When we were on the trail we had tossed around the idea of going back to Florida to photograph ghost orchids and see friends or do a big Texas trip. We initially tried to get our friend Eliana to come with us on a road trip from Florida to Texas if we went to Florida, but due to some personal commitments it just wasn’t going to work out. Plus, we decided that a road trip to Texas would be a great portfolio building opportunity. We have plenty of Florida nature photos but we need some Texas stuff.

Texas is a gigantic state and we really hadn’t explored all that much of it. I went camping with my parents while growing up and we did some local state parks and a few further away. My brother and I would spend hours riding our bikes along the trails. There are a couple of places within short driving distance that we want to hit before we go, LBJ Grasslands and Lake Mineral Wells State Park. We will also hit up Caddo Lake when we visit Michelle & John Paul. Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in Texas!

So, our itinerary for our trip is going to be:

We bought a big car camping tent, an air mattress and a fan today. This is going to be a far cry from carrying everything on our backs. It’s definitely not going to be ‘roughing it’, but I am looking forward to it anyway.

We aren’t leaving for a few more weeks, but we’ll blog from the road where we can find WiFi.

When we came back to town I asked my brother and dad where some good places to hike were and one place they mentioned was Tandy Hills. This park is very close to where my parents grew up in E. Ft. Worth and where my grandad still lives and I had no idea this park even existed. It is tucked away in the Meadowbrook subdivision, which is a nicer, historic part of the area (go a few blocks and it might not be so great of an area) and once you get in to the park you don’t realize you are surrounded by the city. Well, except from some trash that you come across.

I went to their website to scout the park out and found out they had trout lilies and the nodding ladies tresses orchid. Very cool! So, yesterday we went off to find the trout lilies since Chris hadn’t gotten to see them fully open. After doing some research the ones we found appear to be Erythronium albidum.

There were hundreds of them in the area we found them in.

This is what the park area looks like…

and then to the west is downtown Fort Worth.

Not sure what these red berries are, but they were very pretty.

We went to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on Thursday…those photos are to come.

It feels like forever since I’ve written here. I better get used to it—you too—because after looking at our proposed stops it appears I might only be on once a week or even a bit longer than that.

After leaving the Dallas side of the family on Tuesday morning we drove to East Texas, near Tyler, to see one of my bff’s Michelle at her house. We left early in order to beat the snow that was moving from the west across the DFW metroplex. We made it to Terrell, just east of Dallas on I-30, when the snow started. It snowed the entire day and melted as it hit the ground, that is until about 4pm when it decided to start sticking. Then, my friend, it was snowball fight time!

It was so beautiful to watch it start accumulating. We were at Michelle’s mom and dad’s house, which is five minutes from hers, and they have a huge picture window in their living room. They get a ton of birds in the yard, cardinals and bluebirds and others, and seeing them playing in the snow was magical.

Chris and Michelle started a snowball war…

It started sticking more and we went back to Michelle’s house because her husband John Paul was home. It was more snow fun over there:

John Paul…

Kylen, their daughter, throwing her own mini-snowball. She wanted to join in the fun!

Michelle made a really large one to try to get back at Chris; he was throwing some doozies!

This is one of my favorite photos I took of Kylen because she was so interested in the camera and her cute little face makes me smile. She’s a sweet little girl.

It was a fun overnight trip, one I really wish I could do more often. We drove all sorts of backroads through there, looking for birds. The bluebirds were really cool, and I don’t recall seeing them before. However, we both talked about how much we see that we didn’t ‘see’ before when we were here. Like, how many red tail hawks are around or the roadrunners, too. We even saw a merlin on the interstate on the ride home.

It’s been a busy week here. We spent a lot of time and money yesterday buying food for our maildrops. We’re putting them together today; we ended up with 11. We started buying at Sam’s Club, then Walmart, Whole Foods and Tom Thumb because each place didn’t have everything we needed. We’re doing a time lapse of putting it all together so we’ll show that soon.

Two weeks until we leave!

As we wind down our first week here in Texas, time is inching closer to when we leave for Georgia for the Trail. We’ve tentatively set the date for starting for the weekend of the 13th of March. With all of the snow that has fallen this month and in January, it appears the trail conditions are fairly bad, especially in the higher elevations of North Carolina and up the trail.

We experienced the blow-downs here and there are a lot of them on the AT in GA and NC right now, though local trail associations are clearing them out as they can.

I think we’ve convinced my uncle and my dad to drive us out there to start. We’ll be paying for gas, of course, but it seemed to be the most feasible way to do things. We’d originally thought to fly out and then find a ride from the Atlanta airport to Amicalola Falls State Park, but the ease of being driven to the approach trail at the park sounds much better.

I also like the idea of having my dad out there to see us off. He can take photos and assure my mom we’re going to be alright.

After doing some hiking around here the past few days I already know that the hike up the approach trail is going to kick our butts. We are going to be craving some straight sections and downhills after awhile, but eventually our quads, calves and shins will get used to the abuse and carry us through.

So far we’ve either had people think we’re insane or they’ve been a bit jealous that we’re going. Sometimes I think we’re insane, but mostly I’m looking forward to being out in the woods. After downgrading everything we have in our life I’m finding some of the consumerism around here overwhelming. And I want to go in every store and buy something. HA! It’s a strange combination, feeling like there is just too much ‘stuff’ but then also craving to buy something. I could have bought out REI, or at least the womens clothing section. I think most of it is a novelty of seeing all of these places I haven’t seen in so long as Florida doesn’t have the urban sprawl that Texas has. Don’t get me wrong, Florida has sprawl, but it also has a limited amount of space to build. There is just store after store here and oh, Mexican food on every corner.

As for seeing Mexican on every corner, it is kinda nice to see things written in Spanish, too. I had gotten used to seeing Pollo Tropical restaurants and then billboards written in Spanish and Spanish on just about everything in Miami, but Spanish is finally becoming more prevalent in North Texas, too. I kinda miss the cultural diversity. It is much more separate here, particular parts of town and not everyone mixed into one big lump of a county.

I was on Whiteblaze.net earlier and found a cool site called Trail Phone where people call in and give trail reports. It is really awesome! I don’t know if we’ll use it or not, but I like the idea of calling in and giving a minute report on what’s going on.

I guess I’m about done with my rambling for today. We’re spending all day tomorrow doing our mail drop planning since we’ll have some quiet time. We may end up buying food for the drops as well if we have the time. It’s supposed to snow or ice on Tuesday or Wednesday and we’d planned to go to East Texas to visit my friend Michelle so hopefully we don’t get snowed out.

Where is the 70*?

We finally made it to DFW today around 5pm. The perfect time for traffic. We had smooth sailing the entire trip until we hit Dallas rush hour and then a few key places near my parents house in Tarrant county.

I have to be honest, it was hard to leave Florida. When we passed Pensacola and into Alabama I felt very sad. Through Alabama and Mississippi, where we stayed last night, I felt lost. It subsided a little once we entered the western part of Louisiana and then, finally, east Texas. But, it feels weird being back home.

It’s home, but not home. A limbo state. And there is snow on the ground and it’s cold. In Ft. Lauderdale it will probably be 70 or so. Bummer.

The cats survived the car ride and we ended up not letting them out until we got to the hotel and then to my parents house. The hotel was ok for them but the house here is not good for them. My parents have two Boston terriers that just want to play and chase and the cats are not into that. I think they will come around with the other cats, but they are scared of the dogs. Which is a little odd because they lived with a big pit bull for a year and a half, but Baloo didn’t chase them.

Hopefully in a few days they will calm down and be normal again and the dogs will get some discipline and learn not to mess with the cats.

Tomorrow we have to take care of chores: insurance, phone, a trip to REI and some plants we brought with us that have to go into my brother’s greenhouse.

Did I forget to mention that it is cold? I don’t have much winter clothes.

I have gotten to see Zoe, but she doesn’t like me too much. She doesn’t remember me and all she wants is Mimi, my mom. It’s Mimi, Mimi, Mimi all around here. With a smidge of Paw Paw. (Or Pa Pa?) Oh, boy, what a handful she is! Tomorrow we’ll get to see Ashleigh.

More tomorrow. I need to take some photos. Chris saw some roadrunners today. I missed them.

Growing up, I always thought Christmas would be the same. There would be lots of presents, good food, lounging around and lots of laughter. After I got married, Thanksgiving morphed into one of my favorite holidays and Christmas was pushed aside. Part of this was the whole sharing of families deal that comes with any married couple. The only good part about that was the families were separated by three counties, not three states. The bad part was that we had to fly out there and shuffle around.

So, as I’ve gotten older Christmas has changed. Part of it is that instead of it being grey and the landscape mostly dead, everything is green and more times than not it can reach 80* during the day. We went home for our first two married Christmases, Chris was in grad-school and I had a job that was flexible with holiday time. But, the weather up in Melbourne was cooler and it tended to feel a little more like Christmas.

Once we moved to Miami, Christmas changed. It was hot. I was wearing shorts, we didn’t have a tree and since we both had jobs that were relatively new we couldn’t go home. Honestly, that was probably the suckiest Christmas ever. I know, I know, there are suckier Christmases in the world—I could’ve been starving or poor or who knows what else—but, for me, it wasn’t Christmas.

I don’t think I’ve been home for Christmas since that last time when we lived in Melbourne, mostly due to work circumstances, but if we go home it is for Thanksgiving.

The other big thing that I didn’t realize would change is the presents. There is nothing to give! Everyone has everything! It’s annoying to have to wrap up a shirt or something of that manner and not have a gift that is meaningful to give. Presents have morphed into a bigger gift such as buying a new SLR camera a few years ago or this year when we bought two photographs from some photographers we really like and enjoy. But, it isn’t the same. The only good part of this is that my niece Zoe is getting to be of the age where I can get her things she will enjoy. I was terribly tempted to get her a bunny costume a la A Christmas Story but dad got me out of the idea. I mean, I did want to be that aunt! At least she’s a girl and not a pre-teen boy, right?

A few Christmas memories that stand out:

• Getting tennis rackets. Dad took my brother, Curt, and I to the old tennis courts at my old high school (then my future high school) and we played some form of tennis that involved hitting a ball across the court. Oh, I also remember my dad finding some teenage love note stuck in the wire fence around the court and then didn’t let us read it!!
• Opening up a box and finding out that I really did get the leather jacket I’d been eyeing at the mall. My parents really tricked me on that one! I honestly thought it was a lost cause. I wore that sucker until it had a hole in the left sleeve.
• Watching my brother set up this race track and then helping him play with it as the cars as went round and round and I think we made loops and tried to get them to fly off.
• As we got older we always got one big movie of the year. I’m sure at first they were VHS and moved to DVDs later, but as we started opening presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day we would open the movie and then watch the movie that night as we snuggled down on the couch with our dog Sandy. I’m sure we fell asleep mid-way through sometimes.
• One year, in highs school, my friend Erika and I went and sat on Santa’s lap. My mom had been lamenting that we hadn’t had a Santa photo in a few years and how it was sad we were growing up so I surprised her with a photo of us. She cried happy tears!
• At least once, maybe twice, my Grandad took my brother and I out to go shopping for our parents at the Parks mall in Arlington sometime during our two weeks off before Christmas. This is (was?) a big two story mall that had a ton of shops. I remember walking all around the stores, I’m sure Grandad was entirely tired, and Curt and I would pick out gifts to give to our parents. The only thing that I remember buying was a clay coffee mug with a bluebonnet on it for my mom. I’m fairly certain dad got a shirt or maybe something Dallas Cowboys related. I also remember buying a lot of candy in the candy store for my brother.
• Oh, how could I forget…Babysitters Club books. I think I read books 1-4 and 9-12, the two sets I got, by the time I returned to school. I still have them, tattered covers and all. That was 5th grade, I think the real turning point of my bookwormishness.

Those are just a few things that I can pull out of my brain right now. I know there are others. Putting tinsel on the tree. Mom, Curt and I decorating the tree while dad was t.v. in the evening. Going to my grandmothers house in the afternoon for more present opening and eating oh-so-delicious turkey and dressing.

Ah, that is Christmas.