West of Austin–a bounty of beautiful hills, rivers, parks, historic towns, wineries, and destinations for a day or more. Instead of jamming everything together in my usual fashion, I decided to write a series of three shorter blogs about three destinations in this area. Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area will be the first.

We started to see them when we were in Corpus Christi. And then, driving into central Texas, they carpeted the roads and the fields. Beautiful swaths of color: blue, orange, pink, white. Sometimes just one color, sometimes two or more mixed in. Texas’s highways and byways in the spring are not to be missed. What am I talking about? The wildflowers, of course! If you have not been to Texas in late March or early April, it should really be on your calendar for next year. And now, I can tell you where the Shangri La of Texas wildflowers is: Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area.

Muleshoe Bend is an LCRA park, the same as South Shore Lake Bastrop where we had stayed earlier. LCRA stands for Lower Colorado River Authority, a non-profit public utility that provides water stewardship and electric energy. While at South Shore, I picked up a little magazine that listed all of the LCRA parks. Next to the write-up for Muleshoe Bend was a glossy picture of fields of bluebonnets. Wildflower heaven! This was to be our first weekday trip for our Austin stay; the flowers along the roadways seemed to be at their height of blooming and I did not want to miss them.

I didn’t know if the magazine had overhyped the flowers. Arriving in the park, we stopped to look at a map and found a trail to hike. While looking at the map, I noticed a small handmade sign close to the ground that said just: “Flowers”, with an arrow. We decided to follow that first. The road was dirt, dry and dusty. There were more signs so we kept going. And then, this:

The picture above was my first look, and it was only in one direction. There was more! Here I am, as happy as can be, in those beautiful bluebonnets:

All was quiet here, except for the seed pods on these bushes clacking in the wind:

We hiked, we took in the flowers and the views, listened to the wind and the pods and the birds, watched tiny butterflies flit about, and I took the time just to be still with the camera put away. A place like this is good for the soul.

The whole huge area is bounded on one side by the Colorado River. The river here was very low when we visited. There are a few houses on the bluff high above. It looked like the steps behind their houses were supposed to go down to boat docks in the river below, but the docks are sitting on weeds. It’s been a long time since the river has been at capacity. You can see one or two houses in the background of this photo:

The river is still there, although you can’t see it in the above picture. Here is a better view below. In light of all the beautiful flowers, I wasn’t focused on taking pictures of it.

We abandoned the trail we were going to hike. There is another, going through the flowers and around the hillside, that we ended up on while flower gazing. Or maybe it’s a park road, I don’t know.

There was an eye-catching area filled with white prickly poppies, too.

I thought that seeing the massive splendor of all of the flowers here was almost as good as visiting the monarch butterflies in their migrating place in Mexico this past early March. And that is saying a lot.

I wouldn’t come here on a Saturday or Sunday, though! I’m sure that on the weekend, with flowers in bloom, that this place is packed.

Next time – we go underground