One of the nice things about the location of my current office is its proximity to the Barton Creek greenbelt. When there’s time, it’s convenient to get out for a pretty good walk over lunch. Such was this case earlier this week. I was toting the camera along with me and grabbed a couple pictures of some pretty interesting stacks of rocks. Clearly someone’s spending some time out there to get these rocks just right. One of my coworkers tells me these are called cairns. Then again, I guess you could just call it a stack of rocks. A quick scan of the web finds that some folks have made rock stacking a real art form.

If you look at little closer at the larger of these two pictures you’ll see there’s a series of these stacks up the creek bed.

The weather started off a little ugly on Easter morning around here. A line of thunderstorms rolled through very early. But as quickly as they rolled through they were out of here and by late morning it was just fantastic out. A perfect, crisp and clear Easter morning.

So after a nice church service full of great music at Westminster, Kem and I took her tandem out for a spin. As you can see, we stopped for some snapshots. Here’s one of me among some wildflowers and alongside the big blue bike.

The other picture below is one of some really great looking flowers that Kem’s neighbors have growing at the front of their house.

Later we dropped the top on the convertible and took the long route out near Lake Travis on Lime Creek Road to friend’s the Moore’s for a little afternoon party they were having. Was really a great afternoon.

March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Doesn’t seem to work that way around here. We’ve had more than our share of really windy days in the last month and today was no exception. I saw a few hardy souls out cycling today. More power to ’em. Though otherwise a really nice day, it would have been pretty tough going out there today. Winds easily 20-30mph. I opted instead to go for a little hike. The Turkey Creek trail is not too far away so I went over there. Tucked down in the valley and in the trees it was pretty nice.

I took the camera hoping maybe I’d find some interesting wild flowers. We’re still in a drought here and it hasn’t been so great for lots of wildflowers. Pretty slim pickin’s. I managed a couple interesting pictures along the trail. The yellow flower was one of the few wildflowers I encountered. Despite the drought there’s still a fair bit of new green growth. Caught a pic of that too.

Yesterday was the annual Pedal Power Wildflower Ride in Stonewall (out near Fredericksburg). I had high hopes of riding the longer route and getting in the Willow City Loop – one of my favorite rides. I couldn’t persuade anyone else to do the ride this year but I got up early and headed out. Pretty good turnout as best I could tell. About 20 miles out though the winds had really picked up. As I cruised along at 20mph I could tell there wasn’t any wind at all in my face. It was all tail wind at that point. Great on the way out, but a tough slog back. At Willow City I either would go around the loop and face about 30 miles of cross & head winds to get back to the car, or just make the turn now back now and just do 20. Wasn’t really up for the winds yesterday so I headed back. All in all, still a good ride, though just not the one I had planned for.

They do a nice job of supporting this ride. The rest stops are amazingly well stocked with food. Once again, that first rest stop had the big plates of cheese, summer sausage and sausage wraps! I opted for just a Fig Newton instead. One of the other stops had a huge bottle of Cooks champagne and a couple bottles of orange juice. I had to laugh and of course had to ask them to make me a Mimosa. He proceeded to make me a huge juice glass sized serving. Yikes! Thanks but I’d be pretty useless if I drank all that. I had a few sips though and it was fine.

Everything’s in bloom around here so I’ve pocketed the camera when I’ve been out for neighborhood walks recently. After the wild winds and rains of previous days we have a quiet and sunny morning here and I got this snap of some bluebonnets up the hill a bit from here. Despite the drought we’re still in, the bluebonnets have been pretty good around here this year. Guess we got rains at just the right time. They’re certainly better than last year anyway.

Some of the flowers have to be pretty resourceful. These yellow ones I found clinging to the rocks sure seemed to be taking advantage of what little they had to work with.

I don’t know whether it was the warm weather this past weekend or what, but it sure seemed to tucker out the squirrels around here. Kem and I went on a long walk around the Town Lake Hike and Bike trail over the weekend and we encountered multiple squirrels sacked out like this along the way.

This guy was zoned out enough to have no problem with me getting pretty close to take his picture either.

I was thinking it’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything so I figured it might be time for a quick update. I’ve had the good fortune of being able to get out and enjoy some hikes and bike rides on January and February weekends. In particular, I’ve tried to start getting in some more long walks. Along the way I’ve taken a few pictures too.

Though I’ve not taken advantage of it very often, my office is located just off the Barton Creek green belt here in Austin. Just across the parking lot I can get out on the green belt trails and feel a world away.

The first picture here is of Barton Creek itself just a ways down the path from the office. Looks more like a dusty desert doesn’t it? Austin and central Texas in general has been going through a really bad drought. If you click on that link, you’ll see a big dark red spot over all of central Texas. Classified as “D4” – “exceptional” drought.

As I walked along the path, I think I scared this poor squirrel in the 2nd picture half to death. At least he seemed pretty upset.

The final picture below was actually taken closer to home. I was walking on a trail not too far from home and the bright red berries on this bush really caught my eye. Most everything else is pretty brown right now. I have no idea what kind of berries these are. Kinda doubt they’re edible – but who knows? Don’t think I’ll be trying them any time soon though.

Well can you believe it’s Thanksgiving already?! I blinked and November’s passed me by. By this time of year it finally starts to look and feel a little bit like fall here in Austin. Time once again for my annual search for something approaching fall color. Last weekend I got out on a hike on the Pather Hollow trail near here. It’s a short but peaceful trail that wanders along a creek. Though it’s tucked in amongst a heavily populated area of homes, you’d never know it.

While not quite as spectacular as the change of seasons I remember from ‘back home’, I managed to find some interesting displays of color. My favorite picture of the bunch is the one below of the leaves floating on the water. A real mosaic of colors.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As a change of pace, this weekend I reconnected with Scot. Hadn’t seen him in months. Kem, Scot and I headed out on Lake Austin on Scot’s boat. His daughter is off to camp and Scot has time on his hands. He’s had his boat in a slip down at Ski Shores for ages. Ski Shores is not just a boat slip, it’s a quintessentially Austin hole in the wall that’s been around since the ’50s. It’s a perfect hangout for sipping a cool one, grabbing a burger/snacks and watching the boats motor by. Saturday though, we were the ones motoring by.

We made our way down the lake marveling at the many unbelievable homes along the lake. There are a few that might qualify as not much more than cabins, but they’re few and far between these days. Instead, it’s mostly multi-million dollar places that just make you say “wow”.

Just before Tom Miller dam at the south end of the lake is another fun Austin hangout named the Hula Hut. We tied off there and went in for some lunch. It’s sort of a Mexican restaurant, although not exactly. They say Mexican and Polynesian. We had fajitas, so it was definitely Mexican for us.

The bridge pictured below here is a landmark on Lake Austin. It’s named the Pennybacker bridge, but no one I know actually calls it that. It’s just the 360 bridge. Many years ago now, I used to have an office high up on Courtyard Dr that overlooked the bridge. Great view from up there – though we were so busy we rarely had time to enjoy the view back then.

On the drive home today, the rush hour traffic crawled along Hwy 360 and the temp bounced from 103 to 105. Just another June day in Austin. It’s actually not an unusual sight to see someone jogging in the heat of the day around here – it’s a pretty fitness oriented city – but I wonder: is it really wise to go out jogging along a major highway in this kind of heat?

I saw this woman today jogging up the 360 hill in the blistering heat of the day. I wonder what led her to choose that time of day? Is life so busy that she couldn’t find a better time? Or was she purposely trying to make the workout all that much harder?

Last weekend Kem and I rode the tandem down to Austin Java to grab a late morning breakfast. The weather was warm but ideal to get out and enjoy it. The week before we’d had some pretty bad storms in Austin and the bike route we took required that we not once but twice pick the tandem up and lift it over fallen tree limbs. What a mess! But quite the adventure.

The storm made a mess of west Austin. Lots of hail damage and wind damage that was surprisingly extensive. Tree limbs down everywhere. The hail had sheered off a lot of leaves as well and for a week there it seemed like all you could hear were the sound of leaf blowers.

Anyway, we managed the trip down to Barton Springs Rd and Austin Java despite the obstacles. They had a great little jazz band playing and we managed to snag a table out on the patio. Breakfast Quesadillas. Mmmm.

On the way back, we pulled in to Central Market to pick up some food for later. They had a band playing as well so we stopped to listen for a short while. One of the nice things about Austin is you can find interesting live music like this all the time.

The last couple weekends I’ve managed to get out for a some bike rides, and last weekend I brought the camera with me. We finally managed to get a little bit of fall color around here. They took their sweet time about it, and there’s not a lot of it, but some of the trees really put on quite a show.

Of the three pictures here, two are of a type of pear tree that traditionally has some great fall color around Austin at this time of year. The other is of course an oak of some kind.

As I rode by the same trees this weekend, the wind this past week had already taken most of the leaves off the pear tree. I guess I caught the photo at the peak time.