Saturday 1-10-26 Camping at Cedar Grove & Hiking Trails

 

Cedar Lodge at Cleburne State Park

 

We had a beautiful cold windy day. We had plenty of sunshine and a wind out of the north. 

We woke up to a brisk 32 degrees. It didn't get out of the 50s. The high was 53 degrees. It was windy all day. Tomorrow the high is suppose to be 64 degrees, a little warmer.

I crawled out of bed at 7:45 and got dressed. Larry was wrapped up in our unicorn blanket and both heaters were running. The one on the table ran most of the day. After getting dressed I made mini waffles for breakfast. When we finished eating we got ready to go on a hike.

The trailhead was very close, less than .2 of a mile. We hiked for 3 hours and did 4.75 miles. We hiked on three trails, which were Fossil Ridge (blue 2.5 miles one way), Coyote Run (red 1.1 mile one way) and the yellow trail, which is a crossover trail. The trails were moderate to challenging. We started on Fossil Ridge, which took us up and down hills along the park boundary fence line. There was a lot of rocks and ravines. We hiked Fossil Ridge until it met up with Coyote Run. The terrain was the same. We met a group of six ladies and a dog while hiking Coyote Run. We hiked across the CCC spillway. The spillway was cool to see because there were multiple levels of rock ledges to slow down the water of the lake when it overflows. There were a couple of places we went off the trail because we didn't know which way to go. We got off the trail near the spillway and had an adventure in the trees. We met a lady, who did the same thing. She decided to back track to where it Y'd. Larry's great at figuring a way back on the trail. It wasn't too far in the trees and we met up with her on the trail. Larry has the trails on his phone so he knew where we were. Once back on the trail we continued on Coyote Run to the yellow trail. The other place was where the trail connected to Camp Creek Trail. We took the camp creek trail to the parking lot and turned around and went back to where it Y'd. It was only .1 mile. The trails weren't marked on which way to go, we had to guess. That was ok. Once back on the trail it took us by another camping area. We were almost back to the campground when we met a couple just starting their hike. When we got to the beginning of the Fossil Ridge a gentleman with his dog asked if we were hiking the trail. We said yes, he said the trail goes this way. We said we were going back to the campground. It was nice he was being helpful because he thought we were lost. Most of the hike was in the trees. We had a super hike. 

 

The trail

 

The section of the spillway we hiked

 

After resting and having lunch Larry continued reading a book he started last night and I played games. I did the event, which was Event: Spider Adventure of 20 games. It took me 5 hours, 33 minutes and 20 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. 

We had tostadas for dinner. After dinner we walked around the park for 42 minutes for 1.75 miles. We walked our loop and the park road. We walked to the group area, which had a dining building, a women's barracks and men's barracks. Next to the group area were the screened cabins. Then we walked the park road to a couple of other loops, which were the full hook-ups. We didn't walk through them. We walked past the dump station and turned around. We went back to the Minnie. I did a lap around the camping area. Our loop was almost full. I walked to the restroom and they had the building rented for a party. So there were some kids playing in the playground. We had a nice walk.

 

One of the screened cabin shelters

 

For the rest of the evening Larry read. I finished playing my games. I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2. I continued reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I ended up doing 18,500 steps.

We had a great day.