We're on a southern pilgrimage to a warmer place for the winter, visiting as many new-to-us Texas state parks as possible on our way. After a two-day stop at Lake Arrowhead state park, we headed another hour south to our next park stop. We pulled into Fort Richardson state park just in time for the 10 a.m. guided tour. The fort museum's curator braved the chilly morning temperatures to take us for an hour-and-a-half walking tour to all the buildings left from 1867-1878 when this fort was in use. The largest building on the fort grounds is the post hospital. It's so big you can barely see Denisa standing in the doorway.
This was a state-of-the-art hospital when it was built in 1869. That's a time when invisible germs were still a mystery to the military doctors.
With brisk winds, we went quickly from building to building at Fort Richardson. We stopped longer inside the commanding officer's quarters. This is the oldest cottonwood frame officer's quarters still standing in the United States, so of course we needed to take a picture.
We also like to explore old trestle bridges, even if they're no longer over water. This one had been moved to the state park over thirty years ago.
We decided to try a hike at this state park, and were glad to see that the Rumbling Spring Path took us down along the creek where we were protected from the wind. We're obviously ready to head south after a day like today when we're wearing our biggest coats and gloves.
We would have normally biked the 18-mile trail that goes all the way to Twin Lakes on the other side of Jacksboro. But the winds were blowing over 20 mph by this afternoon, and biking didn't sound like any fun in that cold wind. So that gives us a reason to return to this state park again some time, where the old train depot and the rail-to-trailway runs beside the park.
After finishing our 3-mile hike, we jumped back in the motor home to continue our path south. We're traveling along Highway 281, and we stopped in the town of Mineral Wells for a two-night stay. Country Living Resort is another half-price Passport America campground, right along the highway. From here we could drive to our next Texas state park--Lake Mineral Wells.
Our first stop inside the park was to Penitentiary Hollow. We could look down into the hollow to see the rock walls that rise straight up from the lake shore.
This is a popular rock climbing area, and of course Mark had to try his hand at climbing. He didn't go too high because we didn't have the usual helmet, ropes, crash pad, and safety gear that real rock climbers use.
But even Denisa could climb into the rock crevices, and enjoy the unusual rock formations that occur naturally here at Lake Mineral Wells.
We hiked the rocky red trail that stays close to the lake on the east side, and then we drove to the west side of the lake to hike the blue water front trail as well. This park has 14 miles of trails, but all the Cross Timbers trails are closed due to flooding. They also have a 20-mile Lake Mineral Wells State Park Trailway that we didn't have a chance to bike today. So that gives us two reasons to return to this state park again some time.
Planning to return to these parks seems to be a re-occurring theme as we've already visited three different Texas state parks in our journey to the southern tip of this big state. How many more parks can we visit as we head further south?!?
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