Outdoors
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Halloween Weekend at Huntsville State Park
A short video I put together on my phone from a camping trip last weekend. I figured out iMovie on my phone and so expect more short videos in the future! Of course I’ll do a proper post eventually—probably February at this rate! haha!
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Watson Preserve in Late June
I thought I would dust off a few of the drafts languishing in my WordPress files and send some nature out into the world. There’s a lot going on right now and my mind is cluttered with it all, so why not deviate a bit and share some goodness. I had hoped we would get back to Watson Preserve this fall but we haven’t gotten there yet. Maybe in November! Asclepias rubra, red milkweed Actually looking back at these photos brightens my mood a bit. With autumn happening and everything senescing, it is sometimes hard to believe everything was alive and in bloom a few short months ago. A snowy…
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Exploring the Denali Highway and Brushkana Creek
The season shift here has kind of thrown me for a loop. The light is shifting, the days are shortening, and that has made me pull inward and want to focus on other things. So much for all these photos I had ready to share! It’s a rainy evening here in greater Houston, where we are going to miss the massive cold front everyone else is getting. It is going to fizzle out an hour or so west of here. Guess we will be sticking with summer for a few more weeks until hopefully the next front. Another reason I’ve been not-so-interested writing here is that my right shoulder has…
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Cypress-Tupleo Slough Explorations in the Big Thicket
As I continue to see how crowded so many western outdoor spaces have gotten this summer with everyone seeking outdoor places to go, I’ve been glad that we live in area that sees less crowds. In general so many of the southern and eastern forests are less trekked than popular haunts out west or in New England. And summer really changes that up because who wants to walk in humid, moist forests when temperatures are in the 90s and 100s? Not too many, that is for sure. Our second trip to the Big Thicket had us traipsing a bit past the pitcher plant bog and off into an exploration of…
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Snow in the Thicket
In late June we trekked back to Watson Preserve and the Big Thicket to see what might be blooming in early summer. I’d had word that the snowy orchids, Platanthera nivea, were blooming and they were a species I had not seen before. Chris says he had seem them but I wanted to get my own glimpse. They weren’t a disappointment! Found primarily across the coastal south and southeast, east Texas is their western most part of their range. Found within pitcher plant bogs, wet savannas and seeps, these are species you will only find in certain locations and of course being that these locations are increasingly scarce, the orchids…
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Exploring a New Section on the Lone Star Trail
Flowering Spurge, Euphorbia corollata Last weekend we ventured out to do a new to us section on the Lone Star Trail. We originally wanted to hike starting at the Cotton Creek Cemetery Road trailhead near Huntsville but when we pulled up to turn down the road we found it looked like it went through a ranch and there was a no tresspassing sign. A man in a truck pulled up after he saw us sitting there contemplating our next step and after we told him what we were looking for he said that it was down a different road behind us. I pulled up the PDF maps and he was…
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Denali By Bus: Part IV
One of the highlights on any trip to Denali is of course the chance to see brown bears! And while we had encountered them from a distance on our way into the park, seeing them up close like this was amazing! This is really just me spamming you with brown bear photos! Gah, it really makes you want to reach out and touch them–they look so cuddly! Instead, they would rip you to pieces! (Oh, yeah, something I’ve been meaning to share here but haven’t yet but this seems like the appropriate place: Grizzly Bear Attack: A Breakdown. This is by a hiking acquaintance I met back at Billy Goat…
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Denali By Bus: Part III
Eventually we made it to the Eielson Visitors Center, where a decent crowd from earlier buses were already inside. Bathrooms, water bottle refilling stations, a gift shop, and other exhibits were open to learn more about Denali. I was captivated by the artistry of these art quilts that captured the essence of the park. I had my long lens on and for some reason I’m not finding a lot of photos that didn’t involve my zoom lens so I guess I didn’t take any phone photos. Why, past self, why???? I believe we had about thirty minutes at the visitor center and if we wanted to board the same bus…
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Pre-Birthday Hike on the Lone Star Trail
Our last hiking adventure has been a few weeks now, the Friday before my birthday. I took the day off and after we’d decided to back out of our initial idea of going to the beach, we opted instead to go for a hike on the LST and then head over and check on our Texas pipevine plants to see if they had set any seeds. Arrowhead Rattlebox, Crotalaria sagittalis I noticed this interesting plant on the way into our hike and on our way back out I kept an eye on it. I hadn’t noticed it before but after I identified it as a crotalaria I was surprised I…
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Denali By Bus: Part II
Eventually the bus climbed around a pass and we came to a second stop, Polychrome Overlook. We had about 15 minutes to walk a short trail and take in the very scenic views. Several braided rivers were in the distance and all I wanted to do was get five days of food on my back and head off into the wilderness to explore! Honestly, the photos speak for themselves. Eliana looking a bit wistful. After our short foray at Polychrome we boarded the bus once again and it wasn’t long before we saw more bears!