I just posted about this park, but it was so great I wanted to come back and celebrate my birthday here. My sister Mary came for a night to celebrate with me. It was such a fantastic place if you like to be on water. Site 16 affored us with easy access to put in paddle boards. A great view to enjoy all day and night.  If Mary and I had been up early, we would have seen some fantastic sunrises.

Here are just a few great photos of my birthday celebration!! Thank you Mary for joining me last night and today. So much fun and good food!

I am blessed to have a sister who was willing to drive 2 hrs to hike to the bottom of the Gorge with me. On her birthday no less!! We had a great 3 days together, hiking,  cooking,  fires and good conversations. I’m happy to report I didn’t break her after climbing down and back up over 1000 steps to see the bottom of the Gorge.

And because it was Mary’s birthday,  I made her a birthday hat!

From the campground it’s about a 1/4 mile walk to stairs that take you up to the bridge across the Gorge. Very busy traffic and windy. I was fine on the sidewalk and the trail was right there. This side of the Gorge gives you a totally different perspective. The Gorge looks deeper, the waterfalls and pools have a different color to them. And you see more open cliffs that people climb. I love that it ends in a little cave area!!

I took so many pictures I have to break up the post into a couple different ones. This focuses on the North Rim trail in the park. It was absolutely stunning! The fall colors must be spectacular in the fall.

I was really not expecting this to be as big of a park as it is. The surprising thing was that the sites were all terraced. Lakeside premium sites, then at least 3 or 4 terraced roads with sites along one side all facing the lake. The lake front sites run about $40 a night. Others are $36/$34. I was up along one of the terraced roads at site 97. Lucky me I had no one in front of me. A view of the lake on 2 sides and I was the only one on this road. Great trails and if I had gone for a lake sites, easily could have put the paddle board in. It’s a HUGE LAKE with a lot of boats. The weather was too cold to paddle, so I hit the trails each day. I was also able to check out the Nature Hut and do some crafts for  St. Patrick’s day!!

I was here once before but didn’t put a lot of details in the blog. I can say, I’m very glad I came back! Site 2 was directly on the water with very easy access to putting my paddle board in. Very secluded from most of the other sites except site 3. But I only saw the side of their rv. If there had been tent campers, a totally different thing. There’s road noise during the day but quite at night. I was also lucky enough to watch the full moon rise over the lake and acend over my site. Had to get up at 2:15AM to watch the Red Moon Lunar eclipse. We’ll worth it. My only regret at these COE campgrounds is the lack of trails. Lots of roads to walk but I’m a nature girl.

I was here years ago and wanted to check it out again. So glad I did! Almost every site is on the water! Site 19 was an easy access to put in for a day of paddling. The Yellow trail was an easy walk and I truly enjoyed talking to Allen at the office.

So our last day was pretty relaxing compared to our other days here. Dave made a trip to Cancun to clear up some paperwork for their boat while Mary and I had a leisurely breakfast. Afterwards, a stroll thru the shops and along the beach. Dave caught up with us on the beach. Then to the rooftop pool for ice cold beer.

Dinner that night was at a local street taco place, grilled meat right in front of us, fantastic guacamole and cold beer from the market across the street.

We ended the night on the rooftop, watching stars and talking about the trip and where we should go next! Love travels with these 2!

This was one long day! Pick up was at 9am then an hour drive to Talum Ruins. We were here for a little more than a hour. This was a small ruins area on the coast of The Gulf of Mexico. Signage was not that great but our guild was very knowledgeable and explained a lot about the Mayan culture. Women are considered to be the most important.

Next was Coba ruins another 1/2 drive away from Talum. This was much bigger but only a few areas were open and available to view. The ruins were not marked at all and we stayed close to our guild to hear everything about each site. All very interesting and we learned how the Mayan calendar was created over like 3000 years of observation.

Last stop was at a Cenote swimming hole in a Mayan village. There was a ceremony to bless us and I was able to purchase an Obsidian statue that the Shaman cleansed and blessed for me. We had some authentic Mayan food and some ice cold beer. We opted out of swimming here due to the lack of time we had left.

An hour plus drive home put us back to our hotel after 8pm. We were whipped and just made plans to relax the next day.