pedernales falls.

when we were in vermont and denver, we did a little hiking and remembered (again) just how much we really love being outside, especially in places where temps are not 900 degrees.  we made a little pact that as soon as the weather was semi-functional, we would make an effort to get out and about with the pups and the pooter so we could enjoy all the glories of nature that central texas has to offer.

this weekend was supposed to be our first real cool snap, so justin suggested we hit the road early on saturday and hike either canyon lake or pedernales falls - two central texas gems we haven't explored yet.  we settled on the pedernales.  we planned to take off around 7:45, but since ek slept until 8:30, we ended up hitting the road around 9 or so.  apple's new maps app on my iphone gave us the WORST directions possible, so we lost about 40 minutes of travel time, but made it to the trails anyway.  the weather was overcast and grey and about 62 degrees.  awesome.

there is a 4-7 mile loop that we didn't think we were prepared for (depressing, since that used to be a good distance for us), so the park lady gave us a map and suggested we take a shortcut that was about 2 miles.  perfect, since jb was carrying ek in the bjorn and i am wicked pregnant.  well, we are clearly awesome at reading maps, so we took the turn we thought we were supposed to take and ended up wandering through woods with NO trail for a bit over an hour.  um, woops.  it was actually pretty hilarious and really fun, our little off-roading adventure.  we had many run-ins with cacti, and tromped through several fields of yellow wildflowers.  the dogs loved every minute of it - and they both have the burs in their fur and the cactus prickers in their noses/chins to prove it.  we finally made it back to the trail about 27 feet north of where we had detoured.  sigh.  we headed back to the river for some splashing before driving to the waterfalls overlook and hiking down there for a few minutes.  the whole area is really really pretty and bizarre that it's only an hour or so outside of austin.

we did experience a small loss on saturday.  emme wore her keen's on the hike (as did we), and when we were getting back in the car to drive to the overlook, i was changing her clothes/shoes since she was damp from playing in the water.  justin put her shoes on top of the car and we drove off, completely forgetting they were up there!  we discovered one in the middle of the road on the way out of the park, but never did see the other, despite about 20 minutes of searching.  bummer, but we are entering fall and the shoes were almost too small for her anyway, so we chalked it up to the cost of adventure....