Outdoors
-
A Farewell to Summer from Galveston Beach
Shark eye, Neverita duplicata Cancellate Cantharus, Solenosteira cancellaria Lettered Olive, Oliva sayana Atlantic Ghost Crab, Ocypode quadrata The good (and bad) things about having a kid in school is that there are now random holidays in the middle of the month that adults don’t typically get—teacher work days for one. Forest had one of these on Monday and rather than splitting the day and each of us working from home part of it, we took the day off and went to the beach. We had several things going for us: late September, it being a Monday, and not a normal holiday. I was hoping it wouldn’t be very crowded and…
-
Grabbing Hold of The Feeling
We had stayed up beyond midnight the night before, talking and catching up despite that it was well passed our middle aged bedtimes. Bleary-eyed I woke up on Saturday morning as the sun broke through the curtain in the loft upstairs. I rolled over a couple of times, got on my phone to distract myself, and then finally convinced myself that I should get out of bed and do the thing I wanted to do, which was explore the pastures on the property of the AirBnB we were staying at. Downstairs, Michelle and Stephanie were already awake. Steph had made coffee and the two of them were talking quietly while…
-
Wet and Soggy on the Lone Star Trail (Phelps Segment)
Earlier this year my friend Keely had inquired if I wanted to attempt to go backpacking with her and another friend. This was before vaccines were prevalent and at that point I hadn’t had mine, so I declined. Well, a few weeks ago she emailed again and asked if I had my vaccine yet and if I wanted to go backpacking. Of course I did! We pinned down a date and of course as the time got closer the rain chances went up. In fact, it’s been rainy for the last week! First it was thunderstorms coming from the west and then an unnamed tropical system came up from the…
-
Back to the Pitcher Plant Trail
Let’s pretend this isn’t a dusty post languishing in my drafts folder since last summer! I wanted to post it a few months ago but lacked the interest in getting it out. And seeing as I took these photos in June 2020 and a new June is rapidly approaching I figured I might as well get this one up. And I am itching to get back to the Big Thicket soon, too. I am leaning towards this being a Carolina satyr Hermeuptychia sosybius however Intricate Satyrs are very similar and this one has that look like it is just slightly different and could be an Intricate. Going through my iNaturalist…
-
Guadalupe River Shoreline Explorations | Guadalupe River State Park
Hi there. It’s been a few weeks. I haven’t felt much like writing here and to be honest, I’ve got a huge back log of things to share from not only Thanksgiving but I still have Alaska items to share, and now I have posts from Arkansas and a camping trip we took over Easter—and it’s a lot. I have enough photos processed to write a few weeks worth of posts but the last thing I feel like doing is sitting down and writing. I feel stuck in my writing here. I basically feel like I just do trip reports and while I enjoy that I need to figure out…
-
Spring Wake-up at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
Reaching back into late February with this post to go with a couple of others I wrote about our hike at the REL Sandyland Sanctuary. I actually had to look it up because I was unsure of who Mr. Larsen was, and it turns out he was an executive with Time, Inc. and as a conservationist later in life he organized the Nantucket Conservation Fund and joined the board of The Nature Conservancy, who later dedicated this tract of land to him when it became a sanctuary. A glimpse down to Village Creek before we headed for the trails. Swamp Azalea, Rhododendron viscosum I imagine it is a much different…
-
To the Ozarks
It’s back to the grind for us this week, but last week Chris, Forest, and I checked out of state and drove to Arkansas to spend the week in a cute AirBnB cabin on the SE edge of the Ozark National Forest. Between cooler weather and the state of Arkansas not being on their spring break, it was fairly quiet for us on the trails except in a few areas. We could see that ramping up as we left our cabin on Saturday, the start of a glorious weekend meant an influx of ORVs, and canoes and kayaks being driven into the Ozarks as we passed heading south to I-40.…
-
Early Spring Lepidopterans at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
These days I almost always just keep the 75-300mm lens on my camera when out for a hike. Any time I use a normal lens I’m always sad because I can’t get a good photo of a butterfly or an insect and I would prefer the ability to get a good wildlife shot than a landscape shot for now. So, of course, that was the lens I had on me during our hike two weekends at the Sandyland Sanctuary. While it wasn’t quite a lepidopteran extravaganza it was fairly eventful and exciting outing! The first find was this moth which I believe to be a Ruined Chocolate, Argyrostrotis deleta. My…
-
Checking in on an Old Friend at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
February 2016 February 2021 Yesterday we drove over to the Beaumont area, Lumbertson and Silsbee to be more precise, because I found a COVID-19 vaccine appointment over there earlier this week. Among our state’s list for current requirements in 1A and 1B is a BMI of more than 30. I had known this for a few weeks but vaccine distribution was far harder to find in January and February but some of the lists I had signed us up for in January were finally starting to have some movement but most didn’t have appointments by the time I saw emails or were still in the stage of, ok you are…
-
The Painted Bunting Trail at Guadalupe River State Park
Looking back at these photos from November feels like a lifetime ago. For one, it feels like nature was still abundant even if it was fall. There were butterflies and moths we saw during that Thanksgiving week we were camping—flowers blooming, nature was nature-ing. And now that we’re in this post-freeze haze and hurtling towards spring, I know growth is around the corner. But seeing these photos makes me happy. We’re going to go through the cycle once again. The Painted Bunting Trail is 2.8 miles and divided by the park road which allows you to park at one of two parking lots and allows you to make the complete…