All of us at PPL Motorhomes are always looking for new adventures and places to visit and last year RV Nana and her bunch visited an amazing place: The Brazos Bend State Park and Observatory. For those of you who haven’t been to this amazing place you’ll be please to know that this destination isn’t short on things to do and see. You’ll find really great bike trails, beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife. In fact, we had a bag of marshmallows out for S’mores one evening and a raccoon scurried down a nearby tree, grabbed the entire open bag and ran back up to enjoy his snack. Within minutes it looked like it was raining giant marshmallows as he tore into the bag.
On that same trip, we were riding our bikes along the lake and came right up on an alligator (10’ long – no exaggeration). He was peacefully sunning himself. At that point, I was on the lead bike and I motioned for everyone to just keep peddling and move to the left quietly. He acted as if he had never even seen us, but it sure spooked all of us from my 9 year old grandson to myself.
Check out the sights in the video below:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPO0xQWWpxY&list=PL97C99D8AB6E729E5&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Check out the Texas Parks And Wildlife webpage for more information like what you’ll read below.
Brazos Bend State Park, approximately 28 miles southwest of Houston, covers roughly 5000 acres, with an eastern boundary of 3.2 miles fronting on the Brazos River on the southeast border of Fort Bend County. This was the area of Texas’ first Anglo colonization. It was purchased by the state in 1976-77 and was opened to the public in 1984.
Archeological materials show that prehistoric people visited this area, possibly as early as 300 BC; in early historical times, the Capoque band of the Karankawa Indians roamed between the mouth of the Brazos River and Galveston Bay and may have traveled inland as far as Brazos Bend. In the early 19th century, this area of Texas was the site of Stephen F. Austin’s first colonial land grant from Mexico, and present park land was included in a grant to Abner Harris and a partner named William Barrett in 1827. Most of riverfront was sold shortly after the Texas Revolution, and records show that in 1845, part of the park and 2400 feet of river frontage were in the hands of cotton brokers who lived in Brazoria. At the time, the Brazos River was one of the principal routes of commerce, and it may be that the brokerage firm used the area for one of its riverboat landings. In recent times, the land on which the park is located was used for cattle grazing, pecan harvesting, and as a private hunting preserve.
Texas is filled with amazing parks to visit and Brazos Bend State Park is only one of them. In fact, that is one of the greatest things about Texas, we have all types of terrain from mountains, to hills and valleys to seas, we have it all. So much so, that sometimes it can be difficult to decide where we want to go next and the best part is, these places are virtually in our backyard.
What are your favorite places to visit in Texas? Where should we go for our next family outing? RV Nana and PPL Motorhomes welcomes all suggestions, just drop us a line.