Great Hills Park (Austin, TX) – August 2020

 There were a lot of sections of this area which I hadn’t explored yet, and doing them as part of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour made a good reason to do so.  I followed some of the main trails which I hadn’t done, which brought me to some wooden stairs on a couple sections.  I then went on some less-used paths, where I found the “stick tee-pee.”  There were still some other side areas I hadn’t hit yet, but I think by now I’d done 70% of the trails in this area.

Williamson County Regional Park (Leander, TX) – August 2020

 I’d run a few races at this location, so I was somewhat familiar with it.  But since I’d only been on the trails during the races, exploring the area as part of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour was a good opportunity.  I walked the main trail that I’d raced on first, as it was a good place to start.  Then I walked the open areas by the cricket ground and tennis courts, but there wasn’t much “nature things” to take pictures of.

 Since I was prepared for an all-day walk, I’d placed some extra water in a cool container in my car to replenish what I had.  There were a number of side trails off the main, and I wanted to explore them.  There wasn’t a trail map which showed those areas (like at other places I’d been), so I had to note various landmarks in order to be able to gauge what direction I was going.

 As you could see by the pictures, the day was nice and sunny when I started.  When I got on to the side trails, it started to cloud over, which wasn’t too bad because it made it feel less hot.  The side trails twisted and turned, and I honestly say I wasn’t sure what compass direction I was heading.  I was just truckin’ along enjoying the view, and suddenly I hear this loud boom.  The skies above had gotten real dark, and there were a lot of rumbles.

 Since I didn’t know where I was on the trail (how close was I back to a point of the main trail), I did a 180 and double-timed it back the way I came.  That brought me back to the main trail, where I was then able to pick up speed.  The rain started to come down, so that didn’t bother me because I knew how long it’d take me to get back to the car.  There was a section of the trail which came close to the backyards of some houses.  A family was sitting on their covered porch and yelled “Run, Forrest, Run” as I went whizzing by.  Obviously I didn’t complete all the trails, so that means I’ll make a return trip later to do so.

Shirley McDonald Park (Round Rock, TX) – August 2020

Since the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour was going through until Labor Day, I was now beginning pretty much the last month of this.  I decided that since I’d already gone all the west on the Brushy Creek trail as I could, I would head east.  I’d already done Champion and Olsen Meadows Parks, and that served as a good place to park.  Shirley McDonald wasn’t really a separate park, but just a section of the Brushy Creek trail.  The trail parallels the road for a bit, with one or two smaller side paths.  It was worth doing to mark it off my list.  And with that, I’d now walked all sections of the Brushy Creek trail, of course not all in one sojourn.

Brushy Creek Bike Trails and East Trail (Cedar Park, TX) – July 2020

I was determined to investigate every trail on Brushy Creek I could as part of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour, and here were some that I’d found.  Once I crossed the bridge at Champion Park, I took a right and headed onto the designated bike trails.  Walking a bike trail is easy.  Just keep in mind that you can generally hear them coming, so you just step out of the way.  The people on the bike aren’t expecting walkers, so they’re going full tilt, and couldn’t stop in time if they saw you.

 The trail I followed needed me to climb down an incline, which brought to me an interesting rock overhang.  The picture doesn’t do it justice, but I could picture animals hanging out there to get out of bad weather.  After a short distance, the trail headed up steeply again, but this was on some rocks with a wooden track between them.  I heard some bikers coming down, so I waited for them to pass.  The first one had no issues, but the second one stumbled and grounded his bike to keep from thumbing down the rest of the way.  I climbed up it, which was a little difficult because there wasn’t a lot of handholds.

 I was on a high overlook, with the creek about twenty feet below me.  A fall from this height wouldn’t be healthy for me, and I respect heights enough not to do stupid shit.  The trail ahead of me had narrowed to about six inches wide, and it also had a downward incline.  I’m not sure how the frak a bike can travel this, but if I encountered one there was nowhere for either one of us to go.  And then I heard the sound of a bike coming towards me, but from above.  The way the ground had inclined up from me hid another trail from my vantage point, and I only realized it when the other biker went speeding by.  Needless to say I climbed in the incline up to this more-leveled trail to continue my sojourn.

 As the trails brought me back around to the area by the bridge near where I started, I just ended up following the trail eastward just so I would get some more steps and some other nice pictures.