McKinney Falls State Park

On the spur, we decided to head for McKinney Falls state park. Might as well, as we wanted to get our money's worth on our state park pass. Also, McKinney Fall's happens to be practically in our backyard (less than 30 minutes away.)
I hope you enjoy these photo's as much as I have. I tried to capture the beauty of this amazing area. The rock formations you see are molten lava rock from the Pilot Knob volcano - long ago extinct, but active thousands of years ago. (At least, we hope it's extinct. It rests near the Balcones Fault zone.)
I'm no geologist by any stretch of the imagination, so bear with me. I'm also no photographer either, so just pretend you are seeing the park through my eyes, as imperfect as they are.
I found the thousands of puddles interesting in their own right. This one in particular showed me the simple beauty of nature and how life tends to grow and thrive under any circumstances.
I kept my eyes glued to the ground, as we found flint and lots of interesting rocks and pebbles. Without a doubt, fossils and many other treasures are to be found... Alan and I have decided it's time to invest in a good metal detector to take on our trips...

There are several falls in the park. This one was located at the Homestead trail.



Stopping to smell the "roses"...
The area consists of Bald Cypress trees, Sycamores and Pecan Trees... until you move further inland from the creek. Then there are various cedars, mesquite, etc. -- sort of like West Texas meets up with South Texas...

I found this tree stump fascinating. It was lying on its side and we marveled at how the pebbles filled its belly. (We had walked a long primitive trail past the falls along Onion Creek and found this stump.)
Pamela, digging for sea shells. This area used to be home to the prehistoric reptile - Mosasaur - an entire skeleton had been found, along with various fossils, showing the area to have been a part of the shallow sea.

The Indian overhead was breathtakingly beautiful. Reminded me of our prior visit in Cedar Park to the Indian overhead that we had visited on CAVE DAY.
It was a cool retreat from the warm sunshine and 80+ degrees...

I gave up on capturing the height and width of this tree... Reminded me of those California Redwoods... well, at least a baby one.... (click to enlarge)
We saw white-tailed deer, Armadillo's, baby snakes, and dark scurrying shadows within the woods...


Struck by lightening?






Time to cast those lines...






This hole leads down into Onion Creek and where the falls are spilling... SPOOKY - not a place to slip and fall into! These falls were located on the other side of the park, and where we decided to fish...


I couldn't help but notice that this was a favorite fishing spot. If you could see this tree with your own eyes, you'd realize that SEVERAL people had cast their lines WAY HIGH into the sky to snag these branches... Can you count how many bobbers and lures are in this tree? Now it looks like a Christmas tree...
Pamela, catches a perch...
Alan caught his perch...
And his catfish! What a fight it gave him!
Click photo to enlarge and you can see how the fish had tugged on his line...


Resting on vines...
Can't identify this bird... I tried zooming in...
ME - Kicking back...
TURTLES - Sunbathing (click to enlarge) I counted 12...

Cool RV! CHECK out the video by the falls....

Hope you enjoyed our visit to the park... This is my third time here. We plan to return SOON with more fish bait!