We had a one-night stay at Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge, because we couldn't get a camping site at Tyler State Park even on a Sunday evening. In fact, we could only find a single camp site that was available for both Monday and Tuesday. This is obviously a very popular place! When we finally arrived, we had a nice big site with plenty of trees to hang the hammock.
The center of the park is a spring-fed lake that just beckoned us to get the kayak launched.
That spring water is so clear that we could take pictures of the fish and turtles swimming in the water.
Denisa's favorite part of kayaking was taking underwater pictures of the turtles. She has to include several, because she took about 100 photos.
When she wasn't taking pictures underwater, she was taking pictures above the water of dry turtles. These turtles aren't afraid of a couple of kayakers gliding by.
They were congregating on the logs and basking in the sun. We have decided that Tyler State Park should be called Turtle State Park.
It was a beautiful blue-sky day, and a great time to be on the water.
We were just putting the kayak away when one of our camping neighbors pointed out a snake in the water.
We were glad to focus in on his big round eye. That was our clue that this was a harmless water snake instead of the venomous water moccasin they had first reported.
Later, we were driving near our camp site, when we found that the road inside the state park was completely covered in smoke.
It must be the season to do controlled burns in Texas state parks. Just like in Huntsville, they are setting fires to kill out the under-brush.
One afternoon we headed into the town of Tyler, and Denisa became the "Y" in the town name on this unusually warm day.
We were here to explore the Tyler Rose Garden--home to 35,000 roses bushes!
Mark's just glad that it is too early for most of these rose bushes to be blooming. He probably couldn't get Denisa out of there if they were at their peak bloom.
As it was, we could look over this 14-acre park and see only a few blooms this spring.
Their web site points out that this is the largest rose garden in the nation. We are wandering through God's rose wonders today!
The Tyler Rose Festival takes place in October, so we suppose that will be the time when the rose garden is at its best.
Spring is the time for pruning the bushes. We could see the stacks of dead stalks between the manicured rows of roses. It obviously takes a full-time grounds crew to keep this place looking so good.
Besides the roses, the outside sections of the park are planted with themed flower gardens. The spring flower bed was popping with color!
We've seen lots of bluebonnets lately, but these relatives dawned colors of red and purple here in Tyler.
After pulling Denisa away from the rose garden, we made a final drive around the city of Tyler. Even though we're here at the wrong time for roses, they just finished their Azalea Festival. We followed the signed driving trails through the residential areas with the most flowers. The hard freeze was hard on the azalea buds, and we just saw the end of a shortened azalea bloom here in Tyler.
After three days of admiring the reptiles and flowers, we'll be moving on down the road. But we've had a good time here in Tyler, Texas, among the turtles and the roses.
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