Nature

Don’t Go To Enchanted Rock This Weekend

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Ignore the advice of the travel guides and tourism promoters. Stay home. Read a good book. Go someplace else. Don’t go to Enchanted Rock this weekend.

You aren’t the only person who came up with the idea to go to the Rock.

FM 965 Outside E Rock

Photo: Robert Deming

Sure, your idea is a good one.  Texas became an urban state in 1945, and we have longed to get back to our rural roots ever since.  To get out, away from the buildings and roads and cars and people, to get back to nature.  To recover our sanity in a life crowded with commitments, schedules, busyness, structure.  To stretch our legs and get to a place which is quiet, maybe so quiet you can hear yourself breathe.  A place where the only movement is the rustling of the trees in the breeze and a vulture soaring high overhead.

Timing is everything. 

E Rock Closed!

Photo: Robert Deming

The problem is this:  on a Saturday or Sunday when the weather is beautiful and the sky is blue with puffy white clouds and gentle breezes and you feel the urge to get out of town and E Rock is just the place, thousands of other people have felt the same urges.  You may find yourself in a line of hundreds of people climbing The Rock like so many ants trudging out of an anthill.  So much for getting away from it all.  And it can be worse, much worse.  You may find a line of cars outside the park stretching for a mile, waiting for a chance to enter.  You may even find the park closed to new visitors, and a police officer telling you to go away and come back in a few hours.

Monday on top of The Rock.  Where is everyone?

Alone on E Rock Stormy
Photo:  Robert Deming

You can be alone on top of the Rock, you can avoid the long lines and crowds, if  you visit on Monday, or some other weekday, instead of the weekend.  Enchanted Rock is deserving of your full attention, it isn’t just a side trip on a weekend in Fredericksburg.  Enchanted Rock can be a pilgrimage, a retreat, a refreshment for your soul.  Make your visit special by taking a day out of your usual weekday routine.  Bring a nice picnic lunch, hike a long trail, take your time.

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