Texas Tour; Day 5

We rode away from our Best Western in Llano at 9:30 under cloudy skies and it was already 73 degrees.  The weather was BUENO.

We rode directly to Longhorn Cavern State Park, which took a little over 30 minutes.  Their first tour of the cavern was at 11:00 so we took that time to take a hike on the nature trail -nature trail in Longhorn Cavern State Parkand climb to the top of the three story observation tower.

Amy was our energetic and enthusiastic guide for our one and a half hour tour of the cave.Amy - our tour guide; Longhorn Cavern tourThe cave was formed by an underground river and during periods of heavy rain the cave can still fill up with water.  The river that formed the cave is now running below the cave.  One of the cave formations (shaped like a dog – you can see it in the photos) was broken in 1957 by a woman on a tour, who leaned on it.  She was fined over $7,000!

Perhaps the most cool thing about the cave tour was seeing seven different bats hanging on the ceiling of the cave in different areas.  The first bat we saw released itself from the ceiling and flew away.  We had never seen a bat fly before.bat; Longhorn Cavern

After our cave tour we rode to Burnet, TX for a late lunch at the Crazy Gal’s Café.  It was a very good lunch of chicken fried chicken.lunch in Burnet, TX

From Burnet we rode north and west to the Colorado Bend State Park near Bend, TX.  The park is on the Colorado River, which we had crossed numerous times on this trip.  There was about two miles of gravel road taking us to the park and all the roads in the park were gravel.gravel road to Gorman Falls; Colorado Bend State Park (CBSP)Not BUENO.

We hiked the 1.5 miles to Gorman Falls.  This hike is over some very rocky and rough terrain.  As the trail drops precipitously over rocks to the bottom of the falls there is a steel cable hand rail to assist in the descent.  It is safe to say we got our exercise today.  The view of the falls made it all worthwhile, however.Gorman Falls; CBSP

We got back to our motel at 6:30 after riding 135 miles.  The high temperature today was 81.  This was appreciated even more when we saw it was 40 degrees back home.

For more pictures from today click on the following link: https://picasaweb.google.com/104542123131082631220/TexasTourDay5041713?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLK3mc2rtLjBWg&feat=directlink

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