Enchanted Rock

Noble asked me a few weeks ago when we were going to go hiking again. That gave us the idea to give him his own hiking backpack and some hiking supplies (water bottle, compass, magnifying glass, etc...) for his birthday. And if you give a Noble a backpack, he's gonna wanna try it out...

So with the weather absolutely AMAZING during spring break, we headed out Wednesday to hike Enchanted Rock as a family.

We woke the kids up early that morning and hit the road around 6:00am to make sure that we got there before it got too crowded. But we spent a lot of time at Buccee's, so we ended up getting to Enchanted Rock around 10:00am and had to wait in a short line to get into the park. (hint: the line that comes up from Fredericksburg is waaaaaaay longer than the one that comes in from the north from Llano.  Save yourself a couple of hours in line and take the north route.  You're welcome.)

This was the kids' first trip to Enchanted Rock and Kristi's second, although it was her first time to hike it. And it was the first time I got to hike it when I wasn't in a hurry. So everyone was excited.

We hiked up the giant rock, and we were so proud of the kids. Neither of them complained about being tired or that hey were hungry or thirsty or wanted to go or anything.  They were having such a great time!

We finally made it to the top after about 45 minutes of walking.  By that time our breakfast had pretty much worn off, so we found a shady spot and had a nice picnic lunch. The kids had a great time looking at all the cactus and different rocks and bugs.

Then we began to explore and make our way over to the hill next to Enchanted Rock called Little Rock. Along the way, we stopped to examine some large boulders and caves formed by boulders that had broken loose.

When we finally got to the top of Little Rock, we were all a little tired from all the hiking, so we sat down for a snack. And we took a nap right there on top of Little Rock! Noble took the best nap - about an hour and a half - before we finally woke him up to head down the hill.

Once we had hiked down, we headed to Fredericksburg, where we treated ourselves for a fun day with ice cream!

It was a perfect day - perfect weather, time outside, exercise and time together!

Happy spring break, everyone.  We hope that yours was as awesome as our was!