Inks Lake SP, TX - Apr 2006

We arrived back at one of our favorites of the Texas State Parks -- Inks Lake -- the first week in April in hopes of enjoying the beautiful spring wildflowers one more time before leaving Texas for cooler weather. Unfortunately, the year-long drought had taken it's toll on the flowers this spring and there were considerably fewer numbers of them than in the past. Where we once saw miles and miles of roadsides blanketed with color, we now only saw patches here and there. In 20 years of living in central Texas, I have to sadly say that it was one of the bleakest showings I've seen.

That said, Inks Lake was as beautiful as ever. Even though the grass wasn't quite as lush and green as it usually is, it was still lovely and we got our favorite site in the campground with wonderful views out over the water. The weather was warmer than normal, but still pleasant and a good excuse to dip our toes into the cool lake. Even the dogs went for a swim one day.

While there, we were once again battered by Mother Nature. This time she sent us a walloping hail storm that put a second set of dents in our one year old car -- sigh -- the paint was barely cured from the last round of repairs. I guess the good news is that the RV didn't sustain any damage. We decided that we'll just live with new dings and hopefully, that will keep us from cringing so hard the next time Mother Nature decides to pitch those nasty ice balls at us.

We did get a warning prior to the hail storm. A huge bank of clouds formed a line over the lake with very high reaching tops. I've learned that the height at the tops of these kind of clouds can indicate the size of the hail that is being formed -- the higher the cloud the mightier the hail, so while they are gorgeous to look at, they are also most likely the precursor to an unpleasant weather event. I should have known while I was taking this photo that the image was too good to be true.

OK, I have to admit that sometimes there is a silver lining to even the worst of storms. The aftermath left us with a gorgeous sun burst cloud formation, a colorful rainbow and a lovely sunset -- nice try Mother Nature, but hardly enough to make up for the new dings in my car.

In this instance, I can hardly get excited about catching another rainbow, but for a brief time we had a double one -- wow. By the time I got my camera the second one had disappeared, but the brightest one was still arching across the entire sky.

The day's finale was pretty great too. Most of the folks in the campground were out and about taking inventory of their damage, but they all stopped to gawk and the red clouds glowing in the sunset.