-impending rain that threatened this trip (we've figured out that we should hire ourselves out as Rain Makers. Have a drought? We'll just bring our camper to you and you're sure to have a downpour before too long.) we thought that this was one of the prettiest parks we've been to and with the great-looking swimming pool, wouldn't mind coming back even on a hot Texas summer weekend.

Bastrop SP trailer campground

Our site--#21

Our daughter (on the right) and her friend hanging out at the campsite

Rob on the hiking trail

Me, our son and our "adopted niece" on the trail at Bastrop

Oak Thicket Park

Fayetteville, Texas

http://www.lcra.org/community/oakthicket.html

Lake Fayette with the power plant in the distance

I learned a lesson this past Spring Break...make reservations early. Like months in advance. It was only two weeks before the break and I logged onto Reserve America to make camping reservations for one of the state parks. I soon realized that there were no spots to be found. In ANY state parks. Geez! you'd think the entire state was camping for Spring Break! ;) That's what led us to Oak Thicket, a park of the Lower Colorado River Authority. It's situated in the pretty pastoral east central area of Texas, between Fayetteville and La Grange. The park sits next to a man-made power plant reservoir which we were told has some of the best bass fishing in Texas. Judging by the multitude of boats and all the campers toting strings of fish back to their campsites, we were apt to believe them.

Our site..campsite #11

This park is great for those who love to boat or those who love to fish, or both. Unfortunately, we're not much into fishing (the pace of it kind of reminds me of golf), and we don't have a boat (although, according to Rob after this trip, someday a boat will be ours. Oh yes,it will be ours.), so basically there wasn't a whole lot of kinship we were feeling with this park. The park itself is clean and nice with plenty of trees and shade. The campground had a mixture of RVs (some with boats) and tents (lots with boats), and as far as campgrounds go, it wasn't very big, but the sites were nice and level and each had a fire ring with a grill, water and electric hookups and picnic tables. Some sites were a bit close together, but many had a good amount of trees between them, so there was some privacy between most of the sites.

The somewhat small swimming area and beach(marked by the orange buoys)

The park does have a "beach" and "swimming area". I put those features in quotations because with this park, the focus is definitely on the fishing and boating. The swimming area is...well...rather small. So small that our kids became pretty bored with it within minutes. Right next to the swimming area is a very nice picnic area with several tables and grills. There is also a covered pavilion with picnic tables near the paking area. Next to the swimming/picnic area is a nice pier for fishing. Accomodations at Oak Thicket include screened shelters which have L-shaped bunkbeds, presumably for four people. The bunks are sans mattresses and linens, so campers would need to bring their own.. The cabins have electricity and ceiling fans with lights. There are also cabins for rent which sit right on the water, and which looked pretty luxurious from the outside (couldn't look inside any of these since they were all rented out), with decks and satellite t.v. dishes on the roofs.

Screened shelter at Oak Thicket

Oak Thicket cabin

We trekked one nature trail Oak Thicket offered which connects Oak Thicket and another nearby LCRA park. The trail was well-marked and had various informative signs along the way regarding the flora and fauna which grows along the trail. Unfortunately we had to turn back about halfway through because it had rained the night before (typical King camping event) and the trail had become muddy and slippery.

On Saturday we drove first into Fayetteville and then into La Grange. Both towns are nice, with LaGrange being the bigger of the two with a population of a few thousand. Fayetteville's population was listed at 261. Despite the small population, we had a lot of fun in Fayetteville. There is a great little cafe there called "Orsack's" . The special on the day we visited was a large chicken fried steak on a bed of seasoned rice with gravy, seasoned green beans, a roll and a small slice of delicious pineapple cake for $5.00. The kids ordered burgers which ran about $3.85 and the burgers were humongous. We also visited their historic courthouse which has been restored to look as if it did in the 19th century and reminded me of the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". There are even the original court docket books that visitors can thumb through from 1897 (with charges such as "Rudely exhibiting a weapon", "Theft of a hog", and "Attempted seduction") and the jail is upstairs in it's original form.(Two cells and the third prisoner had to sit shackled in the middle of the room) It was very interesting and we had a great time in this little town learning about the history and visiting some of the little antique shops which sit around the town square.

Although Oak Thicket was very clean and pretty, it probably won't be high on our list of parks to revisit (at least until Rob gets that boat he wants!). Because of all the boat traffic, it stayed pretty noisy late into the night. We love the area, though, and would probably make it a day trip just to enjoy the surrounding towns.

Orsak's Cafe in Fayetteville's town square. Great food!

The old Fayetteville courthouse

Inside the courthouse

Sigh...we knew he'd come to no good someday.

Our son spending time in the old Fayetteville jail above the courthouse.