Texas
-
Thoughts from San Antonio
When we were planning our Memorial Day weekend a back in April I tossed out a variety of places we could go. Our usual westward haunt of Austin was bypassed for San Antonio. In my mind we would stay at a hotel on the periphery and do mostly hiking, with perhaps a jaunt into the heart of the city. Chris had a different idea, though. He tossed out the idea of going to Sea World and staying down on the River Walk. Sea World left a bitter taste in my mouth. I watched Blackfish last year and had pretty much vowed never go visit there again. Ok, so my one…
-
San Antonio Botanic Garden | 2
-
San Antonio Botanic Gardens | 1
-
San Antonio Weekend
There’s a short vlog/synopsis at the front and then a lot of is clips from the San Antonio Botanic Garden, Sea World, and the San Antonio Zoo. There’s a lot more from the zoo…I got a little movie happy on that end. Sorry for the ad, I found a song from Free Music Archive that is supposed to be an Attribution license under the Creative Commons license but You Tube is claiming the owner is monetizing that song—so…I may revise that section soon. A little frustrating! It’s a long one….feel free to skim around! I’ll have some other posts later this week with photos! We had a great weekend and…
-
Camping at Brazos Bend State Park
Last weekend we made it out for our last camping trip of the season. It was borderline too hot and humid anyway, but we toughed it out. There was a chance of rain but nothing appeared until our drive home, thankfully. I would definitely like to visit this state park a few more times with Forest as he grows up. There’s a lot to do at the park with a ton of trails, a small nature center, plus the George Observatory. A lot of the trails were closed this weekend due to recent rains and flooding over the trails, but we made do with more of the front country trails…
-
Thanksgiving Day Hike at Hamilton Pool
On Thanksgiving morning we got up from our hotel in Austin and tried to find something we could take for lunch with us on our day hikes. The only place open was an H-E-B grocery store and we made do with some pre-made sandwiches and random snacks. In hindsight we should have thought it out a little better and brought stuff from home but that’s not what happened. Our goals for the day were to hike at Hamilton Pool and at Reimers Ranch next door with a stop at McKinney Falls State Park on the way home. We ended up ditching Reimers Ranch and only hitting the first and last…
-
Thanksgiving at the Lady Bird Wildflower Center
We arrived at the wildflower center in the early afternoon with the light just right, producing glorious color everywhere we turned. The light made the Virginia creepers at the entrance look spectacular in their fall dress. Virginia creeper might be one of my favorite native vines in the fall. Out and about in the gardens there were quite a bit of butterflies flitting about like this sulphur. And this skipper. I tried to identify it but without a photo of the wings open I am not having much luck. This gulf frittilary was a great ‘old’ friend to see. I think this is a common checkered skipper. Light, the light…slanting…
-
Ahh, The Beach
Even if it was just a 15 minute walk last weekend, it was glorious to walk on the beach. It’s Friday and a holiday weekend here in the U.S. My plans are to go see a movie, do some driving around, maybe some final baby shopping, sleep, and see if I can convince the baby to start making his way out.
-
January at Westcave Preserve
I finally got around to finishing this video I shot back in January when Chris and I were in Austin. I’m having serious outdoor exploration withdrawls these days—the heat paired with being pregnant and unable/not feeling up to hike and get out of town has me missing this kind of stuff. Good thing my yard has a diversity of things to keep me entertained until fall and the baby arrives.
-
Celebrating the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle
Back in the summer of 2000 I did a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle tagging internship with my university, Texas A&M at Galveston. We spent the summer catching sea turtles adjacent to jetties in Sabine Pass, Texas and two other passes in Louisiana. It was there that I fell in love with sea turtles, namely the Kemp’s ridley which is the smallest and most endangered of the sea turtles in the world. I loved them so much ‘Ridley’ became my trail name while on the Appalachian Trail and is still my trail name today. Two weekends ago Chris and I, along with some coworkers, volunteered for the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle…