It’s looking more and more like our hike at Lake Somerville State Park two weekends ago is going to be our last hike for a good while. Last weekend we had camping reservations at a state park just an hour from here on the west side of Houston but opted to cancel due to the rain forecast. It was a good decision but I was already concerned about using the bathrooms. Most state parks do a decent job of cleaning up every morning but still…you can only control the surfaces you know, right? And even up to this weekend I thought that maybe we’d get out and go somewhere less…

Yesterday I wanted to get out and do some hiking and thought it would be nice to head west to Lake Somerville State Park. We haven’t been there since I was pregnant with Forest in May 2014! Not for lack of interest, though. Every time we checked into going we would find the state park closed due to one of the various flooding events over the last few years. Harvey did a number on the parks and just within the last month was the Somerville Trailway between the two units open once again. Our last good hike on the trailway was in 2013 with our AT friend Redhat. Wanting to…

Camping two weekends ago at Huntsville State Park was pretty fantastic. The weather was gorgeous for late February and everywhere the signs were out that spring was coming and there was no stopping it. On Saturday we took a 7 mile hike around the lake and got to see what was blooming or beginning to push through the pine needles. Fox Squirrel, Sciurus niger – the squirrels at our campsite was all about looking for whatever scraps might be left from campers. One of them wanted to become our BFF and hop into the food containers which required constant vigilance even if we had the lids on to our food…

Every now and then a hike gets you a glimpse of something wild and interesting. In some areas maybe you get to encounter a large mammal—a bear, maybe a panther or bobcat. Sometimes you just get really cool animal interactions like the time we watched a bald eagle steal a fish from an osprey on the last day of our Florida Trail thru-hike. Occasionally you come across the weirder but still interesting animal presence such as this dead opossum we found on a hike at Huntsville State Park over the weekend. Since we travel at a 5.5 year old’s pace these days we had been stopping and slowing down, and…

We kicked off February with a camping trip to Lake Livingston State Park. It is one of our closer camping locations and thus allows for easy access on weekends when we don’t feel like trekking across the state. In the past we’ve tried to take off work a bit early on Friday to make it a longish weekend at the campsite. We weren’t really able to leave that early this time and so when we arrived it was nearly dark. We would end up setting up the tent in the dark as well as making dinner in the dark. This was something we really couldn’t fathom doing a few years…

I think the word has gotten out about Westcave Preserve—our tour was crowded during our visit in July. Of course it didn’t help that it was the 4th of July weekend when we visited, but still. After you’ve come here several times and basically had a tour to yourself, you get spoiled! We joined the tour and stuck towards the back of the line so Forest could walk slower and we could dawdle just a bit. And we had been here several times so we knew the main spiel already, though of course new things get sprinkled in as the years go on, particularly discussions about floods. Various flooding events…

Let’s go back to Easter weekend this year where I left a post or two incomplete from our trip to Martin Creek Lake State Park. The promise of spring was so bright—plants were blooming, the earth smelled sweet…ahhh, only a few more months away! Annual Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium rosulatum Texas Vervain, Verbena halei Green Antelopehorns, Asclepias viridis Hercules’ Club, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis Black Snakeroot, Sanicula canadensis Lizard’s Tail, Saururus cernuus Sugar Hackberry, Celtis laevigata On the southeast portion of the park is an island that you can access by a pedestrian bridge. At the time we hiked there were portions of the trail that were a big soggy in places and…

Let’s rewind back to early July and our trip to Austin. We visited Westcave one sweltering morning after having not been there for several years. We had some time before our tour to the grotto and cave began so we hiked their upland trail. It was a trail we had not been on before so everything was new to us! Texas Skeleton Plant, Lygodesmia texana Snake Apple, Ibervillea lindheimeri I noticed this plant in the two photos above and was unfamiliar with it. It was obviously a cucurbit of some sort but I had no clue what it was. I was right about the cucurbit part and the plant is…