Hippie Hollow Skinny Dipping At The Only Legal Clothing Optional Public Park In Texas

What you are looking at here is a screen cap from a Durango Texas blog post from June 1, 2008 which documented our Clothing Optional Hippie Hollow Nude Beach in Austin experience.

Hippie Hollow has a Facebook page.

Wikipedia also has a Hippie Hollow page.

The Hippie Hollow Facebook page uses the Wikipedia article as its source for Hippie Hollow information.

From that information we learn that Hippie Hollow Park used to be known as McGregor County Park. The Hippie Hollow land is owned by the Lower Colorado River Authority, which is the governmental entity responsible for Travis Lake, which is the lake one skinny dips in at Hippie Hollow.

The Lower Colorado River Authority leased the Hippie Hollow Park area to Travis County whose Parks Department has been in charge of the only legally recognized clothing optional public park in Texas since 1985.

If you go to Hippie Hollow expecting to find a nice sandy beach you may be disappointed to instead find a rugged, rocky cove that can be a bit adventuresome to traverse.

This area of Lake Travis was known as a skinny dipping swimming zone for years. Then, during the American Cultural Revolution of the 1960s it became more popular than ever as a free-spirited destination. It was after the rock festival known as Woodstock that the name Hippie Hollow came in to existence.

In the 1970s the increase in skinny dipping drew some complaints, making Hippie Hollow a bit controversial, but the Travis County sheriff at the time, Raymond Frank, wisely decided it was better for the county's cops to focus on more serious offenses than skinny dipping, thus rendering Hippie Hollow to be the only legally recognized public park in Texas where it is not considered a crime to swim without a swimsuit.

Texas Hill Country Bluebonnet Wildflowers Are Putting On A Good 2015 Show

We have been seeing reports that this year's Texas Bluebonnets blooming in Texas Hill Country is the biggest bloom of bluebonnets in several years.

The last time we witnessed the Texas Hill Country Wildflowers the colorful day started near Fredericksburg at Wildseed Farms, where, along with hundreds of others, we walked in fields of wildflowers of various sorts being grown for their seeds.

That day continued on to a hike to the summit of Enchanted Rock for an elevated view of Hill Country, before continuing on, heading north through the most colorful display of wildflowers we had ever eye witnessed.

Tiptoe Through Texas Tulips

A family of farmers with roots back to Holland have planted for your flower plucking pleasure the first Tulip Field in Texas.

Texas-Tulips has a well done website, a screen cap of which you see here.

From the website you can find all the information you need so that you can go do some tiptoeing through the Texas Tulips.

Texas-Tulips is located near Pilot Point, that being a small town east of Denton at the north end of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

Deer Park and the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site Monument

Near the Texas town of Deer Park is where you will find the San Jacinto Battleground Natural Historic Site, which is a National Historic Site where the 570 foot tall San Jacinto Monument marks where the Battle of San Jacinto took place, victoriously, winning Texas its independence from Mexico.

The town of Deer Park was founded in 1892, with the town's being named Deer Park due to its proximity to a deer preserve.

Deer Park is the Texas town closest  to the San Jacinto Battleground Site, as such, Deer Park bills itself as "The Birthplace of Texas."

Deer Park is near the Houston Ship Channel and Buffalo Bayou, which allows the Battleship Texas to be docked as part of the 1,200 acre San Jacinto Battleground Site.

For more information about Deer Park and the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site go to our Eyes on Texas entry about Deer Park.

Almost That Time of Year When Texas Blooms Colorful With Wildflowers

Soon March will arrive, and with March will come the arrival of Spring, and with the arrival of Spring will come that time of the year when the hills of Texas  come alive with the sight of a technicolor display of wildflowers.

The photo you see here was taken north of the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.

When the conditions are right, with the right amount of sun and rainfall, the prime Texas Wildflower season lasts from March through May.

For more Texas Wildflower photos, along with a list of some of the more than 5,000 species of Texas Wildflowers go to our Eyes on Texas Wildflowers webpage.

Deep-Fried Western Diamondback Rattlesnake available at Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup in March

Soon it will be the second weekend of March which will have the Eyes of Texas and people from other locations on the planet focused on Sweetwater, Texas where the 2015 Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup takes place.

Rounding up rattlesnakes is controversial. You can read about this controversial issue via a previous Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup blog post on this subject, with additional links to other previous blog links on the subject.

Among the controversies regarding the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup is the fact that most of the snakes which get rounded up are killed.

Some of the butchered rattlesnakes roundup in Deep-Fried Western Diamondback Rattlesnake & Chips Baskets, which you see being offered by the young rattlesnake purveyor in the picture.

Squeamishness prevailed, so no one in our tour group sampled any fried rattlesnake, though we were assured it tasted like chicken. Chicken with a lot of little bones.

The World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup  takes place on the Second Weekend in March.

Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup weekend starts up on the second Thursday of March with the Rattlesnake Review Parade at 4pm through downtown Sweetwater. That evening, the Miss Snake Charmer Pageant takes place in the Sweetwater Municipal Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.

The doors open at 8:00 a.m. Friday for the Annual Sweetwater Jaycees World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up, with snakes being weighed in at 7:00 a.m. that morning at the Nolan County Coliseum.

For more information about the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup, including video of our visit to the Roundup, go to our Eyes on Texas Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup webpage.

ZestFest 2015 January 23-25 in the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas

The Fiery Food Experience known as ZestFest 2015 starts up this Friday, January 23 with the ZestFesing ending Sunday, January 25.

This is the 10th year ZestFest has taken place in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, returning this year to the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas.

$15 gets you in to ZestFest to begin sampling zesty tastings, beer and liquor samplings from 1pm to 7pm Friday, 10am to 6pm Saturday and 10am to 5pm Sunday.

You can learn about the celebrity chefs, such as Jon Bonnell, who will be sharing their zesty cooking and zesty eating contests, along with other pertinent information at the ZestFest website.