Another couple of surprises in Texas. The first was finding the second highest hill in Southern Texas north of Austin. The other was discovering Dinosaur Valley State Park that has real dinosaur tracks in the bed of the Paluxy river.
Sometimes getting from A to B means stopping over in some lesser known places along the way. Dinosaur Valley was on our way to Big Bend from Hot Springs Arkansas so we decided to camp there and then do a mt. bike ride on the trails the next day.
While exploring the campground and river trail we met a family of fellow travelers from Bothell Washington. Mom, dad, and three young kids traveling around the U.S. getting home schooled with real life experiences and adventures. If I thought traveling with dogs was tough, I no longer do. We've been following them on Instagram at wadebetrippin.
We also realized that besides trails there are real dinosaur tracks in the limestone river bed. Tracks as big as a five year old kid or a white German Shepard.
I use a combination of Trailforks.com and mtbproject.com to investigate possible mountain bike rides along our route. Both have great info and sometimes one has better information then the other. In Trailforks I can create our own routes using their route planner and then save the route and download it to my Garmin Edge 520 Plus and use that to keep us on the right trails
We awoke to the smell of Juniper trees and brewing coffee. Time on the road is measured in sunrises and sunsets and how many miles from one place to the next. The meander of a slow lazy desert river wound around our campground. The sounds of morning birds chattering was a welcome sound.
The trail we rode was on the other side of the river. A skip across nearly submerged stones led us to the day's adventure.
Dinosaur Valley State Park trails are mostly located on the other side of the river. We rode a loop that would have been better doing it the opposite way but we were going by one of the routes posted in Trailforks. Someone else's idea of a good route but non-the-less it got us out on some fun trails in a part of Texas we never would have thought of visiting.
Crossing back over the river at the end of our ride.
Trail on the upper bench along the river
Swimming hole along a side stream
For more info on visiting Dinosaur Valley State Park. The campground has showers, flush toilets, and electrical hookups, and water. We did not have wifi through Verizon.
Route we rode on MTB Project. If you like more technical down hill I'd ride the route in the opposite direction that is listed in this guide.
Garmin Edge 520 Plus. Don't get lost get Garmin.