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

 With today being Labor Day, here was the outing as part of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour, thus the final day of the challenge.  This trip was all about getting those final steps in, so I went to a place I knew well.  After parking at Champion Park, I crossed the bridge to the trail on the opposite side of the creek and followed it upstream.  Considering how hot it was, being in a place which was shady was nice.

 Most of the pictures I took on this trip were simply for the artistic quality, as I went for the shapes of the vines and shadows, as well as texture of the trees.  At the conclusion of the trip I was able to get a good picture of the still water, which was providing some nice reflections.  In one manner, it was a way to reflect on all the trails (old and new) I was able to do during this challenge.

 As far as I was concerned, even though the summer tour had concluded, I still planned visiting other trails and taking these pictorials so I could share the experience with others.

Bull Creek Preserve (Austin, TX) – September 2020

 Here was my near-final sojourn as part of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour, as Labor Day was tomorrow (which was the last day of the challenge).  I have to thank Bill for coming up with the idea, and keeping the inspirational fires burning.  This fell into my “new area” category, as while I’d been to Bull Creek before, I’d never gone on this trail.  In the parking lot off of 360, there’s a fenced off area which says access is only allowed between certain months.  It was within that period, and there was a hidden gap in the fence, so entering was easy.

 This trail winds a short distance through the woods, and takes you to an overlook to get a good view of the gorge.  But there’s another trail from the entrance which isn’t as well marked which takes you into the heart of the preserve.  As you increase in elevation, the tree cover goes away.  The farther I went up the trail, I could see a “white object” (barely visible in the third picture) and I decided to head towards that.  I had enough fluids with me, and eventually made it to the plateau which had the white water tower on it.  Not really a nature item, but it was a worthy goal to have gone towards.

 There was a secondary trail which I followed to circle me around back to where I started.  There was even less tree cover, but it was all downhill, thus was easier.  While I was there, I did wander around the gorge area for a brief time, only to add some extra steps to my pedometer count.

Balcones District Park (Austin, TX) – August 2020

 In the final days of the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour, I was able to find a place I hadn’t been before to explore.  Extra points!  Hoody hoo!  I’ve lived in Austin for years, and this was a place which I drove by a lot, and I thought it was only a playground area.  Thanks to looking on Google Maps I saw there were some trails to explore.  This place is at the corner of Duval Road and Amherst Drive, and initially appeared to be an open grassy area.  But the trail actually took you along a stream (dried up) which had a lot of tree cover.

 This was mostly pavement, and I did see some bicyclists here and there.  After a short time, there’s a Y-intersection.  One branch will take you up an incline which eventually circles you back around to the park near Amherst.  The other direction brings you right to Mopac.  The trail becomes part of the sidewalk so you can cross a narrow pedestrian bridge, which will loop you underneath the Mopac, and out to the other side.  The trail resumes following Walnut Creek, and eventually will lead you to the Gracywoods Neighborhood Park (and the Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park a bit beyond that).  I obviously didn’t go that far on this trip, but I knew I’d have something new to check out on a later trip.

 I did have to point out that near the “under-Mopac loop” there were was another side trail which paralleled the train tracks going north.  There were also other areas where it appeared the trail went off in the woods (heading in the westerly direction, back towards the district park).  There were some No Trespassing signs at most of these sections, so I didn’t explore them.  Even looking on Google Maps it showed that area to be just woods, so I don’t know who owned it to put the signs up.  One of the trails had an archway with some pretty flowers on it.

Berry Springs Park (Georgetown, TX) – August 2020

 I still had a few more days before Labor Day when the Georgetown Running Club’s 2020 Summer Tour was scheduled to conclude, so it decided on a return trip to Berry Springs Park to do some of the side trails.  I remember when I was here to do Vern’s No Frills 5k, Bill would be explaining the race course to us.  He’d mention there were “miles of trails” that we’d find ourselves on if we went off the “marked” portions.  Some of these side trails I’d explored on a previous trip, so I wanted to look at sections I hadn’t been on yet.

 The heat and humidity were pretty brutal that day, so I went through my beverage much sooner than I’d intended to.  You can see one shot of the dry creek bed.  As I was letting low on drink, I circled around some of the sections near the entry point so I could see the old building and some interesting trees.  I also had to take a selfie with the marker for Vern’s No Frills 5k.  I was a late-comer to those events, as I’d only found them a couple years ago, but I enjoyed every one that I participated in.