Thicket of blackberries Prunella vulgaris Salvia lyrata Yaupon flowers Prairie plantain, Arnoglossum plantagineum Looking at a lizard. Five lined skink A Vaccinium in bloom. Wild onion flowers The Pineywoods Nature Trail turned out to be a fascinating trail for us to hike and one that was perfectly suited for Forest to explore on foot. We went through the loop twice over the weekend we were camping and each time saw new things. Forest really enjoyed being able to explore on his own and funnily enough he remembered some key points about where we’d visited on the first round, such as where exactly we had found a green anole on the…

The Trinity Trace Trail meanders from the Pin Oak camping loop on the north end of the park down to the south end of the park, beyond the Hercules Club camping loop. We hiked only on the portion that began between the Piney Shores and Yaupon loops, heading south. I had been on this section before with Keely but I couldn’t remember everything about the loop. In particular, I’d forgotten about the bridge being out and the inability to complete the loop on the southern end. On our way out, behind the Hercules Club camping loop we passed a group of scouts heading north, appearing to go pick up trash.…

*Photo heavy post! Write-up at the end! It’s also long!* Prep and Planning I think we picked the perfect weekend for introducing Forest to backpacking. It wasn’t our longest hike with him ever but we also didn’t want to be too far from the car should we need to hoof it back if something went awry. The weekend before I had seen the 10 day forecast and thought it looked like a promising one for a backpacking trip. The rest of our weekends through April and early May are pretty busy with commitments and Chris heading out of town for work, so unless we planned on doing this when the…

We finally managed to get out for a camping excursion after several months of dormancy in that department. Busy schedules and chilly weather left us without a camping trip on the schedule for December and January and while February warmed up nicely Chris ended up out of town for work for several weekends. We’re sticking closer to this side of Texas for our spring camping trips and we kicked the season off with a trip up to Huntsville State Park. While we’ve hiked here many times, Chris and I have only camped here here once, back in February of 2012. I like that this park is so convenient, only an…

A week ago Sunday, before lunch, we took off for a morning hike. We were cantering down the Chinquapin trail, perhaps a quarter or half mile from the trailhead, when we saw an older gentleman pop up out of the shrubs and back onto the trail. At first I thought we’d interrupted his tree watering moment but he had just stood up from sniffing a flower. The flower in question was lilac and situated just a few feet off trail; he said it was extremely fragrant so we stopped and sniffed too. In chatting with the man we came to find out he was a frequent visitor to the park…

I’ve got photos and stories to write up, but in the meantime I processed the videos and put them into one giant video (18 minutes!) for y’all to enjoy. Lots of cute toddler talk!