Trail Blazing and Pow Wow

Last Saturday Toby and I went to our first Pow Wow in Austin. It was a good experience, but I prefer the smaller more personal pow wow's in smaller cities...

Again, taking advantage of the pleasant weather we took a hike on Barton Creek. Barton Creek is huge and although there is one main trail, there are many splinter trails off of the main. We usually stick to the main trail, but this time we decided to trail blaze. We weren't disappointed. It was so peacefully quiet on the splinter trail, with beautiful views....

We were hiking on the top edge of the bluff and decided to make the steep trek down to the creek...

See the turtle and fish?

I also spotted this centipede or millipede, not up on the species, so not sure....

We hiked close to three miles, which is really not that much for us, but it felt like a lot more because we had to hike back UP what I refer to as "hell hill". It was an exciting hike.

Ending October

The weather has been kind to us the past couple of weeks, so Toby and did a little hiking.

Downtown....

Shell fossil in a rock on Barton Springs

 Someone taking advantage of the nice weather by kayaking...

Congress Avenue Bridge from below...

Balcones District Park...this was a section of the park we had never hiked before....

I bet this is a nice swimming hole during the feast season.

A tunnel with some interesting graffiti....

Walnut Creek, one of my personal favorite hiking spots....

I loved the way these trees had grown all slanted, like they were being blown by the wind...

Texas Stars

 The perspective of the foot bridge above the bridge caught my eye...

Some kind of berries on trees lined a portion of the trail. I liked the contrast in the color of the berries and the leaves....

Yellow must be the color of the season in Austin...

Every year we do a family movie for the Halloween season, this year we chose The Adam's Family. Of course, the teen was a party pooper and didn't participate in the photo session...

October

Scenes from our hike downtown last week....

 These geese took it upon themselves to guard the trail by roosting right in the middle of it...

Downtown Austin has grown rapidly in the twelve years we've lived here...

The lake was like glass and so crystal clear this day...

A couple of photos from a hike at East Metro...

Another trip to Galveston last week, the weather was perfect and we enjoyed sitting on the beach in the evenings....

Hotel Galvez and all it's glory looking from the beach...

Had lunch with friends at The Slaughterhouse, which was one of the locations where Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed...BBQ was delicious and well worth the drive, I may add...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!