Lower Falls Hike

Today we mostly stayed close to home. For our morning walk, we hiked to the Lower Falls and to some ruins in the park. The limestone all around the falls is cratered and shaped, clearly by running water, but it’s hard to imagine the creek rising that high. Right now the falls are just a few streams finding their way through and over the rocks. The pool at the bottom of the falls attracts anglers and swimmers. Today we saw one guy with a line in the water while a woman and little girl played on the shore.

To continue the hike to the ruins requires crossing the creek, which was a bit tricky since the surface of the limestone is so irregular, but we made it. The first ruins we saw were of the old homestead, where the original McKinney hoped to retreat from the world. All that’s left is the stone and masonry structure of half the house, which burned and was abandoned some time ago.

The second ruins were of the old grist mill—at least that’s what the sign said. It was hard to tell. By the time we returned home, we were ready for a shower. The high today was in the 90s, with high humidity too.

We were planning on moving tomorrow to camp on Lake Georgetown at a Corps of Engineers campground. The impending government shutdown means that we'll be going to a commercial park instead. We called Berry Springs and made reservations for two nights, hoping that the gov will get its act in order shortly!

This afternoon we got our laundry done and picked up a few things at HEB.
Tonight we walked around the campground to see our new neighbors. A sign at the gate says the campground is full, but fully 2/3 must be planning to arrive late. We were surprised to see so many tents.