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The Lace Cactus | Echinocereus reichenbachii
This little cactus was not very common at Enchanted Rock but we did see several clumps of it nestled in the rocks. Because I am not very good at cactus identification I Googled and came up with the plant list for the park and narrowed it down from there. Luckily there weren’t many cacti listed. I initially thought it was a Mammillaria species but with some help from a Flickr friend Brad Wilson he corrected me with this species name. I’d initially googled this name with the var. reichenbachii listed and couldn’t find a good comparison photo but without the variety listed it was easy to see that this was…
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An Enchanted New Years | Enchanted Rock Pt. 1
I’m kind of amazed that I grew up in Texas and never visited Enchanted Rock. My parents took us camping a couple times a year but I know we mostly drove within two hours of home. This would have been nearly five hours away, so probably not a feasible trip back then. I had mentioned this park as a place to go on our Texas Roadtrip in September 2010 but for some reason it didn’t make it to our list of places to visit. Well, we finally did make it. The park itself is in the boondocks between Llano and Fredericksburg, west of Austin. The road the entrance is on…
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Outdoor Ethics
Over the years Chris and I have experienced a variety of wild places, some remote and others in the frontcountry. While for the most part we encounter lovely places that are in generally good condition, we often come across places that are wretchedly trashed or abused in some manner. For New Years weekend we went to Enchanted Rock, one of the most visited state parks in Texas. To add to the crowdedness we of course went on a holiday weekend. The place was crawling with people, most heading to the summit of Enchanted Rock, but others bouncing around Little Rock and some of the other subsidiary rocks nearby. Several ‘backcountry’…
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One Year Ago | Southern Terminus of the Florida Trail
Headed for Ft. Pickens after our friends Randy and Kathy dropped us off on Loop Road. 8 miles of beautiful cypress/sawgrass habitat with some fun and muddy water in the middle! The feather headband didn’t make it too far before it broke. 🙁 Follow some of the 2012 FT thru-hikers as they head to Ft. Pickens or Alabama.
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The Other Side of the Tunnel
On Wednesday I showed you Chris exiting a small tunnel that we found (and I’m sure thousands of other people have too over the years) at Enchanted Rock. These photos show the way we came in. Wayyyy back there we had to squeeze down, crawling a bit. Right before we went through here, Chris slid down between some other rocks to see about it being our potential cave but found it to be a dead end and crawled out after he hoisted his camera gear up to me. Good thing I let him check it out first! I bet there are other nifty places to find there.
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Through the Rocks
One of the photos I processed from our weekend at Enchanted Rock last weekend. We were trying to find a supposed cave but instead we found a slot of rocks to walk/crawl through. I spent most of the weekend shooting in black and white with a red filter on my camera. The landscape seemed to beckon for that type of treatment, but Chris managed to get some color shots that were stunning! I’m going to slowly be working on the rest of the photos. I’m trying to get a baby blanket finished and it is trying my patience and frankly I just don’t want to do it. Instead I want…
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The Great Carrot Harvest of 2012
Chris calls me in the middle of work today to tell me he’s picked a bunch of carrots. I’m expecting, you know, a smallish bundle that you might get at the store…not a counter full! He sent me the link to the photos he’d uploaded to Facebook and I exclaimed “Holy Crap” and luckily everyone else was still eating lunch and couldn’t hear me. And so these are some of the carrots we planted back at the very beginning of October. We still have some in the plot that weren’t ready. The varieties are: jaune du doubs (yellow) , little fingers (smaller ones), and red cored chantenay (fat ones). He’s…
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2012 | Prolific
My word for 2011 was Possible, but somehow it turned more into Adventure. I think this was because I put the tagline “Live Adventurously” into my blog header and from then on it stuck. I wrote a little about that on Messy Canvas in the comments, how adventure butted in and took over. I’m not too disappointed that Possible was moved out of the way, but I think both words tend to go hand in hand. Frankly, I thought about making Adventure my word for next year but decided against it since it seemed to take over this year. Instead the first word after that was Productive. The more I…
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2011 | In Review
Miss 2010’s review? 2010 is here I’m going to recap 2011 a little differently than 2010. I always like doing these reviews because it allows me to see what exactly I did without thinking I didn’t do anything at all. Backpacking We thru-hiked the Florida Trail in January and February (and a smidge of March). We hiked theCrosstimbers Trail with my brother and dad. I think we might have started a tradition? Thanksgiving was spent on top of Texas and the subsequent days were spent hiking throughout Guadalupe Mountains National Park. While I didn’t go, Chris spent two weeks camping in various places in remote regions of Florida’s swamps. He…
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Two Sweetpeas
On Christmas Eve I did not get to see these two, my niece and nephew, for very long, only a few hours in the evening. They were both sick and Zoe was dealing with a reaction to the medication she was on, so my ideas of visiting them at their house were sacked. But, I did get to see them for awhile and I got to see Grayson smile and laugh at me, and Zoe made me eat Christmas Eve dinner next to her at her kid table (me in the floor) while she watched ‘kid tv’—aka: Rio. I say ‘made’ me sit with her—but I really didn’t mind. I…