Thursday at Belton Lake (July 9)

 

No boating. We took a drive up to explore a few places: Mother Neff State Park, the COE campground called Turkey Roost, and the Miller Springs Nature Center by the dam. The state park was small but interesting, having heavy cover of cedar and scrubby oaks. We took a short walk out to the bird blind (no birds), the CCC table and observation tower, and the cave. No great shakes of a cave by my standards, but it would have made a decent hideout for a wandering tribe of midget Indians.

 

On top of the tower

Cave

The cave had one thing of remark--spiders. We thought they were clumps of moss...big, black balls of fuzzy moss. Moss that was moving. As you got closer, the moss dissolved into millions of restless little legs...eeps!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like Daddy Longlegs, and even I got the creeps.

 

 

Then we went to the Turkey Roost campground to see if it would be nicer than this one. Other than not being able to park the boat by the site, which we're not doing here anyway, it was. Some of  the sites were too close together but most of them had a tree or two and a decent view of the water. I'd thought it was on the Leon River, but it's actually on Cedar Creek, a tributary of the river. There's a good bit of relief around here--I guess I have to assume that the creek was creating a canyon before its downstream river was damned.

I'd been across the Leon River many times, while traveling south on I-35 just north of Belton. It was large, but not so large as what we saw there. Looking at the map, it appears that what they call Leon River includes the upper portion of Belton Lake, so the water's surface are is way larger than it originally would have been.

It was getting onto afternoon when we set out to walk from the Miller Springs Nature Center to the dam, and it was hot. Really hot. Zack got to walk only a little way before I decided to carry him. It's hard enough to hike in midday heat at a normal speed, but at the speed of an elderly, crippled Shi-tzu, unbearable.

Yes, it was an interesting place with a lot of good jogging trails, and yes, there were lots of "slightly scenic" views, but no. Not the right time of year or right time of day. It would be very enjoyable at dawn, maybe. In midwinter.

Mural on the dam--just a little bit of it. It goes on to the right a long ways.

All that driving and walking got us sweaty and tired; we returned at about two o'clock. Plenty of time to tidy up the Mammoth, scribble a little on the computer, wash dishes, and scribble a little more. Then I put on the bathing suit and tried to get Mollydog to fetch her ball in the lake. She fetched, but not with the enthusiasm she reserves for tennis balls in the back yard.

Leftovers for dinner, and no complaints.