Texas
-
The San Bernard Oak
Prior to visiting the art show at the Migration Celebration at the San Bernard NWR I took a tour of the San Bernard Oak, the largest live oak in Texas. The trail had been freshly mowed and maintained so it was not nearly as buggy as I was expecting. I took my time, meandering along, snapping photos of the way the light hit the vegetation along the trail. Fairly certain this is a mustang grape… A gas pipeline provided a nice opening for the sun-loving plants to thrive like these Mexican hats Ratibida columnifera. Finally I arrived at the oak tree, however due to the tours (they were mostly self…
-
Spring at Westcave Preserve | Part I
The weekend we went to see the bats we went to Westcave Preserve as well. I think it has turned into our favorite little place to go when in the Austin area. We had hoped to get there again before May to see the chatterbox orchids but alas, that did not happen. Maybe next year! The prickly poppies were putting on a beautiful show and have continued doing so around the state since. Of course I love to get up close and personal with the flowers I take photos of and these were not any different. It was peak bluebonnet season when we went; the flowers were everywhere. I think…
-
An Evening with 1.5 Million Mexican Free-tailed Bats
While in Austin two weekends ago we took advantage of an opportunity to see the colony of Mexican free-tailed bats that live under the Congress Avenue bridge in downtown Austin. We didn’t really do much research when we got there only knowing about when to go (dusk—but earlier to get a spot in the crowd) and the location but when we arrived we quickly realized we didn’t know where to park. We ended up in the Austin American Statesman parking lot, which I am pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be in, but a few others were parked there and a gate was open to the little green space near…
-
Rainy Weekend at Huntsville State Park
Early in the year Chris had scheduled out several camping trips throughout the spring. I had warned that he could potentially be in the field all spring—things hadn’t started up yet and he not received word about work. Even so, he made reservations to many state parks in anticipation of spring wildflower season. So far we’ve had to cancel most of them, but we rescheduled this trip to Huntsville State Park to a weekend sooner then planned since he was going to be off that weekend. Unfortunately a cool front with rain came through causing us to postpone leaving to the campground until early afternoon, when the rains had passed.…
-
Austin
Austin needs a cool symbol like Portland has, PDX, which is their airport code. Why? Austin is what I feel like Portland would be, minus all the rainy weather. I guess Austin has SXSW and ACL, but they don’t quite flow into Austin itself. Austin is in general known to be weird, it’s a fairly liberal area in one of the most conservative states. It is definitely weird. And there is a lot of traffic. Not that the other major cities in Texas don’t have traffic, but there are no large loops or bypasses around downtown, you pretty much go straight through it. Anyway, we were there last week for…
-
Westcave Preserve | Part II
Did you miss the first post? Read Part I here Inside the cave, which really isn’t much of a cave, I couldn’t help but think it would make a great shelter. Which is probably what local tribes and other visitors, including animals, have done over the years. As you can see, someone named Nichols visited from Bastrop sometime in 1883. This reminded me of seeing William Clark’s signature at Pompey’s Pillar in Montana in 2008. This area is subject to flash flooding; several years ago they had some major flooding and had to sweep mud and debris out of the caves and do rehab on the trails before opening them…
-
Westcave Preserve | Part I
Tucked away next to the Pedernales River just west of Austin, near the town of Bee Cave, is the Westcave Preserve. Westcave is a non-profit entity run in coordination with the Lower Colorado River Authority. Nearby there are two other beautiful parks, the Hamilton Pool Preserve and the Milton Reimers Ranch Park. One could spent an entire weekend exploring all three parks. The photo above is an overlook at Westcave peering down at the Pedernales River. The park is available to the public by tour only on weekends or with a school group during the week. But for $5 a person, we felt the tour price was well worth it!…
-
The Galveston Seawall Cairns | Wordless Wednesday
-
Adiantum capillus-veneris | Southern maidenhair fern
A few weekends ago, New Years Eve weekend to be exact, we stopped by Westcave Preserve on our way home. We’d been by there a year before but did not have time to go in. I will have more on Westcave itself in two later posts, but this one is specifically about the beautiful maidenhair fern. The fern grows in all sorts of rocky outcroppings, and other nooks and crannies along the creek at Westcave. The creek flows maybe a quarter of a mile before emptying into the Pedernales River. It really makes pathways it lines a magical place. The Texas Vascular Plant Checklist lists one other species for Texas,…
-
An Enchanted New Years | Enchanted Rock Pt. 2
If you missed the first part of this series go here. On New Years Eve I slept in and Chris got up early to take sunrise photos. Once up and breakfast was eaten, we headed off for the eastern side of the loop around the rocks. It was a gorgeously clear day again, perfect really. Initially we were going to completely go all the way to the east on the loop but we came to the junction of the Turkey Pass trail and thought it looked good, a cut through up to another trail and we could catch the eastern loop up there. We passed this beautiful pond on our…