Lake Somerville, TX

We decided to head out to see what kind of camping opportunities might be out at Lake Somerville after lunch at "Must be Heaven" in Brenham.

The first place we came to was the Overlook Marina & Campground.  The host at the gate was very nice.  He told us that the park was a former COE park that was now privately owned.  The entrance wasn't bad but the camping areas needed a great deal of work.  Apparently the COE had three parks and turned this one over but it was obvious that the private campground had done nothing to maintain let alone improve it once they got it.

The two COE parks are Yegua Creek and Rocky Creek.  Yegua Creek is currently closed for renovations.  Rocky Creek is open and about two thirds of it have already been renovated with a couple more campgrounds in the works.  They are adding 50 amps so they will have 50, 30, and 20 amp outlets on each hookup.  The restrooms are all new.  It was very nice and definitely worth a return visit.  We also saw a very interesting site there.  Looking out across the lake, there were two islands which would not normally be there if the lake wasn't so low.  One island looked like it was painted white on one end.  Nancy used her binoculars and detected something very interesting so she hauled out her big telescope.

Here she is holding Diana's camera up to the telescope so we could get some pictures.

Isn't this amazing?  Wait, it gets even better.

Better yet but still not the closest so you can really be sure what you are seeing.

Pelicans! They covered the entire end of this small island.  It is far from a perfect picture but without the telescope and the camera lens, you could only see a white covered island so it is pretty unique, don't you think?

We also checked out Nails Creek State.  Although open to all to camp, the sites are all set up for equestrian use as each campsite has a small corral for horses.  You are supposed to rake up the manure and put it at the front of the site where they will pick it up.   If the sites were in heavy equestrian use, we thought that flies could be a problem due to the horses.  There are about 22 miles of trails for hikers, bicyclists, and horses which was nice.  It was in much better shape than Overlook Park but not quite as nice as Rocky Creek.

There is another park, Birch Creek State Park, on the other side of the lake but we didn't make it over there as it is a pretty large lake.