State Park: Inks Lake

Today Robin and I went to Inks Lake State Park. I've been wanting to go on a day trip for a long time. All summer I kept telling myself that I'd go when the good fall weather came. But during the fall, we mostly had summer and winter weather. Now that it's winter, we've been having fabulous fall weather for too long for us not appreciate it. The whole time we were there, the temperature was in the 70s (upper teens in Celsius)--my condolences to all my readers having real winters or blazing hot summers right now.

Inks Lake is all pink granite with hints of quartz and maybe gneiss. Growing on the granite are ash junipers and every kind of lichen I've ever seen. Today we saw lichens in grey-green, grey, tan, bright yellow-green, burnt orange, and a lovely fluffy dark grey. The junipers, low-growing, gnarly evergreens, were bursting with juniper berries. Pretty, but causing all kinds of allergy problems for two months out of the year around here (December and January). I don't have "cedar fever," and Robin hasn't, but did feel a bit sniffly this evening. They say you will eventually develop an allergy if you live here long enough.

There were also some leafless trees which I noticed mostly because they held mistletoe. Until I moved to Texas, I'd assumed that mistletoe was just another Christmassy thing from the north, but we can definitely grow it here.

We also saw lots of prickly pear cactus and a fair amount of Christmas cactus. Prickly pear is a delicacy which Robin's dad claimed you could enjoy by tossing into the campfire to burn off the spines and add a smokey roasted flavor to the bitterness. Robin prefers carefully pulling out all the spines with tweezers, then using a filleting knife to peel off the skin, and then eating it raw, and still only when he's very thirsty. I have never tried this delicacy.

The Christmas cactus is also one of the kinds sometimes referred to as "jumping cactus" because you can get spines in you when you really think you were nowhere near one. It is green and has red growths on it during the winter, including today.

Unlike the bottom picture in the link above, I saw only one kind of wildflower blooming (a yellow one) and it was not very common.

The wildlife we saw consisted of butterflies, birds, and a very interested, overly friendly bee. First Robin ran away from it, then it found me and followed me around. Then I ran away from it. Then I rubbed something off my forehead and it turned out to be a bee. I definitely should have gotten stung in the face or hand, but didn't, which is why I say it was friendly. Nevertheless, we were in the parking lot where our car was, so we just got in, without the be and drove away from it.

I greatly enjoy the type of hiking we did today where you have to pay attention to your feet. There were rocky trails throughout the park. I starting thinking that I am out of shape, and then remembered that I always pant when I'm walking at a good clip like that on trails. My feet hurt and legs ached, but in a good way, even though we were there only three or four hours.

We took pictures. We climbed a couple of rocks. I did end up a little too close to a cactus at one point; fortunately our pocket knives have tweezers.

Also it was good to have hats, sunscreen, Robin's walking stick, cameras, lots of water, comfy shoes, and lunch. I really need to learn to carry a spare battery for my camera--battery usage is its one downfall.

The park is northeast of Austin (near Burnet), about 70 miles to drive, virtually all of which are on highways of at least four lanes: nice, easy driving. At least two small towns (Llano, Cedar Park) between here and there seem to be turning into suburbs with major traffic problems.