Travel & Places
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Lower Fisherman’s Trail | Inks Lake State Park
Cenizo, Leucophyllum frutescens — I think. It looks rather ragged and I can’t figure out anything else that this could be. Fairy-Swords, Myriopteris lindheimeri Small Ballmoss, Tillandsia recurvata Tiny Bluet, Houstonia pusilla Sand Phacelia, Phacelia patuliflora Now that it has been many months and moons since we visited Inks Lake State Park (February 2019), I’m now yearning once again for those spring ephemerals. Though, autumn blooms are coming our way (SOLIDAGO, I SEE YOU!)—to revisit this site now would be an interesting study in contrasts! We hopped onto the Lower Fisherman’s Trail on our way out of the state park after our long weekend camping. You can easily complete a…
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Coconut Point Sanctuary | Melbourne Beach, FL
It’s July 11, 2009, my 29th birthday. At this point we are already full throttle into planning our Appalachian Trail thru-hike. I mean, in the fact that we are pretty sure we are going to quit our jobs and pack away our things in early 2010 and head out on our thru-hike, pending on what our bank account looks like towards the end of the year of course. With that in mind we are kind of on a roll to hit up a lot of places in Florida that we may not see for a while after we move out of the state, including a trip back to the Melbourne…
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Weekend in Austin
Over the 4th of July long weekend, the three of us buckled in and drove over to Austin for the weekend. It had been quite a while since we had just tinkered around Austin without camping plans, so Chris found an available hotel room in north Austin and we set off to do some Austin exploring. I even came up with a list of new things to do after trolling around on Google Maps and checking out various parks, but of course we resorted to going to the places we always go to! And they are good places, of course, but one of these days we’ll manage to see something…
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The Last Green Thread | FL Wildlife Corridor
If you’ve got 17 minutes today, hit play and watch. I have a lot of thoughts about this that I’ll have to expand on another day so I’ll leave it at this.
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Post April Showers at Burroughs Park
*blows dust off of WordPress* Hello there! There comes a point when I take these long breaks from writing here (which I haven’t taken one this long in many years) that at some point I start having a contest with myself to see how long I can go without writing. A week? Can I make it two? Two? Why not go a month? Paired with the sporadic posting from the previous two months before, well, the blog hasn’t really been a priority. Honestly, it still isn’t but I figured I shouldn’t let it lay here floundering in the internet wasteland. So, let’s go back to early April when we made…
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Hiking the Pecan Flats Trail | Inks Lake State Park
This is a longer post because I couldn’t refrain myself from taking all-the-photos! Write-up at the end! Agarita, Berberis trifoliolata Sonchus sp. Tradescantia sp. Cutleaf Evening Primrose, Oenothera laciniata — now that I’ve noticed this I see it everywhere! Drummond’s Phlox, Phlox drummondii Myriopteris sp. More agarita — I loved seeing this in bloom! Texas paintbrush, Castilleja indivisa Allium sp. Shepherd’s-Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris Texas Toadflax, Nuttallanthus texanus Pepperweed, Lepidium sp. Rain Lily, Zephyranthes sp. Dwarf Dandelion, Krigia occidentalis Lace hedgehog cactus, Echinocereus reichenbachii ssp. caespitosus Yellow Stonecrop, Sedum nuttallii Lace hedgehog cactus + yellow stonecrop More lace hedgehog cactus Tradescantia and bluebonnets Tenpetal Anemone, Anemone berlandieri bluebonnets Drummond’s Skullcap, Scutellaria…
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Valley Spring Creek Trail | Inks Lake State Park
Ovate-leaf Cliffbrake, Pellaea ovata Tradescantia sp. Ovate-leaf Cliffbrake, Pellaea ovata Blunt Woodsia fern, Woodsia obtusa Fairy-Swords, Myriopteris lindheimeri Corn Gromwell, Buglossoides arvensis — non-native By far the most popular spot at Inks Lake State Park is the Devil’s Waterhole and Valley Spring Creek Trail. Located at the far northeast end of the park, the area is full of rocky boulders that lure both kids and adults into climbing up on them and when the season is right, swimming in the Devil’s Waterhole. It’s absolutely scenic, if not crowded, and would be a great taste of the park if you don’t have much time to spend or are driving through the…
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Spring Sightings at Huntsville State Park
Let’s switch gears just a bit and return to mid-March and east Texas at Huntsville State Park. We took a three-day weekend and headed off an hour north of the house to this state park. It’s one of my favorites and so easily accessible off of I-45—and it’s huge, in addition to being adjacent to Sam Houston National Forest. I’m lumping all of our hikes together into one post because I didn’t take a ton of photos. And I’m surprised I barely took any photos at our campsite. We were in the Raven Hill camping area at campsite 21 which backed up to a wooded area separating the other loop…
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Early Evening on the Upper Fisherman’s Trail | Inks Lake State Park
Sand Phacelia, Phacelia patuliflora Texas Ragwort, Senecio ampullaceus Shepherd’s-Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris Texas bluebonnet, Lupinus texensis Western Tansy Mustard, Descurainia pinnata Texas Paintbrush, Castilleja indivisa Texas Toadflax, Nuttallanthus texanus Texas Ragwort, Senecio ampullaceus Selaginella corallina We arrived to Inks Lake State Park in late February on an early Friday afternoon. Being as it was Friday, the park itself was rather quiet at first, before the Austin weekend crowd arrived. There were some folks already set up in their RVs, trailers, and tents but otherwise it was a quiet situation. Our campsite was tucked away on a quiet loop towards the back of the park next to a fishing pier and cleaning…
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The Sam Houston Statue
I was overly ambitious when I laid out my 39 Goals for 2019. Most of them are doable but I’ve not been very diligent about planning for them, which is what a lot of them need—a plan for execution. I’d printed the list out but threw it into my to-do list notebook and well, that hasn’t been unfolded. I guess I need to hang it out on my desk at home so I see it. But we finally made one of them happen, visiting the Sam Houston Statue and Visitor Center in Huntsville. It helped that we went after we were done camping at Huntsville State Park and it is…