Friday, December 25
Today Edward left at 7:30 to go work a 24-hour shift, leaving us to dawdle over breakfast and then get ready to move sites. Checkout time was 12pm and we wanted to be ready to vacate our site before someone else came in to occupy it. So other than tidying up, vacuuming and talking to folk on the phone, we didn't do anything except wait.
Finally, at a little after noon, Ed went ahead and took the Mammoth to the dump station. But the people at our new site still hadn't left--when I took the truck over and parked it at a nearby overflow parking spot, a young guy was perched on the ladder of his RV and flying a remote controlled helicopter. Christmas presents, we supposed, and those things take a while to charge up before you can use them.
But the new people for our site were there, so we just sat around and waited in the parking lot for a bit. Not too awful long, though. So with all that, it was one-thirty or so before we were all done, reparked, re-leveled, rehooked and ready for lunch. It was clearly too lake to do a road trip to Balcones Canyonlands, but not too late to go see the Inks Lake fish hatchery. It was unlikely that would be open on Christmas day, either, so we chose to stay home.
My brain was still mired in the deep fog from the previous day. The only interesting thing that happened was that Mollydog and I took a long walk over to the trails that started at the ampitheater by the entrance station. We took a nice, well-traveled trail over to the water. At one point it went over a big, rocky slope:
On the way back my inner mountaineer emerged and I just had to climb the slope. I got halfway and still didn't have a great view of the lake, so I decided to leave it for another day. Cool rocks, though. I assume this vein of white running through the grayish-black rock is quartz? Need to check.
Since there was no Edward for Christmas dinner, we ate leftovers. And then it was bedtime.
Saturday, December 26
Ed and I left early (about 9:30--for us these day, that was early) to drive over to the Balcones Canyonlands national Wildlife Refuge. We went to the headquarters/visitor center first, but that was closed. Luckily the restroom was not. We didn't take the Headquarters Trail, but it might have been worth a try.
There are a lot of nice, well-maintained and heavily used trails in the Wildlife Refuge. It's not that far from Austin, after all. the country is very rugged--not exactly what I'd call canyon country, but the cow creek we drove along was forming a half-way decent canyon along one side.
After leaving the closed visitor center, we drove to Doeskin Ranch and Warbler Vista. It was a long, interesting drive along a curvy road over many cattle guards. It appears that the refuge consists of a little pieces of ground loosely strung together amid huge expanses of private ranches. At Doeskin ranch, there were a lot of lovely trailheads and a lot of lovely people preparing to walk them. But that wasn't our goal, we were simply there to look at scenery.
The third--or was it fourth stop--was simply a pavilion in a field which would be prime habitat for all sorts of birds. Shin Oak Observation Deck, per the website, is is set in excellent black-capped vireo habitat. With patience and some good binoculars, you might see one of these beautiful little birds. Definitely listen as they can be heard singing almost continually. Shin Oak is the best available public viewing area for vireos in the refuge.
But not this time of year. The only birds we saw were mockingbirds and roadrunners.
The dominant plant species, and pretty much the one thing that overwhelms your mind and senses, is the Ashe Juniper (you call it potato; we call it cedar) that covers the hills. They're small trees, well-spaced from each other, but all together they make a dense cover.
The trip back was a lot shorter than the one out. We stopped at an H.E.B in Burnet and got a gallon of ice cream to go on the apple pie we'd made for Christmas.
Molly and I then took a hike through the campgrounds toward devil's waterhole, but when we got to the trailhead we turned around because there were so many people on the trail. And dogs. Luckily, all under control. Molly got plenty of practice in "sit off trail and let the scary dogs go by." She is improving.
All the birds we saw were Bewick's Wrens, a bunch of infuriating little doves that were probably Common Ground Dove, and an almost certain Black Crested Titmouse or two.
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