Brazos Bend State Park

April 2, 2019

TL;DR: One of the more surprising state parks we’ve been to, Brazos was beautiful and SO green. Spring was in full bloom, from the lush plant life to thousands of caterpillars precariously hanging from thin silk strands attached to the oak trees. Not to mention the tons of birds flying around. Oh, and the gators.

Details, details, details

The drive to Brazos was really beautiful, flat farm/ranch land with pretty pecan trees.

The kind people at Brazos Bend State Park are very sweet, very helpful, and very slow.

Brazos is one of the more gorgeous parks we’ve been to: there are so many beautiful birds, lillies, turtles. It’s very swampy, but very beautiful.

Bird list:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

Great Egret

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

White Ibis

Double-crested Cormorant

… just to name a few.

Waking up to birds chirping and a beautiful tree outside the window is just the best.

You don’t want to be staring up too much though, lest you forget about the alligators wandering all over the place including on and next to the path.

And then this happened…

When Jess pulled the bike cover off at the park, we found that the bikes were covered by about 100 caterpillars.

Seriously these caterpillars are everywhere. And their silk strands are also everywhere. So when you’re on a bike trying to get around the otherwise beautiful park, we ran face first into their tiny little strands. Given the choice, we’d prefer butterflies.

We were biking in between New and Old Horseshoe Lakes and Jess biked right by a gator. They really blend in!

Then we saw this American Bittern eating a snake.

Now we know

Though the caterpillars weren’t the greatest, the nearly empty park was wonderful and allowed us to really enjoy it without any crowds.

Where we stayed

Night one: Site 213 in Brazos Bend State Park

We almost moved to a sunnier spot, but when Bri called to switch, there was a 10-minute lull on the line as they tried to figure out the internet. So we just stuck with 213, home to ALL of the caterpillars, the park’s mascot (second only to the gators).