This is the view looking out of the entrance to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Canoe Launch area in Columbus, Texas.
During the struggle for Texas Independence, it is said that the army of Santa Anna camped on one side of the Colorado River here, while Sam Houston’s army camped on the other. They crossed paths nearby in a place now called Beason’s Crossing, and later met up at San Jacinto to end the battle to the benefit of Texans.
The Columbus Paddling Trail starts here, and weaves for 6.5 miles around a bend in the river, ending at Beason’s Park (where the above Crossing was, but which is now a shady place to have a picnic and recreate). You can rent yaks and canoes from Howell Canoe Livery, located across the Colorado from this TPWD canoe launch, which you will find along 71 Business in Columbus, just across the North Bridge.
Here is more information about the paddling trail:
We had, of course, stopped here for a geocache find. But now that we know what is here, we might bring the canoe out, or rent some yaks, or hide some caches along this route. The bonus for us, besides learning some about Texas history and paddling trails, was seeing sensational wildflowers here.
Here are some photos Jason took:
White Prickly Poppy : Argemone albiflora
Violet Wood-Sorrel? Oxalis violacea
Firewheels, or "Indian Bonnets. Gaillardia pulchella
I’ve started to realize that George Bush Park is underappreciated.
We go there a lot, but it rarely gets my blog love. Sometimes it is hard to drum up excitement about going there. Some of this is due to its proximity – it’s so close that it feels like going to our backyard, and how exciting to talk about is that (unless you have a really cool backyard)? Some of it also is about the terrain. It is kind of a prickly sort of place, with the potential for lots of thorns and pointy branches and pokey things.
But we forget, until we get there, that it is actually a beautiful place. Often when we are hiking in the park, I hear a refrain from this song in my head, an Antje Duvekot song called “The Bridge” (although I see online the same lyrics for a song by Shaye called “Beauty”, unsure about the true songwriting credit), that goes
You will find beauty in the toughest of places/and I will be thinking of you out there
This day we went was unseasonably warm, and towards the end in the bright sunlight, Rascal and I were having a hard time. We both have our reasons why. We still have to get our track log off the GPS to find out how far we went, but I think it was around four miles. We found a cache, but we also found lots of places caches weren’t, and maybe could be, if we can get some of our own put together to hide. But mostly, this day was for the dogs. Here are some photos of the day:
Finding unHouston
RascalRaineRascal Finding Beauty
This hike: Parked at the new “Freedom Park” area, in the back right hand corner. Walked along the pipeline until reaching a collection of downed trees. Found a path to the right, followed this down to where it opened up to the bayou, turned left at the bayou and walked along it for some time, then turned around and came back out the way we came.
There was a gathering early this week in the suburbs of Chicago of representatives from each of the North American sites of my company, and I and my boss, Iris, were of the two from our site mandated to go. Neither of us really wanted to, didn’t want to miss time with our family or even work for it, but in the end we were glad we went.
One of the highlights for me of this trip was being able to go caching in Illinois. I didn’t have that state colored red on my caching map yet. I perked up a little about the trip when I noticed that the hotel the conference was at was surrounded by woods.
Oh, and what a woods they were. Here are photos from the Allison Woods, directly in front and across the street from the hotel.
See the deer? I was very excited about my deer encounters. Initially, when I entered these woods, I was with three colleagues from Montreal. I was trying to explain the game to them, and the talking we were doing probably scared the deer off. After the three got too cold to continue the walk, I went off by myself, and was surrounded by the silence of the woods. It was very comforting. There was a smell in the air, and soon I realized it denoted the presence of the white tail deer. There were a couple here, a couple there. And then there was the moment, after finding a cache 500 feet off the trail, that I found myself stalking three of them, just hoping to get the right shot…with my camera…
and one parting last shot:The day after this, I went for another walk in the woods, on a trail that picked up behind my hotel. The first day I had gotten four caches, this second day I got five, dressed in business casual clothes the whole while. I initially was trying to find someone to hike with me, for safety’s sake, and at first I wasn’t having much luck, but suddenly I found myself leaving the hotel with a big group who had all decided to take a walk: fifteen or so colleagues of mine, all dressed similar to me, in our work clothes we had been wearing all day in the meeting, tromping off through the woods. And these woods were a little bit messy. The first cache or two, they were with me, and I explained what geocaching was all about. Later on, they were not as interested, so I went off by myself and just met up with the women of the group later on for dinner. Here are some shots of those woods.
Really, I was surprised to see so much wood and wildlife in what I always considered to be a very urban environment – the city of Chicago. We were not downtown, though, but out in the suburb of Northbrook. It is relieving to know there are parts of the world where the wilderness seems to be thriving, despite human encroachment and development.
My best friend and I were looking for a place to take the kids last Sunday where we could all enjoy the outdoors and also find some wildflowers off the beaten path to take the obligatory kids-in-bluebonnets pictures that it seems like everyone who calls themselves a Texan has to take at some point.
I decided to pack us a picnic lunch, and borrowed my parents van for the day so that all six of us could ride in one car. Jen and I and all four kids were like a mobile party on wheels heading northwest from Tomball.
First stop: this field off 362 just north of Route 2 (north of Field Store, south of Whitehall). Last week when J and I stopped here, we had the place to ourselves at first, but this time, already there were three families there. We headed further down the country road (turn right at the “fresh farm eggs” sign and continue on down past the third or fourth house.
Here are my favorite photos from there:
Aj and I, in his "angry youth" stage
My boys
My sweetest boy
After this diversion, we continued on our path to visit Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park, “birthplace of Texas independence”. This location was the original capitol of Texas, and during Texas’s Battle for Independence from Mexico, the fledging government’s leaders were gathered here in a small log cabin, hashing out the details of the Declaration of Independence that they all eventually signed after 17 days, and which remains on display in the museum here.
This park offers a sample of Texas’s past through its Barrington Living History Farm. We made our way through this farm with the kids, after having a (hot) picnic lunch at the picnic area in the park. Families with kids be aware: although the playground at the picnic area is a nice feature, there is little shade in this area (well, especially following a drought year), and all the playground equipment is metal, including the slide. Hot sun plus metal slide can equal burned butts. But….luckily our kids were smart enough to think about this and we didn’t have any incidents ourselves.
The Barrington Living History Farm is also bereft of shade, although if you stand in the dogtrot of the main family house, a cool southeastern wind is much relief. Even on this lovely spring day, the temperature was almost into the nineties.
The first thing we checked out was the barns, corn cribs, slave quarters, and animal shelter areas of the farm. We learned a lot of facts about oxen, hogs, life in the mid 1800s. Costumed volunteers helped history come alive by involving themselves in pastimes of the age. One man was carving wooden spoons, while another was cooking ham and beans over a cooking fire and drying venison jerky. After this, we went to the main house, where Jen watched a sewing display, and I watched the kids who were watching a couple of musicians play songs of the day, and teach them the difference between modern instruments and their old fashioned ones.
After this, we went to the Star of the Republic Museum. The favorite part of the museum in the kids opinion was the Discovery Center. We spent quite a bit of time in here, assembling a faux log cabin out of giant foam “lincoln logs”, learning about ancient medicine, playing with puppets, and playing with antiquidated toys and musical instruments.
Here are some of the favorite photos of the day:
All in all, it was a very enjoyable time with the kids. I would recommend this park as a great place to enjoy the spring and fall months (although it might be a bit hot in the summertime). Right now is a great time to enjoy this park, because as you can see in the picture right here, the bluebonnets are blooming in the park (and allegedly, some rare white bluebonnets or even indian paintbrush may be found in the park as well).
This is the view looking out of the entrance to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Canoe Launch area in Columbus, Texas.
