Enchanted Rock – Wandering Dawgs

What an amazing ten years! Each marker on this map represents a place where we camped in our RV.

Ten years ago, on July 1, 2006, we spent our first night in an RV park in Tampa, Florida. Two weeks later we left Georgia with no reservations anywhere and a bucket list of what we wanted to see. You can see highlights of that trip at Looking Back on our First RV Trip. Last year I posted a few of our most memorable experiences from our first nine years at Celebrating Nine Years of RVing.

Many of our trips revolved around either visiting family or attending a special event such as a wedding or Titanium Rally. Sometimes we traveled just for the fun of seeing new places. No matter where we were going, we always took the long way around to get there.

We discovered beauty in every state and province we visited. Sometimes the everyday things were the best.

I love watching the changing landscape and seeing the many farms and ranches.

I love seeing the farms as we drive along

We always enjoy seeing lighthouses.

Split Rock Lighthouse on Minnesota's North Shore — Split Rock Lighthouse on Minnesota’s North Shore

Seeing wildlife is always a treat.

Black Bear beside the road in British Columbia

And of course we loved visiting many of our National Parks.

Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View Overlook

Sometimes we enjoyed watching the sunset from our campsite.

Mount Redoubt sunset in Ninilchik, Alaska

We did a few amazing hikes.

At the Summit of Enchanted Rock in Texas

Chilling by a camp fire is always fun.

Now that we have ten years of RV’ing under our belt, our priorities have changed. Of course, we are ten years older and it is more difficult to make long trips. When we started our wandering, we only had two grandchildren. Now we have four and we want to spend as much time with them as we can. Going on long trips takes us away from them for too long.

Our wandering days are not over. There are still many places we haven’t seen in and near our home state of Georgia so from now on we will travel a little closer to home.

We weren’t ready to leave the Texas Hill country just yet. With Inks Lake full for Easter weekend we had to vacate our lake front campsite and find another place to stay. We really liked the town of Llano and found a private RV park beside the Llano river that had a site for the three nights.

Llano River Bridge in Llano

Gazebo in Llano, Texas

Llano Train Depot

Llano Museum

The old cabin was moved to the Llano Museum

Llano Courthouse

Enchanted Rock State Park is short drive south of Llano so on Saturday we set out early in the morning in hopes of beating the Easter weekend crowds. We arrived at the park entrance before 9:30 only to find a line of cars waiting to get in. It only took a few minutes to get our parking permit, park and head for the summit trail. Many families were out enjoying the climb to the top.

The highest point of Enchanted Rock 1,825 is feet above sea level. Climbing the Rock is like climbing the stairs of a 30- or 40-story building. My fitbit said I climbed 56 floors that day!

Enchanted Rock

We hiked the Enchanted Rock Summit Trail

The camel on the way to the summit of Enchanted Rock

The trail was pretty steep as we got near the top

At the Summit of Enchanted Rock

View from the summit of Enchanted Rock

Kids can’t resist climbing on the huge rocks

View from the summit of Enchanted Rock

We had a great time at the Llano Fiddle Fest. After a picnic lunch at the bottom of Enchanted Rock we returned to Llano to go the LanTex Theater to hear some of the fiddlers in the 38th Llano Open Fiddle Contest. I don’t know anything about Texas Fiddling but I know I enjoyed all of the contestants we heard.

On Sunday morning we drove to the Llano Museum to hear some more fiddling and eat a Cowboy Breakfast put on by the Llano Historical Society. We got there as the ladies were starting to put everything away but they told us to come on into the kitchen for some biscuits and sausage gravy. The volunteers were so friendly and nice. I love small towns!

Spencer and Rains were playing old time fiddle tunes in one of the rooms in the museum. Tricia Spencer grew up in Kansas and learned to play from her grandparents. Howard Rains is a native Texas artist. We enjoyed listening to their music and bought one of their CD’s.

LanTex Theater was the venue for Llano Fiddle Fest Contest 20

Llano Fiddle Fest 2015

Spencer and Rains Easter morning at the Llano Museum

Saturday afternoon after climbing Enchanted Rock and listening to fiddling we returned to Cooper’s BBQ to get some take out for our Easter dinner on Sunday. The line was wrapped around the building but after a short wait we arrived at the pits to choose our meat right off the grill. We chose a chicken half, brisket and pork tenderloin. We got some beans, sauce, and jalepenos to go with it and were back at the campground to rest after our busy day.

Cooper’s BBQ

Riverway RV Park was our home while in Llano. This private park takes Passport America and Good Sam. All the sites are large pull through sites with full hookups, WiFi, and cable. There is a large clubhouse with kitchen, meeting room and a very nice laundry. The RV park is located on the Llano River only about a mile from downtown Llano. There is a short trail to the Llano River. Wildflowers were blooming beside the trail when we were there. Go here for my review of this park.