Bandera and Lost Mapels

This weekend was my high school reunion. It was also a scheduled running weekend for me. I needed to pick what I'd do and what I'd miss.
I decided to miss the Friday night run for the homecoming football game and drive out to Bandera Saturday morning and miss the reunion.
The football game was a lot of fun. Dan and I took our kids. They loved it. We also got to see a few people from high school. It was kinda funny, because the people we saw went to high school with me and middle school with Daniel. I would have liked to see a few other people. Maybe some other time.
Running at HCSP on Saturday was great! I ran somewhere around 26miles. My GPS sucks, so it could have been more. Daniel ran a lot of that with me, as did my team mate TJ from Austin. Joe, our coach, set out a couple of water coolers and sign in/out sheets to keep track of all the runners. Joe also marked a 7ish mile loop for us and gave us all water proof maps. Dan, TJ, TJ's friend (Jim??), and myself decided to add Lucky's onto that loop in order to get in the most hills per mile. Fun stuff. Lucky is one steep climb,..ur...run. After finishing one of the 7ish loops (my GPS said 7.2. Another said 7.9 and another runner (who skipped Lucky) got 7.48 every loop), Tj, Dan and I headed over to Ice Cream Hill for more big hills. It was all great. I think I would love to spend over 4 hrs every Saturday on trails with friends. During Dan and my's second 7ish loop, I decided I would run up Carrien's Climb and then turn around until I found Dan. I ran .5miles back down that sweet climb and realized Daniel had likely skipped this hill. So back up it and down the other side I went! Dan was at the cooler waiting for me. "That's awesome!", Dan said when I told him what had happened. "You wanted to get in lots of hills and extra miles." He was right. I wasn't mad about it. But I wouldn't have done Carrien's twice in a row any other way!
The next morning, the stars were breath taking! I have missed seeing the starts in a clear black sky more then I knew. After packing up, we headed over to Lost Maples. What a spectacular park! This place was more then beautiful with It's dense trees, steep hills, rocky climbs, creek crossings, twisty trails, and occasional dry rocky creek bed trails. And we soooo lucked out with the weather. It was actually chilly all morning! I can hardly wait to go back!