Berry Springs Park (Georgetown, TX) – May 2020

 This was my last hike of the Memorial Day weekend, which the beginning of the Georgetown Running Club Summer Tour, thus I felt an appropriate location was in order.  Berry Springs Park was where the monthly Vern’s No Frills 5k took place for something like thirty years (and I only discovered it for the last four).  When we’d do the Vern’s events, we had a specific route we’d run, but the organizer (Bill) always commented there were “miles of other available trails.”  Well, I saw that as a challenge to go on parts I hadn’t been on before.

 

I started on the course we’d do for Vern’s (to do it again for “old times sake”) and then went an explored some of the side areas.  I went as far as my beverage lasted me, so I didn’t explore all of the area, but I think I did pretty good.  There was still more to do here, and that would require another trip.  But I got out and enjoyed it, and that was the important thing.

Rattan Creek Park (Austin, TX) – May 2020

 As I looked for more places to hike as part of the Georgetown Running Club Summer Tour, I recalled a nearby park which I’d taken a few afternoon walks previously.  Now I hadn’t known of a place called “Rattan Creek” until a couple years earlier when I discovered too late there was a 5k race held there.  I thought what a bummer, as the park was nice and close to do a run, so I went and investigated it.  And when I arrived I realized I’d been at this place before.  Many, many times before.

 

About a decade earlier I actually lived a couple blocks from one of secondary access points off the street called Marimba Trail.  On the weekends I’d take Stoop over here, enter via the access point, and walk the parameter keeping the fence next to us.  There was a street which intersected part of the park (Tamayo Drive) which we’d cross, and continued to follow the fence line.  We did that every weekend for a year, and I confess that I never paid much attention to the actual trail which was there.  And once I’d moved away from the vicinity, I’d forgotten all about it.

 

So now it had become a “close by” place to go when I didn’t want to walk around the neighborhood or to drive to a place where I could walk unmolested by traffic.

Brushy Creek Trail (Cedar Park, TX) – May 2020

 With the lock-down as the result of the pandemic, any of the races which had been planned by the Georgetown Running Club had been cancelled.  But the GRC organizers (mainly Bill, I believe) came up with the idea of the GRC Summer Tour.  As I noted in my “Five Years Running” blog, this was a challenge starting on Memorial Day weekend going through Labor Day weekend.  The idea was to get outside to parks and other “natural areas” to enjoy those spaces.  On the Facebook page for GRC, we’d upload the pictures we took of the places we went, so all could share the experience.  In addition to taking pictures of where you visited, it was fun to take selfies at those places.

 

The first area I went was one of my old stand-by hiking locations, Brushy Creek.  For me, it was easy to shoot up Parmer Lane to reach the access point at the “Lake Park.”  The majority of the pictures here (the water falls and the gorge) were taken close to Twin Lake YMCA Camp.  The other shots were from random sections of the main trail area.  This was a good place to start the Summer Tour.  I figured I could reasonably hit a different park each day of the weekend.

Random Blue Bonnet Pictures (Austin, TX) – March 2020

 Spring time (around the middle of March) is usually when the blue bonnets really bloom, especially if there’s been a good amount of moisture.  The dampness really helps these wild flowers grow at various places, whether along the roadside, in parks, or other locales.  During the month of March on the weekends, and when I had some planned time-off before the mandatory lock-downs happened, I drove around various places in Austin to snap pictures of blue bonnets.  Many of these I sent to Mum not long after I took them, as these were her favorite flower.  And as it seemed likely that she wasn’t going to get down here to see them anytime soon, it was a proxy way for her to see them.  Here are the various places where I took these pictures (all in Austin, unless otherwise noted).

 

Brushy Creek Lake Park (Cedar Park, TX)

 Loop 360 (between 183 and Route 2222)

 St. Edward’s Park

 Loop 360 (near Pennybacker Bridge)

 Mansfield Dam Park

 Spicewood Springs (west of Scotland Well Drive)

xxx