Kester Family: Camping in Austin

This last weekend, we went camping near Austin at Pace Bend Park. The park is right by a beautiful lake called Lake Travis. It was our first camping trip as a family, and we had a blast! The lake was very refreshing, but not too cold, so we spent a lot of time swimming. And swimming with us were a bunch of turtles. At first I thought it was a water snake, which would have put an end to our swimming, but then I realized it was a turtle. Robby and Noah were quite facinated with them and kept chasing them in hopes to catch one. And to my surprise, Robby did! They move so fast, but somehow he was able to get one. The kids were really excited to see it up close. The turtle was less excited, frantically trying to "swim" out of Robby's hands. Of course we let it go and never got quite close enough to catch another one.

The turtle was our second encounter with wildlife, the first being a scorpion near our campsite. Definitely reminded us of Arizona. Noah found it in a hole. Thankfully, we didn't see any others and it stayed in its house.

Robby and Noah also went fishing. And Noah, being and expert fisherman, caught the first and only fish, just 30 seconds after casting. It was too small to keep, but he was very excited to have caught the only fish. We still aren't sure what kind it was...

On Saturday, we went to a place in Austin called Barton Springs. It is basically a giant natural swimming pool, the water coming from underground springs. It was freezing cold! I mean, colder than the Pacific Ocean. I don't think I have ever swam in water so cold before. The pool has a diving board, which Robby and Noah loved. Sophie and I ended up sitting out most of the time because it was too uncomfortable.

After that, we headed back to our camp, swam a little more in the lake and headed home. We were going to stay two nights, but it was very windy and hot, which made it hard to sleep. But even that by itself would have been okay. What was really annoying, is the millions of cicada bugs in the trees right above our tent. It was so loud, it made it impossible to sleep. Even for the kids...so we headed home a day early. One day of camping still takes a lot out of you. We were exhausted coming home last night! It was very nice sleeping in our own beds.