McKinney Falls

Yesterday Brendon and I went on a little adventure to McKinney Falls State Park. It's a super cool (and seriously beautiful) park just south east of Austin... actually, it's in Austin. It took us like 15 minutes to get there.

I used to go there a lot growing up, so it was neat to come back and check it out. Not much has changed!

Onion Creek runs through the park and over these giant limestone rock formations. And by giant I mean like football field size giant. And there are water falls! And you can swim! It's seriously worth checking out if you are in the Austin area and like outdoorsy type stuff. The hike and bike trails are legit too.

We did a little hiking and little swimming. Actually a lot of hiking... because we got lost. We wandered all over that park accidentally. But the scenery was great, the weather was perfect, and the company was pretty good so we didn't mind too much. We found our way back to our car eventually.

Cactus everywhere! Brought back memories of running into them throughout my childhood. I want to say I fell into one while hopping a fence once. Pretty Texan of me eh? 

Legit swimmin' hole.

 A rather large rock.

The trails were beautiful. Everything was so green! I'm glad we got a chance to go before the heat kills everything off. I'm hoping for a wetter summer than last year. Our poor plants need it!

Just chillin' on a cliff. I only lasted a minute or so before my fear of heights got the best of me. Thanks for taking 100 pictures of the back of me, Mr. H.

I think at this point we were lost for sure and a tad bit hot and sweaty.

After we finally made it back to our car, we changed into our swimmin' suits and headed into the water to cool off.

Brendon did a little cliff jumping. I did not. I have a teensy weensy (huge) fear of water, especially water that has living things in it. Heights + water = NOPE.

This picture cracks me up. All I can think of is brachiation (click here for a good example of what that is). Thanks physical anthropology classes! I am a huge nerd. I miss studying primates!

My super cool water shoes. They may look horrendous, but they work wonders.

 Carefully testing out the water.

This was the extent of my water excursion. While I was chillin' in the shallows, Brendon called out "vampiro!" (vampire in Spanish). THANKS BABE.

We had a blast on our little adventure! Minus the gazillion bug bites I came home with. I can't wait to do this again, but I'm afraid soon it will be a little too hot to safely hike around for a hours. Heat exhaustion is not on my to-do list. Keeping my fingers crossed for a mild summer full of rain!