Will Brazos Bend State Park be as good as we remember?

Four years ago, we camped at Brazos Bend State Park. Now with over five years of full-time camping under our belts, we both would list it as one of our all-time favorite state parks. So when we were booking stops for our trip north through Texas this spring, we looked forward to stopping again. But would it be as good as we remember? Brazos Bend was completely booked up for the weekend, but we landed in a nice spot on a Sunday afternoon right after the weekend warriors had to leave. We immediately set out on our first bicycle ride around the park.

Bicycling is a great way to get around this park, filled with huge oak trees draped in Spanish moss. Denisa is standing at the base of the old oak tree, feeling mighty small.

Some of those trees are just too tempting for a tree climber like Mark. You'll see him at the fork of this old tree, showing just how big that tree is.

Add in a few spring wildflowers, and we are happy campers!

The staff at the nature center encouraged us to ride the Red Buckeye trail, because they were in bloom. We weren't sure what we were looking for, but we soon figured it out.

This is a red buckeye, right off the trail.

Brazos Bend State Park has 35 miles of trails, and we walked or rode our bikes on every trail that was open. By the end of the day, we would find that we were craving Italian food. That must be from the wild onion that is blooming near the trails, with its aromatic garlicky-smell flooding the air.

All those trails would make it a great park, but there is more! Brazos Bend state park is most famous for its alligator population. In fact, the nature center has an 18-month-old gator that visitors can see up close.

When we rode our bikes to the lakes, it didn't take long before we were getting our first alligator sightings.

No telephoto lens needed for the picture above. These two big guys were lounging right beside the bike trail.

Some of the alligators were in the lake beside the trail. This one looked fancy with her lake moss boa, and a moth batting its wings like a decorative head pin.

We were finding plenty of alligators, but we were in search of a very special one. The staff at the nature center told us that a mother gator was hanging out on 40-acre-lake with her brood of young-uns. We actually walked by once before we realized this was her.

Only when we looked closer, did we see the striped babies swimming in the water around her

They were so ugly, they were cute! Mark counted 18 little gators in the water.

We were told about another mother gator just a couple hundred yards away, and we were heading there next. But what do you do when an alligator is laying over your trail? Instead of traveling 200 yards down that trail, we rode our bikes more than a mile around the lake to get to that mother gator.

The light was getting dim when we finally found her, harder to see among the marsh trees. But we spotted one of her babies, riding on her forehead.

The first two days we spent riding our bikes around the park, always excited about the next thing we'd find. We see that spring is in the air, as most of the birds are paired up.

We don't know the names of the ducks hanging out at Brazos Bend, but Denisa has always been a bit of a duck fan.

We also think this anhinga is an interesting water bird. Instead of gliding on top of the water, his entire body is underwater. Only his snake-like head remains above, until he dives under to go fishing.

The anhinga's feathers are different than those of a duck, allowing him to dive and remain underwater. When he comes back to the trees, he must spread his wings to dry in the wind before he can soar in the breeze.

We also saw (and heard) the noisy gallinula. This bird is very color-coordinated. His red and yellow beak are perfectly matched to his red and yellow leggings.

Brazos Bend is home to a large flock of white ibis, with their color coordinated pink faces and legs.

This younger ibis hasn't grown his bright white feathers yet. But he enjoys the protection of blending into his surroundings now.

We've seen many herons lately, but Denia just can't pass up on a stalking great white heron with a perfect reflection in the water below.

All these big birds are easy to see, and move slowly so they are easy to photograph. Just the opposite is true of this tiny vermilion flycatcher. He was flitting from branch to branch, showing off his bright red finery and teasing us to get him in focus.

We like the unexpected finds like bright red birds, but we're not as excited about finding slimy ugly snakes like this one. The good news is we were walking on a board walk above the water when we looked down to find this guy right below us.

This blog has been exclaiming about the trails, the wildflowers, the trees, the alligators, and the birds in this park. We should probably also mention the insects. Actually, we are glad to say that it's too early for mosquitoes here, and we only saw one butterfly at the nature center.

Also at the nature center is a large bricked half-circle with odd numbers and squares on it. We read the sign board to see that this is a human sundial. If you step on the square for the correct month, your body will cast a shadow over the current time of day.

We have been enjoying cloudy days with no wind and temperatures in the 70s. That's just perfect weather! But just for a moment, a few rays of sunshine broke out of the clouds and we got a shadow. It was right at 4:00--just like the sundial says.

After two days of immersing ourselves in Brazos Bend State Park, we feel so blessed to be wandering so many of God's wonders again. The answer to the question, "Will Brazos Bend State Park be as good as we remember?" is a resounding "YES!"