A few friends and I went downtown for a brief event this evening. Once we bailed out of the place, we headed over to Frank & Angie’s for a pizza. Our selection was Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, spinach, and jalapeño. It was a tasty pizza and a nice dinner.
On my way back home this evening, I stopped off at the Shin Oak Observation Deck to watch the birds and to enjoy the sunset. This viewpoint is part of the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, and offers some nice photo opportunities.
Sometimes your most interesting moments throughout the day don’t transfer well to photographs. My sights in the Springs at the historic Meadows Center included a large alligator gar searching for dinner, turtles sunning on a limb, tons of fish swimming in the clear fresh water, a mother nutria shepherding her babies into their den for safety, and a view of the water flowing from the deepest part of the springs from inside a glass-bottom boat. The aquarium on site also allowed me to photograph one of the endangered salamanders. This is a beautiful place that made for an enjoyable afternoon, full of wonder.
Today’s fun was found in San Marcos at the Sacred Springs Powwow. There were some inspirational costumes and dancers in the Powwow Arena Tent at the Meadows Center.
This hike had a lot of features. You first traced along the rim of a canyon, with fields to your right side and a sheer drop off to your left side. Then after a few butterflies and a bluejay sighting, the trail rolled off into the canyon and across a dried up stream bed. Up a hill, and then an option for a steeper hill trail, but I was running out of sunlight. Then get lost a little bit, take a wrong turn, watch the doves fly out of the grasses as I approached them, discover a groovy treehouse someone has created, turn back to the canyon trail, hope this version takes me out of the canyon and not further into it, by a dried up pond, listen to the frogs kick off their nightly songs, up a hill, and back towards the welcome sight of the power lines that lead me to my air conditioned car. All accomplished just before the sun sets on the other side of the canyon. Fun times!
I returned to Lakeway again this evening to continue exploring the parks and trails here. The Canyonlands Park is a great place for roaming around. You follow the humming power lines into the canyon area, and then you hike around and get lost. It is a nice series of trails, so don’t tell too many people about our secret. 🙂
I went to see a film as part of the third annual Interdisciplinary Spanish Film Festival at Southwestern University this evening. I got there a little early and went for a short walk around the Campus. There was green grass, historic buildings, gray cloudy skies, stately oak trees, and plenty of squirrels zooming around. In case you are wondering, the film was called “Siete cajas” and was a story about a 17 year old pushcart porter working the Mercado 4 in Asunción, the capital city of Paraguay. The film is billed as a Paraguayan thriller film, and it delivers pretty well if you have the chance to see it someday.
Dinner tonight was at PizzaRev in Round Rock near the Outlet Mall. You get in line, choose your sauce and cheese, add all the toppings you want, then watch as they place your pizza in the oven. My pizza had BBQ sauce, Italian cheese, Bacon, Canadian Bacon, Meatball, Spinach, and Garlic. The pizza is cooked quickly with a thin crust, and it turns out to be totally yummy.
More walking around at night. This time at the Texas State Capitol Building.
earthrobert 