The day after the day after Christmas, we had nothing planned. In fact, we had nothing planned for the rest of the week. Grandma rented a big car so everyone could drive together (a GMC Acadia) so we decided to drive to a hike. McKinney Falls on the south side of Austin.
It was afternoon and not very sunny when we got there, but it’s still a pretty area. The waterfalls are cut into the limestone that is so typical around Austin. The Upper Falls are near the parking lot, and it’s easy to climb down on the rocks.
Jim’s photo:
Andy’s Photo:
Leilani like the idea of jumping across a water fall, and had lots of fun going back and forth–and then a few extra times for the camera:
On the other side of the waterfall was a neat area to explore. There was no trail, but it’s easy to walk on the flat bare rocks.
Leilani could not resist playing in the puddles, and we were lucky her feet stayed dry (mostly):
The park map showed the lower falls not far away, and the iPhone satellite map showed that we could get there on this side of the river. So we went exploring
And saw lots of pretty plants:
3 guys looking for the way to the next waterfall (you know how this is going to end, don’t you?):
That’s right, it was a dead end. We couldn’t get across the river here back to the trail, and another stream kept us from continuing on this (wrong) side:
Andy did jump down on some rocks in the river to get a neat reflection:
And there was a big hole in the rock to admire:
But in the end, we had to turn back and retrace our steps.
A while later, on the right trail to the other waterfall, we stopped in the balconies and caves that the native Indians surely used:
We found a huge Daddy Long Legs spider that scared Miss Leilani:
And then we reached the Lower Falls, which were worth the walk:
Jim climbed down on a rock this time to get the good angle:
But by then it was getting dark and we had to hurry back. The iPhone again took us on a short detour, but we got back to the car before it was totally dark (well, night does fall early around Christmas). It sounds like a lot of walking, but it was only 2.5 miles (4 km) in the end–but it was a pretty walk.
On the drive home, we decided to find the gingerbread display that we had heard about. It was at a big hotel downtown by the river, and google on the iPhone found this one at the Hyatt-Regency:
Nice, Austin-themed but not Texas-sized. Leilani looked at it for a minute and then had more fun riding the glass elevator with Grandma. It turns out we were waylaid by a competing gingerbread display. The one we were looking for was the gingerbread village at the Four Seasons.
