Off the beaten path

This morning, we got out of bed uncharacteristically early- at an hour that nearly offends Cas in the summer- so we could get out the door and to our destination before the sun really got revved up.  We made it to Bonham State Park, which is about 60 miles from our house, just after they opened the gates at 8 am.  It was an act of sheer will for us to wake that early for a leisure activity, but it was totally worth the groggy march out the door.  

The state park has a lake, and it's called Bonham State Park Lake.  That is in no way to be confused with Lake Bonham, which is about ten miles to the north.  No- Bonham State Park Lake is pretty small.  Stand at the edge of the water at any place, and you will see the whole lake.  We booked our entry online the day before and arrived to find that while we were welcome to swim, they were not renting kayaks, because, the person at the information desk said, they had no way to sanitize them.  Puzzling.  We had been wiping down oars and the sides of the kayaks at White Rock, then stashing the wipes in a pocket so we could row.  We're not park professionals, and we figured that much out.  I digress.  We spent the majority of the morning hiking.  

The folks at the information desk gave us a very nice trail map, and we went about the business of checking out the trails.  There were five trails on the map, and they told us one was closed because there were people felling trees.  Gotcha.  Don't want to walk underneath that.  If a tree falls in that forest, I don't want to be underneath it to hear a thing.  We even found a geocaching box and wrote our names on the notepad in it.  

It was just starting to get oppressively hot when we were wrapping up our visit.  We walked knee-high out into the water and watched some small fish swim near our feet.  After a few minutes of that, we pulled our picnic lunch out of the trunk of the car and ate under a shade tree before heading back to Dallas.  All in all, a very good morning.  Both of our Fitbits registered 10,000 steps before we left the park, so when we got back home (after some really necessary showers) and sat down to read for a while, there was absolutely no guilt about being so sedentary.  

Cas is about to put lots of photos in the album from our morning, but I think I will share a photo of the trail they call Gnarly Root Trail.  If you look at the path ahead, you will see how the name was inspired.  

Bonham State Park- $4 per adult: https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/bonham

If you wanted to check out geocaching: https://www.geocaching.com/play

And, of course, photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2XJ3mX7a61qq3KRj7