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Austin needs a cool symbol like Portland has, PDX, which is their airport code. Why? Austin is what I feel like Portland would be, minus all the rainy weather. I guess Austin has SXSW and ACL, but they don’t quite flow into Austin itself. Austin is in general known to be weird, it’s a fairly liberal area in one of the most conservative states. It is definitely weird.

And there is a lot of traffic. Not that the other major cities in Texas don’t have traffic, but there are no large loops or bypasses around downtown, you pretty much go straight through it.

Anyway, we were there last week for a few days for a wetland training course. Now, I know wetlands, I focused on them in college, did some work with them in Florida and took another training course in Florida—but that little certificate is still in our storage unit in Florida—so I really don’t have ‘proof’ I took it. Plus my memory is fuzzy and I don’t remember exactly what type of training it was. So, off we went to Austin to learn all about wetland delineation.

Biologists—future biologists—wetlands are where it is at. Yes, there are lots of other environmental areas, but if you can delineate a wetland and do the permitting for it, you are golden. All people want to do are build on or around them and in general they need a permit for that.

But, I digress…Austin.

Because the class went primarily from 7:30 am until 6pm at night, with a lunch break, we did not get out to see the Treaty Tree, which was something we didn’t know about, or if we did, the information fell out of our brains the moment we left 6th grade Texas history. We did make it out to eat at a few places as Austin has a diverse culinary scene and is very friendly to vegetarians. A coworker recommended Kerbey Lane Cafe and we went to the original one on Kerbey Lane and it was excellent. We tried an Indian place the next night and then went near downtown the last night to Chuy’s. It is a fairly well known Tex-Mex restaurant and I was glad we went because they were vegetarian friendly. You may remember the incident the Bush twins had there when they were going to t.u.

The Texas capitol building as we drove by at 45mph (or maybe 35mph?). No slowing down as a cop was sitting at the corner. I’ve never had much of an opportunity to drive down I-35, usually only went on I-45 during college to and from Galveston back to DFW, but I do remember driving by the capitol when I was…mmmm, maybe late elementary or early middle school to visit a great aunt on my dad’s side who lived in Austin. I remember it as a spur of the moment day trip, three hours from DFW. But, really, I have not had much sightseeing in Austin.

We were done a little early yesterday and if we’d thought about it, because we did know about it, we would have taken some time and gone to visit the whooping cranes that are wintering in Austin right now.

So much to do in the Austin area…hopefully we can get back out that way soon.

Did you miss the first post? Read Part I here

Inside the cave, which really isn’t much of a cave, I couldn’t help but think it would make a great shelter. Which is probably what local tribes and other visitors, including animals, have done over the years.

As you can see, someone named Nichols visited from Bastrop sometime in 1883. This reminded me of seeing William Clark’s signature at Pompey’s Pillar in Montana in 2008.

This area is subject to flash flooding; several years ago they had some major flooding and had to sweep mud and debris out of the caves and do rehab on the trails before opening them back up.

Passiflora affinis. Originally I thought this looked like lutea but going off of the plant list for the preserve I have figured otherwise.

The crinkly aspect of this fern made for a good portrait of it. My best guess is that it is a southern shield fern, Thelypteris kunthii.

This set of leaves has enticed me to want to start a leaf portrait series. I did not look close enough as I was taking these to tell you what they were. I was mostly drawn to the lines and shadows.

I sat down for awhile waiting for Chris and these steps had me entranced for a few moments, thinking of postcards and posters of places in England and France, tiny little gardens with weathered stones. I almost let the moment go and did not photograph them. I’m glad I did.

A mixture of detritus and the water passing through the area. Sometimes I wonder how long leaves and debris sit before moving, decaying, or falling into another position. Does an animal walk by and brush up against it, will rain drops move it mere centimeters or a flood displace it entirely?

This little stump was beautifully textured and again sent me into a trance, reminding me of a stump that used to be in front of my grandmother’s house when she lived there. They don’t even look the same, but it was a stump and that is what memory it triggered.

I love capturing these little scenes, the ones we might walk by and not notice. Or if we notice we only think about it in passing. I’ve decided to pay more attention to them, call them small still lifes and perhaps compose some for use on Wildscape Photo.

I hope you enjoyed the little ‘trip’ to Westcave. If you are ever in Austin, do go see the three parks in this area. They are a real treat and when the weather is warm I want to swim in the Pedernales River!

Tucked away next to the Pedernales River just west of Austin, near the town of Bee Cave, is the Westcave Preserve. Westcave is a non-profit entity run in coordination with the Lower Colorado River Authority. Nearby there are two other beautiful parks, the Hamilton Pool Preserve and the Milton Reimers Ranch Park. One could spent an entire weekend exploring all three parks.

The photo above is an overlook at Westcave peering down at the Pedernales River.

The park is available to the public by tour only on weekends or with a school group during the week. But for $5 a person, we felt the tour price was well worth it! The tours last about two hours, and we did not feel rushed. We were able to chat with the park ranger about the various botanical and wildlife interests within the park and nearby areas. I think we kept him engaged, asking questions that only nerdy biologists would ask! There was only us and a family of four on our tour, but I imagine in warmer weather it would be busier. I was a little surprised it wasn’t busy since it was New Years weekend.

The tour starts at the visitors center and traverses the ashe juniper and live oak habitats on the same level as the environmental center, but as we descended we entered a riparian type ecosystem of ferns, sycamores and cypress. It was beautiful! The Ashe Juniper-Live Oak complex is utilized by the endangered gold cheek warbler and apparently a few birds have been known to nest at the preserve.

At the end of the trail we reached the ‘cave’, which is really a grotto, and then on the north side of the canyon is a deeper cave like structure, really a large room.

Because the group on the tour was small we were able to take our time to take the photos we wanted. Often on tours we are rushed and cannot experience a place very well, particularly if it is crowded.

Before the preserve was founded it was visited by many people, swimmers, picnickers and people who eventually, both purposefully and unknowingly, caused some damage to the typical structures you see in caves like stalactites and stalagmites.

In the next post I will show a few photos from inside the cave as well as some closer still-life shots of the surrounding area. It was wonderful to be able to stop and look at a tiny little scene and have the time to shoot it. I can’t wait to show you those!

And if anyone cares, I found the management plan for Westcave Preserve.

A few weekends ago, New Years Eve weekend to be exact, we stopped by Westcave Preserve on our way home. We’d been by there a year before but did not have time to go in. I will have more on Westcave itself in two later posts, but this one is specifically about the beautiful maidenhair fern.

The fern grows in all sorts of rocky outcroppings, and other nooks and crannies along the creek at Westcave. The creek flows maybe a quarter of a mile before emptying into the Pedernales River.

It really makes pathways it lines a magical place.

The Texas Vascular Plant Checklist lists one other species for Texas, Adiantum tricholepis or the hairy maidenhair fern. A Google search of that species is very intriguing and now I would love to see it. The USDA plant database has it listed as only existing in Medina county here in Texas…and only in Texas in the U.S.!

I almost think it is my favorite fern, and yet I saw a photo of a giant leather fern on Flickr the other day and I was reminded of how much I love them too. I think I just love ferns!

If you missed the first part of this series go here.

On New Years Eve I slept in and Chris got up early to take sunrise photos. Once up and breakfast was eaten, we headed off for the eastern side of the loop around the rocks. It was a gorgeously clear day again, perfect really.

Initially we were going to completely go all the way to the east on the loop but we came to the junction of the Turkey Pass trail and thought it looked good, a cut through up to another trail and we could catch the eastern loop up there. We passed this beautiful pond on our way through.

And just to the right of the pond was Turkey Peak.

The south face of Enchanted Rock. In the distance we saw other hikers descending from the rock, in a steep spot. The man in the group was cautiously inching his way down while the woman had resorted to scooting down. The day before we’d been in a similar situation and I’d debated scooting, finally opting not to. Once down on the ground I looked back up, incredulous that we’d come down that slope!

The Turkey Pass trail was quiet, passing one couple and then I think we met up with the steep slope couple towards the top of the trail. This area was definitely not where the main action was going on and would be a great place to explore and enjoy some peace and quiet in the park.

This oak and little rock pool area was beautiful. A small spring was flowing through here. If I’d of had a book and was not going to be hiking I might have spend a few hours perched under the tree.

I’m always surprised to see clear running streams/springs in Texas, which I’m not sure why I am surprised. Perhaps because in Florida I was not accustomed to seeing springs unless we were in far northern Florida.

We walked to the far northern boundary of the park on the loop, then cutting south through Moss Lake primitive camp and then to the Echo Canyon trail. Somehow we ended up off trail and found ourselves making our own trail—which wasn’t terribly bad because others were coming up the way we’d decided to go down.

It was fun going down this way, hopping over rocks.

Back at camp for lunch we opted for a leisurely afternoon of napping. We’d been planning on staying out for sunset to get some shots for that and we left camp with a couple hours of sun left to scout out a place to go. Unfortunately we left just about the time we both decided to get headaches. I’d popped some medicine but Chris hadn’t and his headache become consistently worse as we hiked on.

We did manage to find some beautiful views by taking a trail that was probably not a trail, because it dead ended and we ended up rock hopping and slab walking.

This beautiful slab was begging for its photo to be taken. Chris found a set of stairs leading up to the top where I ended up laying for awhile. Chris needed to lay too but he opted for down in the shade beneath the slab. An animal must have also found it to be a nice spot because scat was at the top too.

Our sunset expedition was called off when Chris’ headache worsened. Instead we hastened back for camp where he hit the tent and was miserable for a few hours before medicine kicked in. I made dinner for myself and sat outside reading by lamplight. I’d gone to bed too early the previous night and didn’t want to do so again. Eventually Chris emerged to eat his own dinner and he opened the bottle of Champagne he’d brought for New Years.

We knew 2012 had arrived by the loud raucous that occurred as the clock struck midnight. Yes, we’d gone to bed a few hours prior to that! I was a struck with sadness in my sleepy haze by the thought of another year coming in. It made me a little sad to know that this would be the first year in two years with no long distance adventures. I let the sadness go quickly because I was soon back asleep.

Enchanted Rock is a place that is beckoning to be visited again, perhaps on a more quiet weekend where we can enjoy it in peace.

Unfortunately I did not get to hug this one as you can see it is/was behind a fence. This is a photo of Chris and I on the Florida Trail last January, almost a full year ago, with The Senator.

The Senator is no more.

You see, this estimated 3,500 year old bald cypress tree, and 5th oldest tree in the world, burned down Monday morning. Burned down.. It’s almost difficult to fathom. I’m part of a swamp hiking group on Facebook and I happened to check my email Monday morning with a notification stating that the tree had been burned. I quickly went to search for news stories, hoping it was a pathetic rumor, but in fact it was horrifically true.

Somehow this tree had made it through Florida’s logging heyday. And if you look at that link, there’s a gigantic cypress being logged in the photos…devastating what we lost and didn’t realize! We took with it so many countless animals and plants—you can thank the logging of cypress and other hardwoods to the extirpation and probable extinction of the ivory billed woodpecker.

I hugged several large trees last summer. You don’t have to hug a tree, but you should appreciate what you have in nature, because it could be gone. If it isn’t a developer building on an empty lot, it is a potential arsonist ruining something beautiful.

I’m so glad we took the time to detour off the roadwalk we were doing last year on the Florida Trail and to stop in this park to look at The Senator and his neighbor, Lady Liberty. I only wish now that I’d sat there longer and enjoyed the tree a little more.

Last weekend Chris and I decided to go down to Galveston for the weekend. I’d been wanting to see two friends of ours and we decided to invite them to meet us for lunch down on the Seawall, a place called The Spot. It was a common place for us to go during college and a place we like to go when we return for visits.

We met our friends and got to see new babies and chat for awhile during our meal and then afterwards when we walked across the street to the beach. My friend Erika’s daughter, Kayla, had a blast playing in the water and I think it would have been awesome had the weather been warmer and she could have really played more. Everyone had other obligations so we split up after the beach. Chris and I really had no plans. I wanted to walk around on The Strand, go to the beach and just chill.

I didn’t take too many photos on The Strand but as we were walking down to a boutique home design store I looked up on the wall of this building and saw a sign designating the water depth during Hurricane Ike a few years ago. I had Chris stand under it for effect. It is the sign right there under the lamp.

Ike killed a lot of the vegetation on the island causing Galveston to lose many historical live oaks. When you come across Broadway and turn onto 61st, crossing Offats Bayous, to the east there used to be homes lining the bayou with many trees. Those are long gone and it is very strange to see a bare area. Other buildings were lost, and with that places we used to visit are gone, restaurants and the like.

Galveston was always a strange island, you could go a couple blocks and be in not so nice area, drive a few more blocks and be in a nicer and/or historic area and just keep repeating this throughout the island. After the storm it seems, both from visually seeing but also from talking with my friends, that the middle class of Galveston is shrinking. It is quickly becoming more skewed to lower income and the historic upper class that has owned the island for years. And then there are the tourists.

Of course, usually a place has more meaning when the people that assisted with the memories are there. After 10 years most of those people are gone, though some still linger nearby.

Moving on…

I also wanted to go in Col. Bubbie’s, the local army/navy store. When I sailed on the Texas Clipper II during the summer of my freshman year of college I went there to buy some of the uniform I needed to be up to code for the Texas Maritime Academy. The place is wall to wall with old war items from all sorts of countries.

Need a WWII stash of desert cakes?

Or a Confederate frock?

Or perhaps some emergency canned water made in Williamsport, PA. (We liked it because it was made in Williamsport where we worked some this last Fall).

Chris was itching to fish after we had visited The Strand so I let him drive all the way down to San Luis Pass. I had some crocheting to do and he could wade on the back side of the island for awhile.

A few hours later he arrived back at the truck with a bunch of fish. When I went vegetarian I made an option that I would eat fish he caught. And when he made it a few nights later I didn’t even bat an eye. It was so good!

Speckled trout

Sunset was picturesque off to the west and the wading birds added to the scene.

I can’t wait for the weather to warm up a little, I would like to camp on the beach somewhere soon.

This little cactus was not very common at Enchanted Rock but we did see several clumps of it nestled in the rocks. Because I am not very good at cactus identification I Googled and came up with the plant list for the park and narrowed it down from there. Luckily there weren’t many cacti listed. I initially thought it was a Mammillaria species but with some help from a Flickr friend Brad Wilson he corrected me with this species name. I’d initially googled this name with the var. reichenbachii listed and couldn’t find a good comparison photo but without the variety listed it was easy to see that this was probably the right id.

I didn’t take many plant photos as it was not the right season for blooming photos but the texture of cactus is always interesting.

I’m kind of amazed that I grew up in Texas and never visited Enchanted Rock. My parents took us camping a couple times a year but I know we mostly drove within two hours of home. This would have been nearly five hours away, so probably not a feasible trip back then. I had mentioned this park as a place to go on our Texas Roadtrip in September 2010 but for some reason it didn’t make it to our list of places to visit. Well, we finally did make it.

The park itself is in the boondocks between Llano and Fredericksburg, west of Austin. The road the entrance is on has cattle guards on it with signs warning about free range cattle on the roads. I’d posted to Facebook that we were going out there and my friend Sara replied that she was driving down there for the day with her family. I was excited about this because Sara is a friend that I’ve gotten to know through the internet these last few years though we actually know each other from high school. Because I’ve been here-there-everywhere I haven’t had the opportunity to hang out with her in person all that often, it is nice to see her when the opportunity presents itself. In high school we didn’t really know each other that well back then even though we were in the same art class for three years, but it took the internet to realize that we had more in common than we thought. You know, high school and all its weirdness.

We arrived at the park around noon and were stunned to see a line to get into the park. It was New Years weekend after all, but still. This was craziness! Luckily the side coming from Llano was much, much shorter than the side coming from Fredericksburg. A few hours later, on top of Enchanted Rock, we saw the line from Fredericksburg was at least 3/4 of a mile long or more! I suppose that is something good to communicate, that there are that many people willing to wait in line to visit a state park and this isn’t even a touristy commercial park like Disney or Sea World or heck, the mall! But, we were around Austin and well, they don’t have Keep Austin Weird bumperstickers for nothing. It is the eclectic awesome spot of Texas—despite that so-called school that happens to be there. Austinites/Hill Country folks enjoy nature a lot.

We made it in and I gave Sara a call. She was still going to be a few hours so Chris and I set up camp and decided to go explore the area. Little Rock, the ‘smaller’ rock to the west of Enchanted Rock was right behind our campsite so we left straight up from there, building our own pathway as we found it. It was a pretty awesome thing to do!

It was beautiful out and clear, which for the last few weeks it had been cold and overcast. This is what I had been looking for all winter!

From near the top of Little Rock looking over to the east at Enchanted Rock. We had to dip down into a short gap (I like to say gap because it is very A.T.) between the two rocks.

I think this might be the only color photo I took the entire time, an orange sulphur butterfly, a female I believe. I used our Butterflies Through Binoculars Florida edition to figure it out. Colias eurytheme.

We played around on Enchanted Rock or awhile before I texted Sara to figure out where she was. She was still about fifteen minutes from the entrance by this time so we decided to hike half of the loop trail that went around the rocks. By the time we arrived back at camp I phoned Sara and they were on Enchanted Rock enjoying the late afternoon and I invited them to drop by our campsite before they left for home again. About an hour later they showed up and I was glad to sit and chat with them for awhile. Her two sons are super sweet and a bit shy but they really enjoyed playing on and pushing their dad on our hammocks.

Sara and her family didn’t stay long as they still had their nearly five hour drive back to DFW and it was already pushing dark by this time. (I hate winter—dark at 5:30 is not very fun!) We said goodbye and I went off to shower and hopped into bed at a much too early time but spent it reading a book by flashlight. I really need to get a portable battery operated lamp for winter. Chris headed off to take star photography shots. He’s still working on those so I can’t show you them.

And you will just have to wait for the next half of this trip report!