James’ First Camping Trip – Garner State Park

Can you believe that my husband had never been camping prior to 2 months ago? We camped at Garner State Park with our friends Aric and Kristy and their dog Dalton, and our friend Ranger the last weekend in October. On the way there Saturday morning, we stopped at Lone Star Motorcycle Museum and Ace Cafe. This was really a neat place to stop and eat lunch. You can check out the classic and modern motorcycles while you wait for your burger or Australian meat pie to cook up. It also gave us perfect timing to arrive at Garner State Park about 1:30 and get our campsite so we could set up our tents.

We hiked the Bridges trail where the view from the scenic overlook at the top was worth the steep climb. I was the self-proclaimed camp cook for the weekend and dinner Saturday was delicious Camp Chicken Cordon Blue cooked over our campfire grill.

Sunday morning, we walked by the river near our campsite and played some cards. After a tasty lunch of grilled ham/turkey and cheese sandwiches, we hiked the trail along Horseshoe Canyon. Unfortunately, the rockiness of the trails was hard on poor Dalton’s feet and he and Kristy turned back and just hung out while we went up to the Crystal Cave. On the return hike, we saw the cutest little armadillo.

Sunday night was a lot more quiet as there were only a handful of campsites occupied compared to the handful that were unoccupied Saturday night. We ate chicken fajitas for dinner, roasted marshmallows over the campfire for smores and had to shoo a skunk away from our campsite by hissing at it.

Monday morning, we packed up and headed to nearby Lost Maples State Natural Area where we hiked the Maple Trail and a portion of the East trail.

Over all, our camping trip was a lot of fun and I think we’re going to have to plan another one or two for the spring.