On blog Sabbaticall

While we have still been traveling, cycling and sailing I have just not had the desire to post or read blogs recently, I hope to start again but I am not sure when. Thanks for following.

Dennis

Pedernales Falls and Texas Hills Vinyard

With a couple of free days we decided to head fro the Texas Hill Country and towed the RV to Pedernales State Park. We explored the park and hiked and biked the roads and trails in this large park. Here we are sitting on the falls overlook, the falls are small now as it has been very dry here and the county is under a burn ban. Somehow the Park got permission to allow small fires in the fire rings, walking the campgrounds at dark it became obvious that small has many meanings. It was still nice to have a fire. On one of our longer hikes the map showed a river crossing so we packed our water shoes and Michele was a trooper and made the cold crossing twice. Sprocket however had to be carried across. I'm lucky to have a wife and partner that likes this stuff.

We saw a lot of deer and I put out a bird feeder that attracted birds, I mean lots of birds and birds I could not identify. I think I will get a bird guide to keep in the Surveyor.

We also visited The Texas Hills Vineyard for a tasting and bought some kick butt cab, that's the real name of the wine. We also drove to Wimberly and visited the famous pie shop. There was a big flea market type market that was going on and all the small land owners nearby wanted five bucks to park and no dogs so Sprocket said let's move on!

Well that's it for now Bobby will be here @9:30 and we are going sailing today, need to hurry and get a fishing pole and my ditty bag ready.

Fort Parker State Park and the North Shore

We made a trip to Fort Parker State Park to spend a few days hiking and biking and to look around at the small towns in the area for shopping, dinner and discovery.

This is a fairly small Park as far as the number of sites go but it has good hiking and cycling, and sits on its own good sized lake. This looks like a good fishing lake but only from a boat as the shore has a ring of tall reeds blocking access to casting from the shore. I would have brought the kayak but the water was to cold for me.

Michele and Sprocket at our site on the lake
On the far side of the lake is a 2.5 mile each way out and back trail that we biked one day and hiked one day. There is a small spring back in the woods that is in its natural state and bubbles up sparkling clear water, it looked so good but I would advise not drinking from it.
Each evening this was our view from under our awning where we spent some happy hours doing nothing.
When we travel we also like to visit small towns and look for unique shopping and dining experiences, on this trip we visited Worthham and Mexia Texas but we did little to spur the economy there.

I also spent an afternoon on the North Shore Trail at lake Grapevine. It had been several years since I had ridden this trail and I found it much improved with more of a loop route than the all single track 2-way it used to be. It is still a very challenging ride for me and I did take a spill by doing a forward somersault over the handle bars while still clipped in to the bike, nothing but my pride hurt(lucky).

Next post is about Pedernales Falls.

Dennis

Brazos Bend

After Christmas the weather turned colder but we still had several days off and it was warmer in the south. We headed to Brazos Bend State Park for our first time. While it was still coll here it was 7 degree's warmer than home. This park has 35 miles of trails that are flat and have a good surface like the one pictured above,it also has good roads in the park you can cycle on.
We did a lot of hiking and riding the bikes, some areas had meadows with the tree's draped in Spanish moss and numerous deer that were skittish.

Some of the tree's in this 5000 acre park are ancient with battle scars like this one, we had a great RV site and enjoyed this trip a lot. Not a lot to post about on this trip we just hiked, biked and ate around the campfire for three days.

Yesterday afternoon I met Bobby at the lake and we had a nice 4 hour sail, we had relocated blocks for the jib sheets to allow a closer trim and change the shape of the 100% jib and it worked great. A member of his yacht club with the same model of boat came out of the Marina and contacted us and we had a little competition, we sailed well and walked away to windward.

Tomorrow we will try to get in a nice ride on the Tandem before the weather turns cold for the next week, real cold for this area.

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I have written anything, no reason other than I just have not been motivated. We have done a lot that I should have written about in this journal so I will try to catch up now.
In late October I took the kayak out to explore part of the Trinity River near our home, it was like I had left the city and was on a wilderness river until I came to this intake which I found out is for a water purification plant. About 5 miles upriver is a sanitary landfill that borders the river, You would think this might not be the best place to get water for the City of Carrollton but what do I know. I know I would not eat fish caught here even though it is beautiful from a kayak. We also took the Surveyor to Fredriksburg TX to camp out and ride our Trek Tandem in the Fall Foliage Frolic. This was a nice rally through the country side and passed through ranch country with cattle guards on the roads and cattle running free in parts that were open range with no fences. It was cold for the start but warmed up nicely and we rode 65 miles and the Hill Country Touring Club put on a great lunch.
We met our friends Gary and Lugay there and after the rally we visited Becker Vineyards for a tour and tasting and of course made a few purchases to help spur the economy. This was a really nice trip, but not nearly long enough. After a nice German food meal it was back to the house.

Michele and Lugay having barrels of fun and wine.


I also took a trip to the LBJ National Grasslands to scout for deer for the shotgun season. I did see deer and I have found this meadow on native prairie grass that is beautiful and seldom visited since you can not park close by and it's a bit of a hike to get there. This 20 thousand acres of public land is 58 miles from the house and is free to hunt, fish and camp on. We plan on taking the RV there in the spring and do some boondocking since dispersed camping is allowed.

After Thanksgiving we took the camper to Dinosaur Valley state Park where we explored the hiking trails and I spent a good bit of time riding my mountain bike on some nice but difficult trails. I also came up on a number of deer on my rides through the woods and rocks.

We met some really nice people camping next to us in a big 5th wheel that plan on living and traveling full time in the RV in about 2 years. I took some pictures of some dino tracks in the river bed, You are not supposed to get very close or walk on or near the tracks so I can't give any scale to the pictures, just think a lot bigger than they look.

Bobby and I were able to slip away for an afternoon sail on a cool breezy day and almost had the lake to ourselves, I think this recharged me as much as the red rocks of Sedona AZ did.

This weekend I was lucky enough to get invited to go on a management hunt on a 3 thousand acre Ranch and harvest a deer. No gory pictures, just a freezer that was almost bare is now well stocked with lean healthy venison that will not go to waste, and a deer herd that is healthier because of it.

Cold weather has settled on us and no trip is planned, if it changes we can be ready in just a few minutes to hook up to the trailer and explore more of this great country.

Dennis

The Grand Canyon and Bright Angel Trail

This trip to the Grand Canyon would be the first for both of us and we have wanted to visit this part of our country for a while. After arriving in Phoenix we drove to Sadona and got our spirits recharged by the powers in this vortex of Red Rocks and mystical Ways. Bring lots of money if you stop here.

We also stopped in Cottonwood and Jerome before stopping in Flagstaff for the night. I really liked Flagstaff and its historic downtown that has plenty of 2 for one happy hours, a good selection of independent dinning establishments and shopping. Bicycles are everywhere and bike lanes are included in the new roads.

I went for a run the next morning and could feel the lack of oxygen, for some 4 or 5 thousand feet is nothing but when you come from 400 its a lot

The drive from Flagstaff to the canyon was great, we explored some of the Forest service Roads and found some really nice places to return with the RV and boondock for free. The mix of pine and aspen and mountains was nicer than I had expected and we took a couple of short hikes before moving on to the Canyon.

We drove to Bright Angel Lodge and checked in, this picture was taken then just below the rim right outside (100ft) our room. We explored the Park via the free shuttle buses and rested for our hike to Plateau Point.

We made to hike down the Bright Angel Trail all the way to Plateau Point with no trouble, we stopped at Indian Gardens by the Creek for a break, at Plateau Point we had our lunch and watched a group of rafts on the river. As you can see it was a clear day with moderate temperatures, all that would soon change

Storms started building on the north side of the canyon and we hiked fast to try and beat the rain, its a good thing I had rain gear for us both in my pack, we needed it.

While it did rain on us we missed most of the rain and it soaked into the ground quickly, however after we finished the hike it rained the rest of the day and most of the night. It was nice to see the canyon in all the different modes and also scary to see the lightning strikes while you are still in the canyon.

We headed back by using the east exit and drove through some of the Navajo reservation, I had wanted to see some of this after reading some of Tony Hillermans books. What a great trip that was over to soon.

Disaster at Faifield Lake State Park

On this trip to Fairfield State Park we found the place almost empty and scored the spot we had always wanted but had never been able to get. We shared the Park with only 8 other camping groups and were in a pull through close to my fishing hole. The weather was perfect and I headed out for a fabulous mountain bike ride. The Dockery trail, also called the perimeter trail is a nice ride with some tough climbs and an out and back distance of 14 miles if you also ride the primitive campsite loop at the far end. I really like the section in the pines and the quiet of riding on pine straw.

Now for the disaster part and the reason the Park was almost empty, a major fish kill has happened with over a million fish involved. Somewhere around 50 thousand of these were large mouth bass, which is almost all of the bass in the lake, in fact I am surprised it held that many bass. The reason for the fish kill was a lack of oxygen in the water, since this is a power plant cooling lake the water got very warm and an algae bloom consumed almost all of the oxygen. What a tragic event that will take many years to recover from, if it ever does.

Last weekend we visited Lake Mineral Wells State Park with our friends Gary and Lugay where we camped, saw numerous deer and rode 40 miles of rails to trails along with surviving a major rain storm before the ride.

This is a very nice Park with sites spaced far apart and with good vegetation between them. The facilities are also nice.This Park stays booked up and I can see why, with good fishing, hiking and biking and is less than 2 hours from the house.

I will have another post soon, we just returned from our first ever trip to the Grand Canyon and I need to look over this Flagstaff Arizona real estate guide.

Dennis