Fort Parker SP, TX - Mar 2006

We happened upon this pretty little gem of a park quite by accident. While staying at Lake Somerville, our neighbors suggested we give Fort Parker a try as it was one of their favorites in the Texas State Park system. We were pleased to find a small, but lovely little park with several campsites right on the lake. We arrived mid-week and were just about the only folks in the park and we had our pick of sites. We really enjoyed this one as it was right on the water and had large trees shading us as well as a big grassy field where the dogs could romp.

We had originally planned to stay a couple of days, but ended up staying the maximum length allowed -- 14 days. Part of that was because we loved the peaceful setting so much, but part of it was because our satellite internet system stopped working and we had to send it back to our dealer and wait for it to be fixed and returned. All that took less than 10 days, and we couldn't have had a prettier spot to be waiting. The park is near the town of Mexia and luckily, there were two places in town with free wi-fi -- the public library and Whataburger. Feeling bereft without our internet access for almost two weeks, we went into town often to get our online "fix".

There was an assortment of wildlife inhabiting the park. This heron hung around the shoreline by our site the whole time we were there and only took off (with his great flapping of wings and distinctive shriek) when we'd get within a couple feet of him. Deer wandered into the campground every day to graze on the grass, squirrels were abundant as they foraged under the pecan trees and unfortunately, lots of skunks came around too -- mostly checking out the trash cans. While on one of our hikes around the lake we spotted a beaver (we didn't know they were indigenous to the central Texas area) and saw the evidence of his handywork -- a large tree who's trunk was gnawed nearly to the core. The lake, being very shallow, had numerous sand bars and the waterfowl congregated there in great masses. There was a colony of pelicans nesting on the largest of the sand bars and, being at quite a distance from our campsite, it looked like one giant mass of white fluff floating on the lake.

On our third night at the park we were hit with a massive rain storm -- the worst one this area had seen in many years. It began raining right after midnight and continued a steady downpour until 5 in the morning. The park ranger said that they registered 6" of rain during that time. We were up all night keeping an eye on the lake. Since it was so shallow and we were so close and it was raining so hard -- we thought it best to make sure we could make a speedy get-away should our site become submerged. We got lucky and had about 3 feet between us and the swollen lake, but several of the other campsites, including this one, were submerged.

All the next day the lake continued to rise as the run-off from the surrounding area poured into this shallow little lake. We took a hike over to the dam and were amazed to see a tremendous amount of water flowing over the spillway. Just the day before the water level had been down at least 10' on the lake side (right side in this photo) of the dam and on the left side was a peaceful little pool -- so still that we could see the catfish swimming around.

For a couple of hours even the fishing pier was totally submerged. But finally, the water level began to recede and withing 48 hours the lake was back to normal. The flooding brought out all kinds of critters -- including several water moccasins. One very large specimen greeted us while we were walking over a bridge on our way to the nature trail. When he felt our presence on the bridge, he immediately slithered over the edge and plopped into the water doing a great swan dive in the process. The rain left the hiking trails a muddy mess and that, along with the wild critters being in a state of confusion, kept us from hiking on the trails for awhile. We kept to the roads so we wouldn't be surprised by anymore critters being out of their element.

Our site was in an ideal location for viewing the sunset over the water. Every evening we were delighted with a lovely and colorful event. This was just one of the better ones. I highly recommend Fort Parker State Park as a delightful, central Texas get-away spot.