We drove a little bit around Fort Davis and Davis Mountains State Park. I absolutely love seeing what the Civilian Conservation Corps built so many years ago for the enjoyment of the public at our nation’s parks.
Then we headed over to Balmorhea State Park. I had no idea that this park is essentially a huge, spring-fed swimming pool. The girls and Brad donned their snorkel gear (I won’t go in water under 80 degrees) and paddled around checking it all out until the girls got too cold and had to come out.
The water temperature ranges from 72 – 78 degrees year round, which surely is nice in winter. The artesian spring that feeds the pool pumps out 1 million gallons of water per HOUR. It takes under 4 hours to completely fill the 3.5 million gallon pool. The bottom is partially cement, partially natural rock bottom. Fish swim around, including some large catfish. It was a great opportunity for the girls to practice snorkeling, since their experience in La Jolla with the seals was rather short and we’ll be snorkeling next summer in Bermuda, and possibly this fall in the Keys.
There were a couple of diving boards that the girls tried out.
Grace liked the high dive more.
But Caroline kind of made a poor decision to try a forward flip on the high dive. That’s a long way to fall only to flop on your legs. She got a nasty red splotch and spent some time whining. Luckily, our girls are tough. She shook it off and was perfectly fine not long afterwards.
The spring flows from the pool through a beautiful, clear channel into a wetland area. I think this was a softshell turtle, but I don’t know my turtles all that well.
When we headed back into town we stopped and picked up dinner at Murphy’s Pizza, which was quite yummy. Then we went back to the hotel and chillaxed. The girls went swimming, Emmy and I read, and Brad worked on building the schedule for the ER. We had another good night of rest.
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