Leaving Waco Texas we drove the back roads avoiding Interstate 35, until we pulled into Fort Richardson State Park. We have never been to this park before so we had no expectations about it one way or another. We checked in at the main office and proceeded over to our site. Our stay is for two nights but we will have to move to a different site after our first night since we waited to late too make Memorial Day reservations and the campground is filled to capacity.
Wow, what a beautiful park this is… It of course has a preserved historical fort but there is also nice creek which meanders through the campground. It has over the years cut into the rim rock making for a nice shaded smallish canyon. The campsite themselves are only water and electricity. We will be in 30 amp the first night and 50 amp the second which is good since the temperatures are climbing into the mid to upper nineties which is abnormally hot for this time of year. Both of our sites were quite spacious and private.
We toured Fort Richardson which was built is the mid to late 1800’s as a frontier fort to protect settlers from the Indians. It didn’t remain as an active fort very long though because settlers moved west further into Texas. The remaining buildings of the abandoned fort have been restored and the old hospital is the best restoration of them all. We enjoyed looking into a slice of the past as they even staged the dining hall with meals set up for the soldiers. The hospital was state of the art when built in the 1860’s. Man how times have changed!
There are several small hiking trails we also enjoyed which go alongside the creek and into the uplands. We noticed there are still a lot of wildflowers in bloom but with the hot temperatures forecasted for the area I am sure they will all dry up soon leaving that dreaded brownness to the vegetation I so dislike about summers in Texas.
We enjoyed our short two night Memorial Day stay at Fort Richardson but moved on to Wichita Falls for the remainder of the Memorial Day weekend.
NOTE: We have actually already left Wichita Falls, Texas and are now in Caprock Canyons State Park in the panhandle of Texas…
Looks lie a very nice campground to visit and some interesting history.
ReplyDeleteGerat tour and interesting history. We really enjoy visiting thes old forts.
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