Longhorn Caverns State Park

I was going to include this with the my post on Longhorn Caverns(http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2013/08/longhorn-caverns-texas.html ) but I decided it was long enough and this could be a post all by itself especially if I put in some other photo's about going there and leaving.   So here's some information about the Longhorn Caverns State Park. (Wikipedia -Longhorn_Cavern_State_Park . Texas State Parks tx.us/state-parks/longhorn-cavern, & Longhorn Caverns website longhorncaverns  )
    This is the sign that was out in front of the old administrative office but is now their museum on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

But first I wanted to show you the pictures I took getting there.  As you can see Texas is flat in a lot of area's.  Not much to see except cows grazing, corn growing and an occasional oil or gas well. The yellow sunflowers or black eyed susans were in bloom in certain areas so it did make the trip enjoyable to do.  

 Because Fredricksburg is a 7 hour drive we spent the night in Georgetown. Then decided to go see Longhorn Cavern's since it look like there was a possibility of rain during the morning.
   After having mile after mile of flatness I was so excited to see this outcrop on hwy 29.  I could tell we were finally in the Hill Country of Texas.

 We turned onto P4 and I got to see things like this too.  This looks like it is the PreCambrian granite that is listed on the 'Geological Highway Map of Texas' by H.B Renfro Memorial Edition that I had that was put out by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

 Driving on P4 is so different for Texas roads.  We were actually going up high.  And every once in awhile we could see the lake called Inks Lake. 

 This was pretty typical of the terrain that we were seeing. 

 I just like this because of all the cactus that were there.

 Finally we saw these flags flying and figured were were almost there.  The Texans sure do love their lonestar flag and we saw it a lot while there.

 Then we saw this and knew we had made it.

Only we didn't know where to go since there was more than one building there.  We saw signs for the observation tower and thought that might be where the caves started and went there first.  Only problem was it was just what the sign said it was an Observation Tower.  We decided to go ahead and check it out since we were already there.

Observation Tower at Longhorn Caverns State Park, Texas

 For a observation tower it was pretty nice.  Here's what it looked like on the inside. 

 And on top here's some of the view from it. 

 Here's the backside of the tower.  You can tell that many a picnic has been held here. 

Observation Tower at Longhorn Caverns State Park, Texas

 We went to the building that had all the cars in front of it and walked in.  We found out that we had just missed the tour by about 5 minutes.  The next one would be in an hour.  They run every hour.  Since we were out for fun we decided to stay for the tour.  They told us that while we wait we should check out their museum and also there were some nature trails that we could walk if we wanted to.  Just make sure we were back about 5-10 minutes before the hour since they do limit the size of the group that can go into the cave at one time.  This didn't surprise me since we had been to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky and you have to usually wait a couple of hour or have reservations in advance to get into their caves.
   So it was off to the museum.  Again it was a beautifully built building.  As my husband said you can tell the government was paying for it.  It used to be the administration building but it looked like there was no running water in it and I could see why it wasn't used for long.  It was built to house the CCC workers during the depression when they were trying to provide jobs for men.  They got paid 1.00 a day and .75cents had to go home.  They cleaned up the Caverns and built this state park.  They also help build the road P4 using the material that was brought out the cave. There were a lot of pictures and a good history of the project.  Now we could understand why the building were the way they were.  They too were built from the limestone that is found in this area.
     This was the front entrance to the museum.

 There was a patio to the side and then this park looking area.  We started to walk towards it and saw the Danger Cave entrance sign and realized that this was where the cave was. 

 We went back to the museum.

Here's some more views of it.

 We then walked the trails.  They had some maps with numbers on them but nothing written about it.  Then on the trail the numbers were there too but nothing written with the numbers.  When we got back to the administration building I asked about it.  They said that the numbers corresponded to the vegetation that can be seen there.  Trouble is there's been a 3 year drought and the vegetation that those numbers corresponded to have mostly died off.  They have a project planned with some botany students to redo the plants and numbering system but it has been done yet.  
   I liked this plant and I liked the rock where you could see the weathering going on and the water sitting on top of it. 

 We did the rest of our trip to Fredricksbug and visited Beckers Vineyard along 290.  While we were driving toward Austin we did see these outcrops.   I think these are Cretaceous in age - possible Austin Chalk?  or Glen Rose????
I sure did wish we would have the time to check this out since it was so nice looking.  It definitely looked like a predominately limestone formation. 

 But then again it could get real flat quick too.

 And here were some more outcrops that I wished I could stop and look at.

 This one had more shale present which suggested deeper water deposition here.

 Then we hit Austin and the traffic south of town and had to go through it to get to highway 79 on I-35.  It's horrible and even though it was mid afternoon on a Sunday it still took us over an hour to get through it.  This was heading towards downtown and we thought it wouldn't be so bad. 

That's all that for this blog, I still have other things we did while on this trip to the Hill Country of Texas.