Day 1 Set out from Jen's place a little after Noon, heading down to Hill Country NSA, which was our second choice after Blanco was full. Stopped in a tiny town to ask for directions, because our map showed no road connecting to it. We sent Sparky in to the Post Office, which was a little one-room shack, and got directions. Down the road we came to the dirt road leading into the park. On the way in we saw both ranging cattle and a wild turkey, which we stopped to photograph. Inside the camp, we reserved a hike-in campsite at Butterfly Springs, a roughly 4 mile hike. Charlie and Jen seemed rather lukewarm on the issue, but I thought it'd be a great idea. We'd even brought hiking racks that wouldn't be used if we didn't use them here. Upon unloading, we observed that the gear suffered from several deficiencies: Namely, we lacked soap of any kind, one of the racks had no straps, and we had an almost empty gas lantern that we had no funnel to fill. I borrowed a funnel from a nearby camper, and we filled the lantern without spilling to much flammable liquid on ourselves. Then we used my nylon black rope that had remained in my trunk since it was required for canoeing, and used it to tie on the extra gear. It took us roughly 1.5 hrs to get loaded, most of which was consumed by my attempting to tie stuff on. Once we set off, it immediately became obvious that the racks put a lot more weight on our backs than our meagre back muscles were used to. Charlie voiced what a stupid idea backpacking was, and I told him he should take it as a lesson in self-assertion. If he wasn't assertive to voice opposition to my generally unwise ideas, he was simply going to have to live with the consquences. He seemed strangely uncomforted by this wisdom. Complicating the issue was the stream about 0.5 of a mile down the trail, which, in true Texan fashion, had no bridge over it, forcing us to wade. We did so without taking off our shoes, so as not to put down the racks. This was a particularly bad decision. During the course of the mud-laden 4 mile hike, we got lost once, requiring about a 0.25 mile backtrack, primarily due to Jen making the crucial error of handing me the map. Finally, around 5: pm, we arrived at the campsite, which was completely uninhabited, but in good condition. After some initial difficulty we got a fire going, and soon had the tent pitched. Dinner was spam burgers (Sparky insisted) and we bedded down for a comfortable night beneath the stars, with a completely clear sky. It remained clear until 2:45 am, when it started raining. We, of course, didn't have the rain covers on, so Sparky made a heroic dash to put them on, and did a rather good job. although it rained for much of the night, we stayed fairly dry. The next morning we had some very crumbly pancakes, cooked on our propane stove, packed up and headed off. The hike back was even muddier, but went much better and quicker, perhaps due to either our knowledge of the trail, or our determination to make it back. The weather stayed overcast, but was quite cool. Although I gave both Charlie and Jen a spare of my spare socks (I was the only one who brought extra clothes with us) Jen developed large blisters and was in a great deal of pain by the time we finished. Changing clothes behind the Crown Vic, we set on our way to Seminole Canyon at 10:40 am. We crossed the rather river-like Hondo Creek no less than 5 times on one stretch of road, before coming to the town of Hondo proper. There we discovered a gas station with no working pumps, and then one that was out of all gas except Premium. Filling up there, we continued west until the land gradually became as arid as the region surrounding Carlsbad. We arrived at Seminole Canyon at 3 pm, and set up camp at the excellent (if small) facitilies there, and took our first shower of the trip in what I will recall as the cleanest camp showers and bathroom I've ever seen. The weather was cool and windy, with only a few wisps of cloud in the sky. Jen applies sunscreen to my face while I was typing, as I couldn't apply it myself without getting my hands oily, which was undesirable for typing. She described this as "definitely one of the odder things I've done to a man." -Matt