Camping and Running at Lake Ray Roberts Park

The weekend of March 30-31, we went to Lake Ray Roberts by ourselves - just Lily and I since Nicholas was at State Science Fair in San Antonio. In addition to camping, our first in over a year, and first only two of us, we planned to run on Jordan park trail for 13.1 miles for Lily's practice run for her April half marathon race. 

We arrived at Lake Ray Robert in the early afternoon, set up our tent in a primitive camp - Hawthorn. No water, electricity at the site but our tent was at lake front. It was a quiet location

The cloud started to break up, sunshine dotted the woods. It was a cool beautiful afternoon at the park. Few people around 

We hiked on the paved Randy Bell Scenic loop, our favorite trail in this park and also explore the route to Jordan park trail from our camp site. 

The pound by the trail was replenished by bounty of spring rains 

We encounter deer a couple times while hiking

The spring green was soothing to the eyes

As sun set, the wind picked up its strength, and it was getting cold fast. We put winter clothes on and started a camp fire. The dinner was simple, grilled peppers and shrimps. It was delicious

We collected fallen tree branches for the fire. The fire brought us much needed warmth in the cold northern wind, and allowed us to stay in the open for longer time

We went into the tent when the fire woods were burnt. I found out in dismay that I took a full size air mattress with us instead of the usual queen size.  Fortunately we were prepared in other aspects for the cold night: we had blankets, winter coats to help us endure the cold night. It would have been more comfortable.

It was sunny beautiful day the next morning. We drove to the Jordan park trail head instead of running from our tent per previous afternoon's exploration of the trails and  the trail map. 

Jordan Trail hugs the shoreline of lake Ray Roberts for several miles. We saw grand egrets, grey herons

On the more inland portion of the trail, bird chirping followed us most of the time.  It was quiet, it was beautiful. We were the only people on this trail until we nearly finished our run. What we did not expect was that the trail condition was rough from time to time  since the trail is shared by runners, hikers, bikers and equestrians. The trail is not good for running. We cut our runs short because of this. We turned around at 5 mile distance. I finished 10 mile run, the longest distance I ran so far. 

I crossed the gate at Jordan park trail head on the return, I finished a 10 mile run on the loop.

We had our breakfast after the run, and it was time to pack up and go home.