I cannot recollect when was the last time I experienced travel to a new destination, felt and absorbed the place through my senses. Well, it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy any of my travels or visits to new places for ages now. It just is that none pushed me to brag(read blog) about it :)
This Christmas weekend in Texas was full of surprises with 11 Tornadoes hitting the neighborhood, flash flood alerts and a sudden dip in the weather. I had applied for my holidays and was looking forward for this since a month, to go out and experience Texas. I have been here since 2 years and I cannot say I have covered many places, reasons many.Many friends local to hear helped me by pointing to some destinations well known for a lot of people and I ended up having covered San Antonio, Long Horn cavern and Georgetown "Inner Space" cavern during my earlier trips.
Remember I told you about the bad weather earlier? Yes, it zapped my energy and enthusiasm completely and was clueless. My husband was prepared for some journey but not to google for places and yet again, it was my chore work to find one. I spent hours browsing through internet trying to find a place which was:
- a natural set up
- not a cavern, since we had seen two already
- had water body
- 4 or less hours of drive from DFW area
- and was peaceful, letting us decide what we wanted to do with our time
I somehow stumbled up on this pleasant resort "Willow point resort" which is situated on Buchanan dam and had private view to the sandy beaches of the lake. Since I had not heard anything from any friends about this place, Trip adviser was the only friend in need. My only fear was about the water level(We were disappointed this summer about lake Buchanan when we had been to Eagle of the Canyon hoping to see some water body, ending up seeing blue bonnet all grown in the dried up waterbed). Thanks to this years rain that there was some hope and I booked this place for 2 nights with a disclaimer to husband not to expect too much OR not to complain. All he was happy about was it was way too closer! ;)
When we arrived at this place, this seemed a place it promised to be with the private view , a picnic table, awesome cabin with all the facilities with a motto - "Our cabin, you move in" and do stay like you wish. The best part to me was waking up to see the lake, chirping birds (we spotted lots of sea gulls, herons, eagles, ducklings and many more). Nights were calm with just the chiming of the wind and the waves hitting the shore, making it apt for a moonlight walk along the beach.
If you would like to spend some time outdoors, there are many nearby places, to which the awesome host(Gwen) will happily hand over you a printed copy of the route maps and suggestions.
We visited Enchanted rock, which is a huge granite rock with a great view from the top.I would certainly recommend you to this place for a good hiking experience and to know a little more about this rock.We spent sweet 2 hours hiking up and down this place and enjoying the scenic beauty and with a plan in mind to visit this place n different seasons to absorb the beauty it offers!
There are places around Burnett which is not too far off from this location which you can visit and Llano and Fredericksburg are two cute little towns in the nearby.
Icing on the cake was when the clouds cleared the night before we checked out and let us enjoy the night filled with stars in the dark night. We have a plan to visit next time with a telescope and enjoy watching the stars, which was once a favorite pass time as a kid. You can alternatively choose to visit the observatory at Eagle of the Canyons, which has a good review for star watching, but just make sure to go on a clear sky night.
I would like to thank Gwen for making our 2 night stay in the premises very comfortable and for keeping up with our expectation of a vacation destination with all the clean and comfortable amenities and for the guidance on all the local sight seeing.
PS: I write blogs out of my own interest and am not paid for mentioning any places. The recommendations I make here are purely based on my experiences. If you would like to stay where we stayed, here is the link - http://www.willowpointresort.com/
