Cooper Lake State Park

Cooper Lake State Park is located in Sulphur Springs, TX which is about an hour and fifteen minutes east of Dallas. I will do this blog as a trail run instead of a hike. The trail was set up to hold a trail run and it does every year. After hiking the trail, I got a message from a friend stating he runs a race there every year. I actually have already signed up to run the race. Back to the trail, it is a wide trail. Most hiking trails are single track trails, but this one was a wide trail like jeep trail. The trail was relatively flat and straight. It was a lollipop out and back. It was also very simple to navigate. The only bad thing is that it did not hold up well after the rain. It had not rained in a few days but it was still muddy most of the trail. There were some good views but nothing special and that is good when trail running. I am easily distracted and will stop and take pictures during a trail run. The best part of this hike was all of the wildlife. I saw over a dozen deer and they were even photogenic for once.

This was hike 49 of the 52 Hike Challenge Explorer Series. It was also supposed to be the last hike but I got one more in a fews days later. Completing the hike challenge was difficult due to injury and rain, lots of rain.

Next blog is the last hike then some fun lists blogs and an adventure of a different kind.

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Lake Bob Sandlin State Park

Lake Bob Sandlin State Park was my home base for the east Texas trip. It is about two hours east of Dallas in Mount Pleasant, TX. This park had Christmas decorations at every turn and that made the easy hikes fun. The park had no difficult trails and I was there at an odd day and time so I had the park to myself. The hikes were very peaceful. The sunset was magnificent turning the sky blue and pink. I also got to hike around in the dark and see the Christmas displays lit up. This is what I expected all east Texas parks to look like but of course they all are different. The bonus was seeing dozens of deer and a mini waterfall.

This was hike 47 in my 52 Hike Challenge Explorer Series. I really enjoyed the peace and quiet and the Christmas decorations at this park.

Next day is the same park but different trails and a different point of view.

Abilene State Park

The main reason I went to this park was to sleep in a yurt. I got a few more surprises. The park is located about 20 minutes south of Abilene. This is a CCC park but I only saw one CCC structure. I did not see the pavilion which is the main CCC attraction. My first surprise was when I was driving my Jeep doing jeep things I was hit by a tree. No worries the tree was not hurt. My Jeep on the other hand did not fair so well.It is much worse than it looks in my eyes. The trails were mainly flat and the small pond was not very attractive. A tree was down and blocking a trail so I had to double back. This lead me to surprise number two. I got a great picture of a deer. It just stood there looking at me. They usually run and never get a good picture but this guy wanted his picture taken.I thought the park would be much more picturesque. Driving to the park from all different directions there are nice views all around the park. I might just have missed to good parts. I did like the red river flowing through the park and the vultures on the water tower. The third surprise was a hog rooting was too close to me. I paused it looked up and snorted. I truly thought I was in huge danger. I have always heard these wild hogs were aggressive and fast. The hog looked about 400 pounds. I was lucky that the hog ran the other way very fast. It was a scary situation.

The yurt was nice but that was about it. My west Texas trip is halfway over. Two more state parks to visit. I am excited about the next two. This was hike 35 in my 52 Hike Challenge Explorer Series.

Next up a lake park in the middle of nowhere.