keely – Page 39 – State of Wilderness

Hill Country Highways: Burn it, Durn it! Episode 2

I was thinking about this one part of our visit to Inks Lake that, in retrospect, was the best part. The path to the Gneiss Oak cache turned into rock face at a certain point, and just followed along the lower edge of a hill. On the way back, J went all the way up that rock hill, billy goat style. Then, he gestured for me to join him. I was a little nervous about my bum leg, but I followed him anyway.

Then we just stood still for a while and listened to the wind. Watched the rocks. J was scanning the area with his binoculars, looking for interesting things. I was thinking about a Texas version of that cliche saying, “get lost, find yourself”. I was wondering what part of me would I find in this quiet moment in nature.

Then we found a half-naked woman.

She was across the water from us, on a different trail. We contemplated if she was hot. Kinda. That was our cue to get up. It broke the spell.

As we were walking down, we saw a little cactus growing out of the side of the rock. J marveled at this, and I told him about an article I read in Texas Highways on the way up here about a Bed and Breakfast near Big Bend that does paleontology tours, and the owner of the establishment marveled at very similar things.

“Life finds a way,” the owner had said. And that seemed so profound on this morning hike.

And then we saw the half-naked chick coming up the trail. We asked her how she got across the water, and she told us what trail to take. And we realized she was probably like eighteen and so we felt a little dirty for checking her out. But, in our defense, she was hiking in the hill country in practically a bikini. I just have one word for that: Cacti!

Hill Country Highways: Burnet, Durn it! Episode 1

Over the weekend, we headed out to Burnet, Texas for a weekend getaway. This was a trip that ended in adventure, education, and eventual disappointment.

First off, I will admit that originally I was mispronouncing the name of this town. I was telling my “sisters” about the trip I had planned there, and Stevie Muree corrected my mistake. She told me a funny story about being interviewed on the radio, in which she told a story about being recognized as the rock star that she is, in Burnet, of all places…only she also said the name wrong. The DJs went quiet, shook their heads, and set her straight, and she vowed to never make that mistake again, even to the point of putting a bumper sticker on her guitar case to remind her that it’s “Burnet, Durn it!” (can’t you learn it? is the rest of the expression).

We came to Burnet with a single purpose, which I will eventually explain. However, we had a whole day to kill. We decided to spend it geocaching at Inks Lake State Park, checking out the caves at Longhorn Caverns State Park, and tasting some Texas wines at Perissos vineyards. We also soaked up the sun dipping our sweaty bodies in Lake Buchanan after a long day of being out in the hot Texas sun.

I had never been to Inks Lake SP myself, actually, but had intended to go there on an ill-fated trip back during the Spring Break of 2007. That is a story for another day, but suffice to say, I never made it there, since my vehicle was totaled in Luling and our trip had been cut short. J had been there once for a Texas Challenge years ago but hadn’t explored the park hardly at all.

We were a little mystified at first at how to access the trails we wanted to hike on, but we figured it out after burning some time driving through the park. You could get a start on the trail from the camping area, but it would be a much longer hike than parking at the trail head outside the park proper.

We had a great time hiking around the Pecan Flats area, grabbing the TPWD 2013 Geocaching Challenge cache and another cache called Pecan Flat. There were some cactus hazards, though. During the hunt for the first cache, there were these small tubular cacti that kept getting caught on my legs, leaving little spines that I continued to rub across for the next twenty four hours. The second cache involved crossing a whole field of prickly pear. I tried to avoid them by going a different way than J to the cache, only to end up brushing against stinging nettles and then whining about it until I got some cream on those spots. Nothing turns me into a bigger baby than stinging nettles! Scenes from this hike:
After this, we went across the road to the trail on the other side, grabbing TSP 4 – Gniess Oak and Rocky Top. At this point, we had been out there for about two and a half hours, and were both starting to get overheated. We got in the A/C, drank another entire bottle of water (each had a water bottle along the way), and stopped at the Hoover Valley Cafe for lunch. It was delicious. They use a special bun for their sandwiches that is sweet and fluffy (I read online later that they obtain them from Sweet Mesquite in Houston – will have to check that source out). I would recommend this as a great place for lunch if you are in the area. Here is a down-home youtube commercial if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KC4zYBZ45M

We were still pretty hot, even after the lemonade and A/C, so when I suggested going to the winery across the street, J balked at first. He had this idea that a winery visit would involve walking through the fields looking at the grapes, maybe a grape-stomping; outdoor activities that he wanted nothing to do with at this moment. When I convinced him there was indoor shady seating just to taste the wine to pick out a bottle to take home, he went along with the plan. I liked one of their reds the best, but was too cheap to spend almost $50 for the bottle, so I got a 2010 Sweet Lucy white wine for about half that price.

After this, J really wanted to go swim in the lake, but it just didn’t make sense to drive back to the Willow Point Resort where we were staying, only to turn around and come back down this way to check out the Longhorn Caverns. Plus, the caverns are only open from 10 to 4, so it just made sense to stop by there first. It was fifteen ’til two when we walked in there, and so we caught the two o’clock tour.

There is a lot I could say about the Caverns, so I think I will continue the story on Episode 2. We are currently addicted to watching Breaking Bad on Netflix, and it has been slowing our stroll, but I hope to pick up the story within a day or two.

Purple Martin Madness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygQoxFMVp_E

You might have seen our Facebook posts Friday about watching the Purple Martins roost in Stafford. We posted enough pictures and videos there that I don’t necessarily feel like I need to double post them here. As far as I know, the only readers of this blog are friends with us over there on Facebook (?). The posted YouTube video, though, is from that same night, taken from someone behind us. Jason and his parents are over to the left of the view, I think I was sitting down at this time. I really enjoyed the hour or so we spent out there.

At first, the birds gathered slowly, and seemingly with little purpose. They weren’t flying as much as they were gracefully gliding with the night breeze. I found their movements to be smooth and silky feeling, and it was relaxing to watch. Birds would glide in and out, and the group gathered in numbers and then eventually in momentum and energy. It went from a few groups of hundreds of birds to a more solid group of thousands, coming closer to the ground and moving faster and faster, tweeting, beating wings in unison. They would light on top of the trees and then suddenly move off en masse, and then more birds would join and they would repeat the process, over and over until they finally settled.

I wanted to share a thought about those graceful little birds that really intrigued me, though. Twelve thousand years ago, before man crossed over the Bering Straight into North America, the martins kept their nests in abandoned chambers of woodpecker nests or hollowed trees. However, at today’s evolutionary point, these birds have stopped nesting naturally east of the Rockies, and are completely dependent on humans setting up houses or gourd-like nests for them. This is a behavior shift that happened over hundreds or thousands of bird generations, as the humans and the martins began mingling.

Back before the urbanization of America, the Native Americans had realized the appeal of these little birds. The purple martins acted like little “scarecrows”, scaring crows away from crops and vultures away from their meat and hides. The Native Americans hung dried out gourds up to attract the birds to nest near them. The birds were potentially able to lay more eggs and successfully raise more offspring to maturity as a result. Over time, the birds returned to these nests year after year, until they “forgot” how to make it on their own in North America. Approximately one million Purple Martin houses are put out by human beings to keep this species of bird going.

By the early twentieth century, this behavior shift was complete. Also, around the 1800s, the introduction of the House Sparrow and European Starling to North America meant that the Purple Martins had competition for resources. The starlings and sparrows take over the houses of the martins, and the martin numbers began declining in the 1980s. Pesticide use and deforestation in the martin’s winter grounds in Brazil have also added to the decline of this species. The Purple Martin Conservation Association formed in 1987, and has been trying to keep these birds from further decline. You can get more information here if you are curious about this association.

This has made me curious about the co-evolution of humans and other species, and also about the ways people help nature. I am not sure if the relationship the martins developed with the humans was negative or positive – while they do benefit from the support of the houses, if we didn’t enable them with the houses in the first place, they might have retained their ability to find their own nests and be sustainable as a species without us. I am going to look for more examples like this to illuminate in future posts.

Puerto Rico Adventures #2

So, we’ve been back from Puerto Rico for a month, and I have been a slacker about relaying our adventures, sorry about that. I’ve been occupying my time writing my children long letters because I miss them this summer. They are a little more than halfway through their visit to their father’s house. We’ve been going to the gym a lot, and hanging out doing other things besides computer activities.

I did want to share our experiences, though, in case other people were curious. Our trip to El Yunque Natonal Forest was a sojourn into the true wilderness of Puerto Rico. This US National Park Service property spreads across 28,000 acres, and is the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest system.

Our visit there was somewhat marred by the fact that it was raining all day, but we were determined not to let it interfere with our enjoyment. If one finds themselves in El Yunque National Forest, a stop to the El Portal Rain Forest Center is essential. The walkway is 60 feet above the ground, taking the visitors on a walk through the treetops. It gave a unique perspective on the canopy. We engaged in a long conversation with a dedicated employee who supplied us with a map and explained to us key features of the road and trails. We shopped in the gift shop, because I wanted to get something for the kids there. There were several educational areas along the walkway, but we were now in a hurry to take in as much as we could before the rain stopped us.

We stopped at the Yokahu tower and climbed to the top to get an aerial view of the area. This is where the top picture came from. We then went to hike along the La Mina Trail (below picture). Since it was raining so hard, and also there was a promise we might be able to get into the water at the La Mina Falls, I changed into my swim suit for the hike. When we got to the falls, about 0.8 miles down the trail, it was raining way too hard and causing the falls to be too intense and dangerous to get into. Normally, the water cascades gently into the natural pool that visitors like to wade in, but there was no one in the water today.

The trail we took went down hill along limestone steps and walkways, which was great fun on the way down. Although I was concentrating on not slipping and falling, I was completely thrilled with the walk. I was very happy to be hiking here this day. The way back was a little bit more difficult, because we had to now go up that hill we just went down. It took us about an hour or so to get there and back. We could hear the coqui frogs singing in the forest but we never saw any. We actually didn’t see any wildlife at all – they were probably all being smart and hiding from the rain.

When we got back to the car, J was done with the whole hiking thing, but I wanted to grab one more geocache so I went just a short way down the Bano de Oro trail by myself. It was very nice, but then I was also ready to go. We drove up to the end of the road, thinking we might hike up to the Mt Britton Tower, but then we decided not to, and elected to drive back and hit up the Loquillo food kiosks for the second time that day.

I would love to go back again someday and finish walking all the trails. This place had a lot to offer and is a beautiful jewel of a forest.