Last week we zipped down to Blanco State Park to swim with the cousins. We LOVE new swimming holes and wanted to use our Texas State Park pass to get us in for free to another amazing place.

This was a neat man made pool along the Blanco River. It had a very shallow area for younger kids to play, a 4 foot deep pool to canon ball into from the dam and a deeper side to float around in inner tubes.

The moss is VERY slick in the shallow areas and the kids were slipping and sliding everywhere. I thought I could handle it and eventually slipped and fell into the water while holding my camera and phone- oops! Thankfully they both still worked after I dried them off.

There were minnows and fish everywhere in the shallow area and the kids loved playing under the waterfall and snorkeling around the rocks.

The main thing that really creeped us out was the baby leeches. Yes, LEECHES! Apparently when the rivers get really warm in August the leaches thrive and the black algae looking stuff in the photo above is 100% baby leeches attaching themselves to the sides. We did not learn this until after this photo was taken- YIKES!

We may try this park out again earlier next year before the water is warmer, but it was a nice place to picnic, relax and swim.

Check out more information here!