Travel & Places
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Oh, Florida.
This isn’t Craig Pittman’s Oh, Florida! This is I have no words for what is likely to happen to my favorite state, our friends, our former coworkers, our favorite places and spaces, and everything we love in Florida. Harvey was literally in my backyard and yet this feels so much more personal. It doesn’t help to see pictures coming out of the BVI of what Irma did there. I went to Tortola and Virgin Gorda with my parents and brother in 1996 for my parent’s 20th anniversary so those places have memories for me as well. I didn’t—couldn’t—watch the tv coverage from Harvey. I suspect I won’t be able to…
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Lake Explorations at Brazos Bend State Park
As I mentioned in last week’s post about Brazos Bend State Park, there are plenty of alligators at this park to oogle at. Elm Lake and 40-acre Lake would be the primary places to see alligators but the smaller lakes host alligators, too. Alligator gar Chris spotted this quickly on one of the little docks on Elm Lake. Thalia dealbata Of course there was some fishing time put in on 40-acre Lake! Yellow-crowned night heron Yellow bladderwort Yellow and purple bladderwort Dragonflies were very active in the wetlands. I really need to get a dragonfly identification book. I am awful at telling the difference between anhingas and cormorants, especially from…
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Camping at Lake Livingston State Park
Roadkill speckled kingsnake Roadkill garter snake Our camping excursion for the end of March was over to Lake Livingston State Park. I hadn’t been since I met Keely there in 2013 and it was Chris’ and Forest’s first time. This state park is one of the few in Texas that allowed advance spot selection when you reserved your site—usually you have to take the luck of the draw when you arrive. Apparently this is a feature that is going to be available at more state parks later this year, something we are thrilled about. We’ve been frustrated by this lack of ability since we’ve returned to Texas and it was…
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Sea Center Texas
Me: Aww, I’ll take a photo of Forest looking at the turtle. *Looks through camera* ahhhhhh, nooo, don’t touch the turtle! Kids are fast. The eel was ‘spaghetti’ according to Forest! Chris has been working in the Freeport area over the last week so last weekend Forest and I went down to visit him. My original plans were to go down on Friday night but I came down with some kind of stomach bug so the trip was delayed until Saturday morning. It has been several years since I went down to that area, I once went to the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory with Keely and went and saw the…
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Thanksgiving Camping Part III | South Llano River State Park
When we woke up Saturday morning we weren’t sure how Forest was going to be feeling but he started the morning cheerfully and seemed to have recovered from whatever had made him ill the night before. It was still dreary outside, though the rain seemed to not be threatening any longer. We moved slowly around the campsite that morning, waiting to see how Forest would be, and when it was evident he was doing ok we looked on the trail map for a hike to take before lunch. The West Canyon Loop Trail looked long enough to get our blood flowing but short enough and close enough to camp in…
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Wildlife at South Llano River State Park
Aside from the plethora of Rio Grande turkey, deer were quite common in the state park as well. It was easy to spot them, especially in the evenings. We stopped at several of the bird blinds set up in the park and watched various cardinal, warblers, and other little brown jobbers feasting on the bird seed left for them and bathing in the bubbling water containers. We saw the western scrub jay and several of its friends and family members on our Saturday morning hike, where they were rowdy alongside the trail as they busted through the Ashe juniper scrub. The highlight of the trip was actually the trip to…
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Thanksgiving Camping Part II | South Llano River State Park
The sunshine from Thanksgiving Day had disappeared when we woke up on Friday morning. It was cloudy and dreary outside and quite chilly. When I packed for the trip I overloaded on clothes for Forest and blankets for sleeping. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to convince Forest to wear a hat but in the end he managed to keep it on. I think he was actually cold and realized he was warm and cozy with the hat on. After sleeping in for awhile and being a little lazy in the tent that morning we managed to get up and eat breakfast before deciding on our…
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Thanksgiving Camping Part I | South Llano River State Park
Thanksgiving, and our typical camping ritual, came as a much needed respite this year in the post-election angst and haze of the last few weeks. Weather is always the factor on if a camping trip will happen this time of year; last year we were rained out and changed our plans for a weekend in Galveston. It appeared that the weather was going to mostly cooperate so we headed off for South Llano River State Park which is west of San Antonio off of I-10 near the town of Junction. The drive out on Thursday went as smoothly as it could go with a stop at Buc-ees to pick up…
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Hiking at Martin Creek Lake State Park
On our way up to Caddo Lake we passed a sign for Martin Creek Lake State Park. It looked enticing so when we were deciding what to do on Sunday morning, stay near Caddo and find something to do or head back towards home and do something in another park, we opted to check out this park before we hit up lunch in the town of Henderson. As we turned down the park road I saw that the lake had a power plant on the opposite shore. When we checked in at the park office the trees shielded most of the view so I put the idea of camping at…
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Caddo Lake Hiking
There are just handful of trails at Caddo Lake State Park and it was easy to cover them all in a short amount of time. Surprisingly there was a good amount of terrain change on the trails, at least for this part of Texas. That’s because there are quite a bit of slope forests in the region associated with creek systems. We had to split our hiking time up between my parents so that one of them stayed back to watch their Boston terrier, Daisy. Mom hiked with us Friday afternoon after we’d set up camp and we promptly got lost on the trails because they weren’t labeled appropriately. Luckily…