• Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Twin Falls Nature Trail at Pedernales Falls State Park

    Clematis texensis The Twin Falls Nature Trail leads off from the southern loop of the campground at the state park. Not far down the trail, the terrain gets rocky and starts descending down into the creek canyon below. The trail leads to a waterfall coming off of Bee Creek and down into Twin Falls Creek. We did not see the second waterfall but I suspect it was a little further up the creek. Unfortunately the area down at the falls is closed to visitors in order to protect the habitat. We did see several trails leading down to the creek, though, which means some people don’t heed the warnings to…

  • Memes

    Sunday Reads

    Happy Sunday, folks! +In recent weeks there’s been several write-ups about sexism and harassment within several governmental agencies. It would be great to think that a lot of that is fading out, and it is, but there’s still blatant and covert sexism out there. Ask any female you know and you will be guaranteed to get a story about harassment or sexism. The covert comments are the worst because sometimes you don’t grasp it while it’s happening, only later upon reflection…that some random comment or action was sexist. It isn’t just government agencies, any industry that has been historically dominated by males with females integrating within it, you’re guaranteed to…

  • Gardening

    Irises for Saturday

    While the wildflowers this year might not have been as stellar as we’d hoped, the Louisiana irises in the ditch are now putting on quite a show! We have a few varieties, including the typical native Iris virginica down near the pond but I’ve not had a chance/remembered to get photos down there so far this month. There will be more gardening photos this week! Look for them on the latter end with camping photos at the beginning of the week. Hope you are having a good Saturday!

  • Family,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Exploring the Falls on the Pedernales River

    Nemastylis geminiflora, Prairie celestial Over Easter weekend we made the trek to west of Austin to Pedernales Falls State Park. The last time we visited this park was in September of 2011. I went back through my archives and realized I barely wrote about visiting the park. I think I intended to put together a video from the park but I remember that at the time I was having trouble figuring out how to use the editing software. And then I abandoned that project, went to Pennsylvania to work for a few weeks, and life kind of took off. I had a lot of trouble trying to remember the park…

  • Baby Teddy,  Family,  Photography

    The Fields Are Alive With Bluebonnets!

    As a perpetual flower picker, Forest had a lot of fun running around the bluebonnet and paintbrush fields at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. We had to gently tell him that he couldn’t pick all the flowers, that he had to save them for other people to enjoy! The shiner on his eye is from daycare; Forest is entering the toddler always-has-a-boo-boo phase of life. I didn’t take many other photos at the wildflower center but I’ve got tons from our camping trip. I hope to get a few posts up soon about that.

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    The Village Creek & Tupelo Trails | Village Creek State Park

    We’re flashing back to February when we went camping at Village Creek State Park. Our morning walk along the Village Creek and Tupelo Trails was very quiet. Aside from encountering a few people near the primitive campsite near the trailhead, we found no one else on the trails that morning. There were plenty of Nyssa aquatica, tupelo, specimens lining the bayous and bottoms that drained out into Village Creek. Village Creek was calm and serene that morning. Adjacent to the trail we found a couple of jack-in-the-pulpits! The Village Creek trail deadended into the beach at Village Creek. We spent quite a bit of time scouting the edge of the…