I went to McKinney Falls for the first time ever last week, and it was really fun. The surprising thing is that it is not that far from Austin at all. I think it took us less than 30 minutes to drive out there. As you can see in the picture above, this would be a great place to come and swim, although, we didn’t swim that day, we just were hiking. I am just creepy and took pictures of other Austinites swimming.

We left after class on Thursday and hiked all over the park. I believe we hiked a total of about 4 hours and since I was wearing my heart rate monitor we burned about 1800 calories (not much elevation change at McKinney Falls so it wasn’t too vigorous of a workout). Some of the trails were paved, like the one above, these double as bike trails, but some of them were more rustic. In fact, we got lost at one point in the park… I will get to that in a bit.

The wildflowers were all over the place, so needless to say, it was gorgeous. We saw one bluebonnet the whole hike, and managed to get a picture with it. (Finally got that bluebonnet picture before leaving Austin!) I think it might be the last surviving bluebonnet in Texas now… they are all dead. Also, Cara and Brad thought it would be cool to run (prance) through the wildflowers which you can see below, and I got a video which was hilarious… but somehow it got deleted… (Cara?…. Brad?…). I may never know.

We took the dogs (Lucy, Cara’s dog, and Lincoln) with us, and they had a great time. Below is a picture of Lincoln leading the pack. He really is an outdoor dog… I know he is tiny, but he loves it… so don’t talk any smack about his tiny legs.. he is all muscle mmkay? Also, Barrett is bananas.

This house below was the point at which we got lost. We thought we were following a certain trail, but I think we went off the park map into somewhere not labeled… However, we managed to get back to it. I remember when we saw the house again Cara and I started trail running… I am not joking… we are legit. Ok, it lasted like 2 minutes, but I can only imagine it is the beginning to a hardcore life of trail running. Get back to me when I move to Cali.

So mostly this was a great hike, there were a few cons though. Don’t wear chacos for long hikes. It was stupid, I shouldn’t have worn them because I got blisters all over my feet. Unless you have beastly calloused feet… then maybe you could do it. However, if I was just going to go swim there they would have been perfect. Also, there are ticks here. I found one on me and Barrett had one on his leg. However, don’t let that keep you from going here… just check yourself afterwards. Be a pal and check your friends scalp. You can do it. I believe in you.

I don’t know about you, but I like to reward myself after I burn more than 1000 calories doing something awesome…. so we went to Chuy’s and feasted on Mexican food and drowned ourselves in margaritas. God, I love margaritas. Oh, and then we went to TCBY… because we could. It was a beautiful day with some beautiful people. (awh) I am going to really miss my Texas friends…