Snortblog

Blanco State Park is located on the south shores of the Blanco River, in Blanco County, Blanco Texas. Blanco Blanco Blanco! Sister counties are jealous. It’s a quaint small hill country town, and the park has a more diverse patronage then many other state parks, presumably reflecting the makeup of Blanco. It’s also the only state park I’ve seen in Texas within walking distance of a bar.

I went with our crew, team Manu Chao, to see him perform at the Palladium Ballroom in Dallas, Texas as described in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Manu Chao can mix anything up: languages, melodies, and rhythms. Some songs I only recognized from the lyrics, as the underlying melody and rhythm were completely different from the recorded versions. The crowd was filled with Manu Chao lovers, and sang along much of the night. Energy levels were high, it was as much a workout as a concert. My lovely wife hopped like she’s never hopped before. I hopped until I stopped, and was still sore for 3 days.

We returned to the Dallas Plaza hotel, a 15 minute walk from the Ballroom. It was economical, though not without it’s challenges. We were more amused then inconvenienced though, and would probably stay there again, if we planned on attending a weekend show at the Palladium.

The following day, we went camping at Lake Whitney State Park, a fine park between Fort Worth and Waco with swimming and plenty of camping next to the lake. One caveat, presumably due to a particularly rainy summer, there were lots of mosquitoes. While I’m normally the last person to get bothered by them, there were plenty to go around and they were voracious!

We went car camping at Stephen F. Austin State Park, outside of Houston, Texas. It is adjacent to San Felipe, Texas which was founded by Stephen F. Austin. It’s a substantial park, there were lots of families, many boy scouts, and golfers run amok. There are nice rural roads nearby for road biking and trails for mountain biking, complete with a bike/dog/child washing station.

Santa Rosa Lake State Park was a great stop for hiking and biking. There was plenty of road, not much traffic and beautiful countryside. The following photo is a panorama of the lake.

We went camping at Mother Neff State Park, the first state park in Texas. It’s a nice little park, with a couple limestone structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It’s close to Waco. We liked spot #12 the best. Area roads made for fine bicycle riding, with little traffic. I even ran into some folks biking from Temple.