Exploring Texas with my boys! Looking for any recommendations.

R

RCG571

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Jul 25, 2019
Messages
26
Location
Woodway, TX
Display Name
Display name:
rcg571
I'm starting to plan a 7 night trip across Texas (8 days) with my 2 sons (ages 16 & 23). I'll do this in my 182 during spring break. I'm looking for recommendations for places with camping, hiking, fly-in hotels, museums - basically looking for anything interesting to do to spend time with my kids. I'm based in Waco, TX, area at KPWG.

Potentials -
Fredericksburg - Hangar Hotel
Big Bend - camping
Marfa/Alpine
El Paso Franklin Mountains
Coastal fishing charter trip
 
Make your list, then go with the option that has the weather!

Here, your west Tx option, can have nasty winds with dust storms; not always but..
 
East to west:

RKP - base for coastal fishing, otherwise CRP and use Atlantic. Don’t bother with RAS.

T82 - Hangar Hotel, Enchanted Rock.

SEP for bbq (Hard 8)

There’s someplace around Marfa/Chinati Springs that’s a very remote airfield/hot springs resort

Base out of Lajitas for Big Bend. Both state and national parks…maybe float the river depending on rainfall.

I’ll think of some more later.
 
Stinson Field Class D San Antonio near river walk
Galveston for Moody Gardens
Carlsbad NM (on NM-TX border) for the Caverns
War Eagles Museum at Dona Ana NM (El Paso)
 
@birdus posted some very cool footage of flying the border, in his Luscombe Adventures series of posts on this board. He might be willing to pop into this thread with details.
 
If SCUBA certified, GLS for a dive at Sunken Gardens. That may take a couple days, though.
 
I'm based out of Taylor, TX. We'll have to meet up for lunch one day. In fact, we should do a POA Texas meetup.

You've got some good suggestions already. If you end up in Marfa, there's a guy from Austin who has a couple of rental cars there VFRcars.com. My girlfriend and I flew out there, then drove to Marathon and stayed at the Marathon Motel and RV Park. They have a skypark there with a huge telescope. For $10 each they will show you planets/stars, etc. Warning though, this caused an obsession for us! I now own $2K binoculars!
 
Palo Duro canyon for sure - Fly into Amarillo -KAMA. The museum in Canyon is also a great visit if you need to be indoors for a few hours.
Big bend is great - Fly into Alpine. Rental cars are available.
Also, Guadalupe Mountains National Park - tallest peak in TX - about 4 hours round trip if you are relatively fit. Fly into Carlsbad, NM. Guadalupe Mountains is about a 80 minute drive. Plus, you can visit the caverns.

We did many Spring Break trips to West TX and NM. Lots of fun. Be prepared to be flexible for occasional snow and low freezing levels. We had to delay return a day or two twice for this.
 
NavAir said:
Palo Duro canyon for sure - Fly into Amarillo -KAMA. The museum in Canyon is also a great visit if you need to be indoors for a few hours.
Click to expand...
If you're flying into KAMA, you should check out the Texas Air & Space Museum. Col. Rick Husband, who was from Amarillo, died in the Space Shuttle Columbia crash. They have a Space Shuttle tire that went to space as well as the Gulfstream that was used to train shuttle pilots.
 
Schlitterbahn in New Braunsfels.
 
KERV and go to Bandera/Leaky area....the best of the hill country proper.
 
The one thing my kids still talk about from our trip last year is the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi.
 
Some other thoughts

EFD: Lone Star Flight Museum, NASA Johnson Space Center

HYI, (<1 hr east of T82): Central Texas Wing, CAF. Short drive or flight to 50R and do a bbq crawl in Lockhart.

If you’re going to T82, Nimitz Museum & National Museum of WWII in the Pacific. Short drive to LBJ Ranch state and national parks. The national park hosts the big house and airstrip with a refurb’d C-140 Jetstar that was part of the fleet LBJ flew on when he was in office.
 
There are a LOT of fun Texas State Parks as well, and I think in any state park you can fish for free...
 
Fly into Meacham and go to the stock yards in Fort Worth
 
If you do a layover in the DFW area, there are a few of us who’d enjoy sharing food and good times with you.

Just let us know date and where you’re overnighting so we can send up the call.
 
WASPs in Sweetwater, Hangar 25 Air Museum in Big Spring, National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredricksburg.
 
Space Port at Boca Chica Beach is interesting if you guys are into rockets or Elon Musk. The launch pad is literally right next to the road where you drive. You can also drive on the beach to the south and see the mouth of the Rio Grande River.
South Padre Island is also nearby with fishing options although South Padre can get a little crazy during spring break.
view
view
view
view
 

Attachments

  • 20210327_172931.jpg
    20210327_172931.jpg
    202.2 KB · Views: 10
  • 20210626_184459.jpg
    20210626_184459.jpg
    165.2 KB · Views: 9
  • 20210626_184845.jpg
    20210626_184845.jpg
    232.6 KB · Views: 9
  • 20210312_130855.jpg
    20210312_130855.jpg
    268.7 KB · Views: 9
@JCranford … any sport fishing places on the gulf coast you recommend?
 
If you're planning to be out west anyway, I strongly recommend a visit to the Caverns of Sonora.

Call ahead and make sure you can get ground transport; last time I was there, the airport had a loaner van and they were very liberal with how long you could use it (I don't think it got a lot of use!). But that was several years ago (2017?) and the van was pretty old already, so I dunno if it's still on the road, and for years before the van they had nothing, so...call and check. A few years before they got the van (2014ish?), there were no local rental car options and no taxi or Uber. I considered landing at San Angelo (nearest car rental option) and driving to Sonora once, but that's a longish round-trip considering there's not much else to see in the area. I ended up not going then, and only reconsidered when I learned about the loaner van some time later. (Not sure if the taxi situation has changed since then, so check that too...)

Despite the ground transport issues, Caverns of Sonora is an amazing place, and worth the effort. Carlsbad is bigger, Natural Bridge (and pretty much every other Texas cavern) is more convenient, but Sonora has features that you just don't see, and in quantities you don't see, in other caverns. (Even after the intentional destruction of its unique butterfly formation by stupid frat boys many years ago).

I've been to many caverns (just as a tourist, not a spelunker), and CoS is by far my favorite. It is worth making an effort to visit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top