Travel & Places
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Paddling Galveston Island State Park
Last weekend Chris and I drove to Galveston for a short weekend stay over the Labor Day holiday. We headed for Galveston Island State Park to kayak their paddling trails on the bay side of the park. I hadn’t even used my kayak since getting it last Christmas and Chris hadn’t taken his out in awhile either. We launched from the Jenkins Bayou trailhead, driving the truck down a narrow two-track road to the launch to drop our kayaks off before parking back up the way in the parking lot. This made it a lot easier than wheeling our kayaks down the road like we’d thought we were going to…
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Cibolo Creek
I’m trying to finish going through some photos from Memorial Day weekend when we went to the Texas Hill Country. The first part of the weekend happened to be a little rainy. One of those days we stopped by Cibolo Creek a place we’d been to before three years ago when we did a Texas road trip, camping at various state parks from the Panhandle to the Texas coast. The nature center had changed a bit since we’d visited, a new building for nature education was built and the road entrance was improved considerably. While the creek itself was flowing rather lazily at the time we went, there was evidence…
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Cedar Falls Trail | Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas
Last weekend we were in Arkansas for a short vacation with my family. Saturday was the day they had to vacate the rental house on the lake and everyone else headed home for DFW while Chris and I were staying until Sunday. We weren’t quite sure where to go, wanting to take pictures, do a short hike, and sight-see. My brother mentioned he’d initially wanted to stay up near Petit Jean State Park and visit other areas nearby, but had changed the plans in order to simplify the issue of having to change locations every few days. So, Chris and I decided to check out the park and then see…
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Austin In A Day
Last Sunday I made a very quick trip over to Austin to spend the day with my friend Rosemarie. We were college friends, having met aboard the Texas Clipper II when we sailed the summer before our freshman year in college. She’s from a town just outside of Austin but now lives in California and had come to visit her family for two weeks. We met at the Treaty Oak, a tree I’d heard about but had not visited. I found it tucked between parking lots and a shopping center, so it was hard to imagine the many other oaks that used to surround this now lone oak. After spending…
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Evening On Top of Aasgard Pass | Enchantment Lakes
Pitching our tent on top of the Pass turned out to be perfect. We found an out of the way alcove, pitched the tent and took an afternoon nap. I alternated between reading and napping and of course poking my head out to check on our gear in case the goats were out snacking on it or our food. Chris saw some other folks climbing one of the mountains nearby so he followed in their tracks after dinner in order to try to see about taking sunset photos. I can’t remember if it was a success or not, but I’m sure the view was even better a few hundred feet…
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View From Aasgard Pass | Enchantment Lakes
I stared at the snow covered peak in the far background on the right for a long time. It looked gigantic, threatening, exciting. I later determined it was Glacier Peak. When we arrived back at Aasgard Pass we stopped to take a short break and take in the view. I hadn’t taken any photos on our summit, having been tired and ready to filter water at one of the lakes. That afternoon we were planning on descending and camping somewhere down at Colchuck Lake but I decided that we should camp up top, enjoy the view through the evening, especially since we had the permits to be up there. So…
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Return Traverse Of Upper Enchantments
Since it is coming up on almost a year since our trip to Washington I thought it wise to start finishing up these photos. This is our walk back towards Aasgard Pass through the Upper Enchantments, showing some of the area that I didn’t cover on our trip into the lakes. The pink on the snow is snow algae, also called watermelon snow. Going back through these photos makes me wish I was out adventuring somewhere. Maybe sometime later this summer or the fall.
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Afternoon at Lost Maples | Late Spring
Over Memorial Day weekend we headed off towards the Texas Hill Country west of San Antonio to do a little exploring. Our original intentions were to hit up Government Canyon State Natural Area since we always seemed to drive past it for other parks further west. Well, the weather decided not to play nice that weekend. Only days before we had been planning on kayaking along the Guadalupe River but a call to an outfitter and checking the river levels online revealed the river was a bit dry for running the river where we were planning. Then storms came through two days in a row causing flooding. Then there was…
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Natives of Texas Nursery | Kerrville, Texas
Last weekend while in the Hill Country we wanted to stop at a couple of nurseries to scope out what might be for sale in a different region than where we are in southeast Texas. We found a very tiny place near Bandera with a couple of cacti that were of interest, but didn’t buy anything. Google search and maps revealed not too many places and most of the ones that popped up were closed on Sunday, which is when we wanted to go. I found Natives of Texas and it said they were open on Sunday but I called just to verify before we left Boerne (apparently that is…
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Hohenberger Farmstead on the Old San Antonio Road
If you’ve ever driven around Texas for any length of time you’ll likely find yourself passing a brown sign pointing to a historical marker off to the side of the road. Many times it just faces a field, but sometimes they are in front of actual buildings. Chris and I were driving from Fredericksburg to Old Tunnel State Park on the Old San Antonio Road when we saw a long stone wall that went on for perhaps a mile. Then we came upon this house and since we had a bit of time to kill before getting to the state park I had Chris turn around so we could check…