Outdoors
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Along Onion Creek
Onion Creek is a significant waterway coursing through southeast Austin and is prone to flooding issues. Some of the results of those flooding issues were seen along the sides of the creek with piles of debris and trash towering far over our heads. The area along the creek within McKinney Falls State Park is somewhat reminiscent of the slabs of rock along the Pedernales River at Pedernales Falls State Park. However, the falls are much smaller and quietly stated than what you see at the river. Being so close to the city, this park sees the influx of crowds on weekends and being that it was a holiday weekend made…
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High Island Birding & Marc and Eliana’s Visit
*Extremely photo heavy post—write-up at the end. Thought about making it two posts but decided against it* It’s hard to believe it has been nearly a month since Marc and Eliana came to visit on their way to Alaska. Processing the photos took far longer than I had planned and so last weekend I made a point to get them completed. I’d processed a handful for Eliana to use on social media when they were in the area but beyond that I didn’t get far. And I’m only sharing a smidgen of what I took over the three days they were in Houston. For those unfamiliar with Marc and Eliana,…
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Overnight on the Four Notch Loop/Lone Star Trail
Last weekend we made it happen—we got out and did our second backpacking trip with Forest. If you remember last year’s trip, well, we intended to make another trip much sooner than we did. But finally, we made it out and did another overnight with Forest. Now, Forest loves to hike and camp and any time we bring it up that we may be going camping or hiking he gets very excited and happy at the prospect. So, when camping plans go awry due to weather conditions it dampers his mood a bit. It seems like every weekend these days it appears that a chance of rain is in the…
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Along the Lone Star Trail | Four Notch Section
Over the weekend we got out and stretched our legs a bit on the Lone Star Trail. Chris picked a trail head near Coldspring, NE of I-45. The drive there wasn’t too bad and I want to come back to this section to complete the loop trail here. It would make an excellent day hike or a short overnight hike with Forest. Our plans originally were to backpack over the weekend, do a short mile or two in and camp, but the weather looked sketchy for overnight Saturday/Sunday—turns out we never got that weather so I guess we could have gone. Oh well, you can only go with what the…
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January Camping at Lake Livingston State Park
Unlike last year, this time around there was no burst of caterpillars for spring, no thunderstorm to attempt to obliterate our tent, and the freshly poured concrete for the campsite driveway showed signs of aging from the last year. More importantly, the woods were still brown and leafless for the most part—no coloring of green other than the pine trees and any other evergreen type plant. It did drizzle a little bit and there was quite a bit of fog but overall it was a cozy winter camping event instead of an energetic spring one. While we did end up snagging the same campsite we had last year, we will…
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Nopales Ridge Trail | Lake Brownwood State Park
Ah, let’s flash back to Thanksgiving of 2017 once more to wrap up our hiking adventures there, shall we? We haven’t ventured out much so far this year, though I do have some photos to process for one night of camping a couple of weekends ago. I’m hoping that in a few short weeks the weather will warm up enough that we will want to be venturing out much more often! Actually, it isn’t that the weather hasn’t warmed up (finally!), just that it seems to be that we have inclement weather on the weekends lately, which doesn’t make for a large desire to be outside. Onward to the hike!…
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Fun with a Slackline!
I’ve wanted a slackline for several years now and at Christmas we decided to gift my brother’s family one for when they go camping and Chris bought one for us at the same time. Last weekend we set it up at our campsite at Lake Livingston State Park and had some fun! Let’s just say I have even more respect for Philippe Petit of Man on Wire fame. Woo boy, is this hard but fun! Chris did end up stretching out another rope up top and I did get better with balancing. I tried with shoes on too but I like the feeling of going without shoes as you are…
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The Council Bluff and Texas Oak Trails | Lake Brownwood State Park
It was brisk when we set off on the Council Bluff Trail the day after Thanksgiving. Forest was on foot, something becoming more common these days, but Chris wore the toddler carrying pack just in case. Sometimes Forest is more adventurous and can finish an entire hike but other times he starts slowing day and dilly-dallying and soon enough he asks to get in the carrier. The trail was gorgeous to start, with prickly pears finding ways to adorn themselves to rocks and crannies wherever they could deem suitable. It wasn’t a big climb up to the top of the Council Bluffs trail, just enough to feel the burn in…
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Thanksgiving at Lake Brownwood State Park
It’s a full month later and I’m finally settling down to write about our camping trip to Lake Brownwood State Park. We were supposed to go to Mission Tejas State Park but Chris received an email a couple of weeks prior to the date that the park did not have electricity—including the bathrooms. Now, you are probably thinking, didn’t you do two thru-hikes and deal without electricity??, but that was without a 3 year old and it wasn’t at Thanksgiving when we were trying to make a decent meal. We’ve done front country camping without electric before at our campsite but there was always a bathroom. Plus, we had invited…
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The Importance of Public Lands
A post shared by Patagonia (@patagonia) on Dec 4, 2017 at 3:54pm PST I have never been to southern Utah. My only experience with Utah has been to SLC and some areas around the Wasatch but I’ve been to plenty of other public lands (local, state, and federal) and what happened yesterday is sickening. When shit hit the fan on election day 2016 I knew we were in for it with the environment and public lands, not to mention so many other things we’ve been watching go down during the last year. It’s sickening, enraging, frustrating, and all around awful. And I keep wondering when the insanity will end but…