The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 46. A Walk Down by the River at Pedernales Falls State Park

Marci looks over the lush landscape of the Pedernales River.

Big, sloppy, black-brushstroke clouds crawled along the horizon as we left Austin.  Texas had been receiving an extreme amount of rain over the summer, and it continued into the fall.  Although it made the landscape spectacularly lush, I feared we'd end up camping some night in the driving rain.  So far we lucked out, but a Texas thunderstorm is not something to take lightly.  The amount of wind, electricity and water produced can be profound. As we slowly left the city behind and climbed up into the hills southwest of Austin, I wondered what our day and night would bring.  The plan was to quickly set up camp at Pedernales Falls State Park, and then head to San Antonio.  We wanted to do the River Walk at night, but we didn't want to set up camp in the dark.

I'd been to Pedernales Falls before with the gang, and I thought I'd have a flood of memories, but I didn't.  It was like being there for the first time.  Much of that, I think, had to do with my point of reference rather than a deteriorating brain.  I am now a product of the west, and from a western perspective, the Texas Hill Country is a scene of verdant jungle-clogged knolls and dells.  From my new paradigm, it was just so damn green and overgrown--as well as hot and humid--that it felt like I'd been dropped down on some foreign planet.

When I lived in Dallas, the hill country had the opposite effect.  It was the only place nearby where one could see a rock outcropping or any real undulation in the ground surface.  There was scrub oak, cacti, and very occasionally, one could even spot a sagebrush.  From Dallas, the hill country felt western.  Somehow it reminded me of growing up in Utah.  When I was there with my friends, I was thrilled to be out west.

Returning from the west thirty years later, it was clear that vision had only been a product of yearning.  Though incredibly beautiful, Pedernales Falls is clearly a Southern experience and not a Western one.  It is on the wrong side of the dry line, or Marfa front, as it is sometimes called, which separates the moist eastern air of the continent from dry western air.  Because of that, even without any notable mountains to create rain shadows, the transition from southern to western flora in Texas is pretty dramatic, and going west on I-10, it seems to occur at a little town called Junction, two hours west of Austin.

Simply put, I could no longer relate to Pedernales Falls as a western experience, and so it seemed to be completely new to me.  That freshness ripped it from nostalgia and placed it in its own light.  That is kind of nice.  Now it isn't a place I experienced with the gang, but rather a place I saw Marci wandering around a lush, almost European landscape, wearing her garden hat, timidly facing the daunting, wild, tangled fecundity set before her.  The stark west has forever been replaced by the landscapes of John Constable, western Minimalism demolished by European Romanticism.

It was fresh, lush and lovely.

The clear, usually calm Pedernales River can become a torrent of mud with little or no warning.

After setting up camp, we walked down by the Pedernales River, and what a delightful river it is.  The trail was closed with a printed warning of possible flash floods.  We ignored the sign--sort of.  I didn't travel all that way to not see the river.  We were, however very cautious, and as we went down by the river, I planned escape routs up the hillside and kept an eye upstream.  There was absolutely no sign of possible flooding, the river as clear and tranquil as can be, but the river is known for rapid rises in water levels, so much so, that sirens have been installed along the river to warn waders of impending doom.  I'm not much of a thrill seeker, and so I do take such things seriously.

Still, I'm glad we ventured cautiously down to the water.  Although only there a few minutes, those minutes were some of the most memorable of the trip.  The landscape was absolutely breath taking in a quiet, lush, relaxed sort of way.  I am used to grand, sweeping western landscapes, like the Tetons, but I also really love some of the small-scale intimate landscapes east of the Rockies.  Pedernales Falls State Park is one such jewel.