Back to Blogging: West Texas

After we left San Antonio and 'The Alamo" we headed west to Balmorhea State Park.

It's a little bit in the middle of nowhere, but even here there are interesting things to see.

I've passed many a little roadside chapel, but this was the first little roadside mission!

When we got into the hills there were all these fun rock formations. I thought they looked a lot like those drawings of crowds of people- a little square and stacked together.

While we were in Balmorhea, we took a little drive over to Fort Davis, an old Army fort from the mid to late 1800's.

My desert knowledge is definitely lacking, I didn't even know that these plants bloomed like this. They were huge. They looked like they had been there since the fort was active.

I know these oaks were around!

Now to the park-

The main reason we chose to come here was because the CCC took a spot that has 7 natural underground springs and build a big swimming pool around it back in the 1930's.

The pool is full of fish and people come from all around to swim and scuba dive.

It says that it is 25 feet deep, but Joel's dive computer said it was only 10 feet at the deepest.

He saw some catfish and this turtle...

but mostly he saw hundreds and hundreds of little fish that surrounded him everywhere he went. It was funny to watch; when he was swimming away they would trail him like a big fan, like he was the head duck in a formation flying south.

It wasn't much, but at least he got the chance to get his feet wet.