Mother Neff State Park

State Park Caching Quest

The weather forecast is for at least one more day of below normal temperatures before the heat arrives with a vengeance next week.  We thought we should take advantage of the projected beautiful weather for an outside day and in particular our current geocaching quest.  Our current goal is to find a geocache in every Texas state park. We would have probably chosen to do that on our own, but it is also an 'official' geocaching challenge, GC2YEMM.   It is made even more interesting and more doable by the caches added by the state parks themselves as part of the Texas State Park Geocache Challenge.  

By our count, there are currently 76 Texas state parks, although that number keeps changing.  Thus far we have found 154 geocaches in 51 different state parks.  However, Texas is a BIG state. Most of the parks not yet crossed off our list are at least a three hour drive one way, with many much further.  What to do for only one day?  The one exception to the above was Mother Neff State Park, southwest of Waco, which is about a 2.5 hour drive.  Mother Neff SP it is!  

Trip down I-35

We loaded GeoJeep and were on the road by 7:30.  One of the amazing sights along I-35 was fields of sunflowers.  The fields were huge and the yellow was extraordinarily intense.   I don't know when they harvest sunflowers, but the flowers were certainly a beautiful sight.  Although all of the blooms within a field seemed to be pointed in one direction, subsequent googling indicated they do not track the sun.

Mother Neff SP -- the first Texas State Park

We pulled into the park a little before 10, got registered, then were off to the trail head.  This was an interesting park and much different than what we had expected.  There was an area at the entrance that was open and flat, which periodically undergoes lots of flooding when the adjacent river overflows its banks.  Much of the remainder of the park is a cedar forest with lots of up and down through limestone formations.  

Not only is the terrain interesting, but the park has an interesting history.  Mother Neff SP is the first Texas state park.  It is on land donated by the mother of the then governor of the state.  There were multiple historical features dating back to the time of the native Americans and multiple CCC structures.  

Sign at the cave

Frog atop the 11,000 gallon CCC water tower.  Not sure of the height, but it is 20 steps to the top.

There were also some interesting blue flowers in bloom throughout the park.  Blue is an unusual color and really stood out along the trail. 

Checking out the blue flowers

Research after we returned home revealed that these blue flowers are called "dayflowers" because they only exist for one day.  There are two large petals, with a smaller white petal somewhat hidden below the others.

Texas Dayflowers

We checked out the various features in the park and found three of the five geocaches.  Now we have 157 geocaches in 52 different state parks (plus an additional nine state historical sites or other state locations).  Only 24 more parks to go!!