A New (to us) Trail

Boogs and I like to go on hikes and walks. We tend to go to the same places over and over again. I was ready to find a new area to explore close to home. So I googled "family hikes in Austin" and discovered the River Place Nature Trail.

The trail is about 30 minutes from our house, in the middle of a neighborhood. I was amazed at how well kept the trail was. Boogs and I walked about 3.5 miles on the trail. It was a bit rough for us to get started because Boogs could have stayed in the rockers on the boardwalk all day.

I could see the start of the trail and was ready to wander into the shade under the trees and start exploring.

 Boogs kept on rocking and watching the water near the boardwalk.

I finally got him out of the rockers when I spotted a turtle. We spent the next 15 minutes watching a least a dozen turtles swim in the pond.

 

Eventually, Boogs was ready to go. I was surprised at how quiet it was on the trail. We only saw a few people.

On the uphill sections of the path, logs were placed to use as steps.

There were a lot of steps.

The path led to a narrow trail with a ravine drop off on one side and cliffs covered in growing ferns on the other side. I should have taken more pictures. It was beautiful.

Boogs took a picture of the falling rock sign. It made him a little nervous.

At one point, we had to decide which trail to take. Boogs opted to cross the creek and continue on the other side. We ended up crossing the creek at two different locations.

There were several plank walkways along the trail.

It was neat to see such a variety of trees. I was collecting leaves for a leaf rubbing project for my kindergartners at school. Boogs was a little annoyed that I was moving so slowly. I had to stop and pick up leaves from as many different kinds of trees as I could. I needed to collect about 130 leaves.

One path led us to this beautiful spot. We stopped for a bit and had a snack and some water.

Part way through our hike, Boogs started feeling poorly, so we had to head back to the car. There was a virus running around school that week. Boogs spent the rest of the weekend resting quietly. Luckily, he was pretty much back to normal by school time on Monday morning.

We want to bring Daddy to the River Place Nature Trail and explore some of the area we did not get a chance to see.

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