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Wordless Wednesday
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Around Downtown Granbury
On our way home from Dinosaur Valley State Park we stopped in Granbury to walk around. There was a biker festival going on and the square was ‘happening’. I love small Texas towns but I also love visiting the county seats of these towns because of the very cool, old fashioned courthouses. I didn’t take many photos but here is what I got. I’m trying not to go to Starbucks. I actually love Starbucks but I am trying to make an effort to drink coffee at home but also to buy from local shops instead of big chains. This was a very cute shop with so many flavors to add…
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Dinosaur Cake Contest
Over the holiday weekend Chris and I went down to Dinosaur Valley State Park with my brother, SIL and Zoe. Before we went there was a cake contest launched. We brought the cakes out and it was hilarious how similar they were despite having been made in completely separate houses. The cake part for both ended up being some version of chocolate. There was supposed to be a rule of not using non-edible parts, but the person who made the green dino ended up using a toothpick in each leg of the dinosaur. We had so much cake we had to share with our neighbors! The orange cake used buttercream…
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Trail Tales 3: Great Smokey Mountain National Park
Pertinent Posts: 5 Days in the Smokies Clean Clothes—the illusion of cleanliness After taking two zero’s in a row most of the people we’d been hiking with were ahead of us. It was a little disheartening knowing that you had to start over with people again. Our only hope was that folks would get off for a zero or nearo in Gatlinburg and we would see people again. We set off from Fontana Dam and said goodbye to Chris’ mom and stepdad and we were off. The Smokey’s weren’t quite as annoying as the White’s when dealing with shelters, but it was still frustrating. No stealth camping is allowed and…
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Trail Tales 2: Southern North Carolina
Pertinent posts: Nearo and Zero in Bryson City Oh, Sunshine I love Thee GA/NC in the Forest Standing Indian Mountain Siler Bald Trail Magic It felt like the minute we left Georgia the trail immediately changed. We had some minor rock climbing and it threw us for a loop. Wait a minute, where’d the endless PUD’s go? Rock climbing, huh? We’d heard that there was bad weather coming but that night was a beautiful evening and we saw a lot of people at the first shelter passed the border. After setting up camp we went to bed early. The next morning we woke to cooler weather and clouds. Someone mentioned…
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The Power of Now
While out hiking there is only one thing you have to do. Walk. Ok, so you set up camp, eat and use the privy, but your only goal for the day is to walk to your intended destination. It’s easy and your mind is in general ease. There isn’t a bunch of clutter in your brain, or maybe there is, but it isn’t pressing and can’t bother you too much. And then somehow you come back into the real world and you are bombarded with so many options. You can do this or that or both and then throw in something else and it is easy to get overwhelmed. I…
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Nature in the City: Maxwell Creek Linear Park
Getting a little nature while in the city is important. Sometimes it is hard to get farther out, into the woods and surrounded by quiet. So, after work you head out to the closest green space possible. Right near where Chris’ mom and step-dad live is a bike path and Maxwell Creek Linear Park. If you go off trail and down to the creek you can find some beautiful little things. Oh, watch for the gigantic poison ivy! The signs of Fall are slowly showing up. If the light was better I would have tried to get a reverse macro on this Osage orange, Maclura pomifera. Textures in the running…
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Whipping things up
One thing on the trail that I really wish I could do was to crochet. Along the way I switched from listening to books on my mp3 to actually carrying books because it was so much nicer to have the pages in hand. I read a fiction book about a yarn store owner, actually this was part of a series, and it had me itching to have a hook and yarn in my hand. When we were in Salem I spotted a yarn store and had to go in and touch some yarn. I skipped buying yarn but ended up buying an Interweave Crochet from last fall because of the…
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Trail Tales 1: Georgia
I’ve decided to go back through and show photos that I never got around to posting, recap some of the sections and discuss in more detail various sections of the trail. Plus, I like reminiscing and I’m a little sad that we’re pushing on two weeks off the trail. So, I will start with the beginning, Georgia. Reference posts from that time: Neels Gap Hiawassee On Top of Springer Dinner at Stover Creek Skip the Approach Trail Lycopodium Vistas Blood Mountain Neels Gap (yes another one) Cowrock Sunset Blue Mountain Shelter GA/NC in the Forest And off we went. I look back now and realize just how overweight we were.…
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Reverse Macro Love
On Monday we went to the Dallas Arboretum with Chris’ dad. I had never been so it was a nice experience. After being so used to Fairchild Gardens in Miami, it’s hard to get used to non-tropical plants. There are some nice tropicals such as this Pride of Barbados, but a lot of them are temperates. They also have a great test garden where they do try some of those tropicals like mandavilla and tropical hibiscus. It was blazing hot and though we didn’t walk fast or far, we were sticking to our clothes pretty quickly. It was 107* for a high here on Monday. Yesterday it was about 12*…