Lost Maples State Natural Area GTG - Day 1

This week several members of the WomenRV forum planned to meet at Lost Maples State Natural Area for a Get-Together (GTG).  These can be pretty informal, just an announcement on our forum and whoever can come adds a note to the thread.  Lost Maples is famous for fall color in Texas--yes we do have fall color, we just don't have to freeze to death to enjoy it.  Reservations are hard to come by when the color is peaking and even day use is limited to 250 cars because it is a small park with hiking trails.  I was lucky enough to be invited to stay in my friend Nancy's home on wheels.  We planned to meet at the park since we were coming from two different directions.

I arrived at park headquarters before Nancy so I waited to check in since I would be staying with her and they would assign the site when she arrived.  So I decided to check out the Lost Maples story in the headquarters building.

There were numerous pictures of different areas in the park.

This is also a prime birding area depending upon the time of the year.

There was a steady stream of people checking into the park for day visits.  So I waited outside after I looked at the exhibits.  The trees near the headquarters had signs telling what they were.

The birds were also busy at a set of three feeders.  I also saw a brilliant red cardinal.  Unfortunately, a man walked right in front of me as I was about to snap it.

Nancy arrived shortly afterward and got her site.  They knew that someone else was coming so they saved the site next door for her.  We had just got "Bunkie" set up in our site when Diana arrived.  My car is in front of Diana's Roadtrek since you can only have two "motorized" vehicles in a site and Nancy was towing "Herbie".

It was becoming more overcast by the minute but we decided to head out to one of the trails.

I think we had about a half mile hike down to the day use area where the trails began.  Are you ready?

Nancy and Diana on the trail.

Nancy was also looking for birds as she took photos of the leaves.

The creeks were pretty low with our long period of drought.

Lots of pictures were taken but you can see that it was pretty overcast all afternoon.

There are still some wildflowers blooming here and there.

We headed back to the RVs where we made White Chicken Chile and had crackers and cheese.  No campfires are allowed due to the drought although they will let you have a charcoal fire to grill on.  We were amazed at the number of tent campers there were.  It was going to drop down to freezing at night.  We had a motorcyclist camper on one side of us.  About 1/3 of the sites had tenters.