DebbieCPhillips-Photography: Mother Neff State Park

Our big fall adventure was a trip to California to visit my mom's aunt. We got to stay at 5 Texas state parks, 2 Arizona state parks, a county park in southern California, and an RV park run by the Escapees in New Mexico. When we got back to home base, I planned our November and December Adventures. You will get about 12 blog posts from our California trip. I will probably be slow writing them. I am trying to identify the birds and plants in my photos. I only took about 1000 photos, we will see how well I have learned to weed out the excess and only post the best. It will be hard.

Our first stop was Mother Neff State park in Moody Texas, in late September. It is in the neighborhood of Waco, TX. This was the first state park in Texas. A lady and her husband owned the ranch. She liked people enjoying the outdoors and always kept a picnic area open for townspeople to enjoy. She liked to feed people and mother them so her nickname was Mother Neff. Her son became governor and she lived with him at the end of her life. When she died she left her part of her ranch to the state with the stipulation that is remain a place for people to enjoy the outdoors. Her son caught the dream, added land of his own, and got the legislature to build the first state park. When the CCC was started during the great depression, this was one of the parks they developed. There are still a lot of CCC structures in use today.

We had a pull through, full hookup campsite. The campsites were big and well insulated from each other. Our campsite had a great view of the setting sun and a comfortable table to sit and read at. We grilled burgers in the firepit and had a nice charcoal fire. We hiked afternoon, evening and morning. The afternoon hike was through the woods along a creek. We got to visit a pond, explore some limestone bluffs, climb a stone tower, and checkout the bird blind. The trail was easy in spots and challenging on other spots. The dogs wanted to chase a deer. At sunset time, the dogs and I hiked the prairie trail. We watched another deer and found a neighboring cow pasture. Roudy decided the cows were big deer he wanted to chase. We peeked through the trees to watch the sunset over the pasture and the beautiful red and orange light. Then we found a trail to the road and followed the road back to the campground. In the morning, we got up for the sunrise. Making the routine to get my coffee into me before hiking was a bit of a struggle. I did learn to make my first cup of coffee, feed the dogs, and drink my coffee outside with my camera. Then I walked with the dogs and got my second cup and breakfast when we got back. The morning walk was the second part of the prairie trail I saw the CCC bell and went to a pond. This pond wasn't as pretty as the pond in the woods, but it was easier to get to. With more rain, it might have been fuller, it looked low. After our walk, it was time to break camp and head down the road. Mother Neff would be a great place to camp for several nights. https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/mother-neff