Lost Maples State Natural Area, Texas

This is our last stop of our weekend long road trip where we visited a national park and multiple state parks in Texas. After a night at Monahans, we headed to Lost Maples State Natural Area. We have heard how beautiful this park is for a while now and we have been wanting to visit. But due to its distance from Houston, we have not had the opportunity to visit this park, until now.

Lost Maples is well known for its fall foliage scenery. At the time we visited, we believed we were about a week too late from the fall foliage peak (perhaps was during the time we were at Garner State Park). Nevertheless, there were still multiple maple trees with colorful leaves.

Due to the popularity of Lost Maples, the day passes are selling out fast especially during holidays or weekends. Make sure to book the day pass ahead. You can book it through their website. It was sold out but luckily we reserved agead. $6 per adult, 12 and under is free.

We parked our car at the day pass parking lot and hiked the Maple Trail and then to East Trail.

Enjoying the scenery with a quick break.

There were also some small streams but not much water. Kids tried to skip rocks trying not dropping into the water and get the shoes wet. It did get wet..

We were told by a parent at Monahans Sandhills to definitely visit Monkey Rock when we are at the park. We found it (1) ! It is huge. Does it looks like Curious George?

Not much around so we continued our hike.

There were still some colorful Maples leaves. It was a little chilly and it was gloomy. We decided not to hike the rest of the East Trail so we turned back at the Grotto (2).

Overall, it was good. I think if the weather wasn't that chilly and gloomy, we would have hiked more. Also, we may have too high of an expectation on Lost Maples' spectacular and colorful scenery from what we were told before. In the future, probably it is better to have low expectation and let it surprises.

We drove to San Antonio and had dinner at Sapporo Sushi and Asia Fusion restaurant. The ambient was very nice and the Sushi portions were huge and priced quite reasonably. Look at the big sushi roll!