Love's Lookout

We took a weekend trip to ride the Texas State Railroad last weekend.  We spent the night in Jacksonville.  The boys thought it was a big adventure to spend the night in a hotel.  

We went to check out Love's Lookout before dinner. The ridge is part of a long, flat-topped hill that extends for nine miles, has an elevation of 720 feet above sea level, and rises 240 feet above the surrounding terrain.  It was originally a WPA project, but was recently renovated after being damaged by an earthquake in the 1980's.

This is the view looking East towards Louisiana.

It was great to have a place for the boys to run around after being in the van for about three hours.

The boys loved walking on the wall.

I showed Sam how to pick the seed pods off of the Mimosa trees and get the seeds out.  He "planted" several trees after that.

The sun was setting so it was time to go.

There was also a beautiful butterfly garden there.  The Monarch butterflies migrate through Texas on their way to Mexico in September/October every year so there were tons of butterflies all around.

The boys slept on a sofa bed that night.  Ben is still sleeping in a crib at home, so he didn't seem to really understand that it was time for bed.  I think it was 10:30 or 11:00 before he finally fell asleep!  I thought giving him his binky would be a good signal that it was time for bed, but since that didn't seem to help at all we decided we are done with the binky.  He's slept without it all week and has only asked for it once!