Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Bastrop State Park: January 30th 2008

The boys and I were able to steal away for a day to this little garden of Eden, east of Austin known as Lost Pines. The name comes from the loblolly, a towering conifer with deeply furrowed, reddish-brown bark one of our volunteers cleverly described as cracked brownies. Mine was nerdier, referring to its trunk as having saurian like scales or techtonic plates.

Aside from getting a little training in plus much needed rejuvination, the trip served another purpose. I wanted to shoot some sample video to give everyone an idea of what my video feeds and podcasts will be like on the road. It's a bit rough but I published it on youtube anyway.

One of the dominant themes was Hudson gnawing on bark and pine combs. A little roughage in the diet never hurts, but given the dangerous and deadly vegetation we'll be encountering - some I know about, some I won't; it's a behavior I must discourage.

Another of his pecadillos is digging (photo above). I started to shut him down this time but a thought occured to me. One of the issues we'll have to deal with is waste disposal and the most common procedure is burying it. Why expend my energy on the task when I have a much younger, much more effective digging implement in my team. Have at it, my boy.

At the end of the day, this is what it's all about. Midnight with me mates. I forgot to affix the tarp so were awakened by raindrops about fifteen of five. Thunderstorms came, too, completing the overature and the system stayed with us well past my 8am tee time. It would have been nice to get a round in before we had to leave but we had a heck of a time nonetheless.

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