This trip has been in the planning stages for quite some time. The wife and I paid a visit to the Costa Rica Yoga Spa in Nosara, on the Nicoya Peninsula. It’s an outstanding resort, and the food was incredible. The retreat was organized and taught by one of my local yoga instructors, so I knew most of the people in attendance. There were a couple people there I had not met before, however, and enjoyed spending time with them.
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I’ve been planning to visit the Upland Island Wilderness for awhile. I ordered a map from MyTopo for this area last summer and I’ve been trying to get out here since. On the 4th, with the wife out of town, I figured I’d go hike in the Upland Island Wilderness. I wanted to see the longleaf pine savannas and the spring-fed bogs at the exposures of the Catahoula Formation and photograph some of the carnivorous plants. I didn’t post any updates for awhile and I apologize. I had finals to deal with and hardly went to the office at all. And when I did, there was bad weather brewing so I wound up driving. So Week 2 was a wash. I didn’t bike to work, but then again I hardly drove, either. Week 3 was another matter. I biked in most of the week but wound up driving a couple of days for inclement weather forecasts. The forecast bad weather those days didn’t end up happening until well after dark, so I felt cheated. The stretch of the Neches River between Anderson’s Crossing and Route 7 has been designated the Davy Crockett Paddling Trail recently. I paddled this stretch of the river a few years ago when I first moved to the area. The river was running high then (normal for this time of year). This year, it’s not running so high. My paddle hit the bottom on several occasions, but the water level is still plenty high for canoeing. I wouldn’t run a motor boat down this stretch anytime soon, though. Even at this pretty low level, it was much clearer of debris than I had anticipated. Other stretches of the river force you out of the boat often to clear downed trees. Someone keeps this stretch of river clear enough that you can always find a way to paddle around an obstacle. Today I took a short paddle trip with the wife along the Angelina River south of Route 7. To paddle it one-way downriver from here would take you all the way to US 59, and neither of us were up for an overnight canoe camping trip today. Instead, we did an out-and-back. The river is slow enough that paddling upriver was not a problem in the slightest. I have my infrared motion-sensing wildlife camera set up in the woods in my backyard. It had been out there for some time, and I wasn’t getting a single picture. I was really itching for a trail cam photo to blog about, so I baited the trap location with the juice from some moist cat food. The early October maintenance day for the SFA Rec Trails happened to fall on Livestrong Day. I made sure to represent Livestrong today. I arrived late, but I met up with the group installing some rock gardens on Upper Bois d’Arc.
I got out a bit this weekend. My mileage isn’t super high yet, but I’m getting out and getting exercise. On the 26th, I got a night ride in on the bike. We’re trying for a regular Saturday night at 8pm group ride time. Unfortunately, my main riding buddy couldn’t make it since his wife was out of town and he had to watch the kids. I was there, though. Nobody else showed up, which turned out to be a good thing. The batteries on my headlamps were BOTH low (the indicator light was now glowing red instead of green), and I wasn’t sure how long to expect them to last. So, I ran on one light, but kept both batteries on me so that in case one of them died, I’d have the extra to get back to the trailhead. I want to try to have a series of wildlife photo posts, and here’s my first official post in that series. I captured these photos a few weeks ago. Every year in May and June, I get toads in the front. I think they really like my front gardens, where I use a lot of native pine straw as mulch and the soil is good and loose for them to search for prey. |
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