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Dog Canyon | Guadalupe Mountains National Park
We rose at the McKittrick Ridge campsite the following morning to clouds. It had been quite windy the previous night and a few times it sounded like rain outside, but despite all of that, the ground was relatively dry. We ate a hurried breakfast, taking the tent down first in case the bottom fell out of the sky, so that the tent wouldn’t be wet later. I asked Patrice and Justin if they were awake so they could get up if they wanted to get back down to the McKittrick Visitors Center before the rain came. We were expecting at least a 70% chance of rain for the day, as…
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Paddling the Wild Neches | A Review
A few months ago we were in REI when I spotted this book, Paddling the Wild Neches. Having spent the better part of spring and summer working on and around the Lower Neches River near Beaumont I thought it would be a fascinating read. Ever since we did our two thru-thikes I have been intrigued by those who also paddle source to end (or sea) down rivers, particularly relatively unknown or lesser known rivers such as the Neches. I think many people in Texas know about the Sabine since part of it forms the boundary of Louisiana and Texas, or maybe the Trinity and Red Rivers, or particularly the Guadalupe…
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December Music
Currently playing either via YouTube, Pandora or KXT.org. Give ’em a whirl. What are you listening to? Reformatting my computer tomorrow so I’m looking forward to starting clean and will return with the rest of our Guadalupe Mountains trip later this weekend!
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Quote Wednesday| Edward Abbey
Photo looking east from the Dog Canyon Visitors Center, Guadalupe Mountains National Park. For the next month I will be doing Quote Wednesdays instead of my usual Wordless Wednesdays. Join me and share your favorite quote!
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McKittrick Canyon
When I told my dad we were going to Guadalupe Mountains National Park for Thanksgiving he recounted his tale of it being one of the hardest hikes he’d ever done. He regaled me with a story about my brother and him being ahead of the rest of the Boy Scout troop, and climbing and climbing to the McKittrick Ridge campsite they were all supposed to stay at that night, however night fell and they ended up laying out their sleeping bags somewhere in the middle of the trail. Eventually everyone got caught up together but then there was an issue of getting water and the only place was several miles…
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Thanksgiving Morning From The Top of Texas
We arrived at the Pine Springs Visitors Center at Guadalupe Mountains National Park somewhere around 11am MST. Patrice and Justin were going to be meeting us in a few hours and I was surprised that we’d arrived at the visitors center so quickly. That and we didn’t anticipate a time change though I should have figured that we were going far enough west to have one. The extra hour was definitely a bonus. Inside the center we filled out our backcountry slips and took a look around the exhibits, watching the video in the small room behind the main desk. Killing time, we decided to get everything together so we…
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Quick Thanksgiving Re-cap
Husband flew home from Pennsylvania after a flight delay on Tuesday night. Delayed our intention of leaving for far west Texas until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. As in 2 a.m. wee hours of the morning. Arrived in Mountain Standard Time at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and was thus happy to receive an extra hour of hiking. Our friends Deal and Steadee who we know via the Appalachian Trail met us out there and we then climbed up the tallest mountain in Texas. Got my ass kicked by said mountain. Had salad for lunch…I wonder why mountain kicked my ass? Hrm, let’s see here…. Saw a beautiful sunrise from…
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The November Garden
Some plants are waning in the garden while others are waxing. The cucumbers, zucchini and corn are done. I pulled the cukes a week ago and got the zucchini a few days ago. The corn is still drying and will be ready to pick for seed soon. The rest…well, you will have to take a peek through… The lettuce mix we started is doing wonderfully! I need to harvest some soon. I haven’t even tried it yet! I’m excited for the beets. I’ve never had them and so this will be a great opportunity to try them out. Most of the carrots are doing well. I had to thin them…
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10 Places
I came up with the idea to do this post after stumbling across Alastair Humphreys’ post a week or so ago. I’d never heard of Alastair before that night and the only reason I had was because I’d just voted for Jennifer Pharr Davis as the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year for 2012. I clicked through to see who else was nominated and followed through to Alastair’s blog and wa-la, here was this magical blog post. Actually, there’s a lot more magic and adventure with Humprheys that I will talk about later (I’m still writing/ruminating my Living Adventurously post). Anyway, I’ve been to some cool places in my life…
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Garlic & Dill
+More garlic are emerging and starting to grow taller. The dill on the other hand appears to be static. Grow already! +Our 100mm macro lens was returned to us from Canon earlier this week. It had been sick and needed a part replaced. Now it is working magically! +Enjoy your weekend!