Camping at CBSP
The weekend before graduation, Dave and Jay planned a camping trip at Colorado Bend State Park, 2 hours north of Austin. It's a beautiful spot at...you'll never guess...a bend in the Colorado river. It was so beautiful and so much fun, we were surprised more Austinites don't know about it. (To all our friends in Austin: GO!)
The springtime weather was perfect, there were lawns to set up camp, and surprisingly, no bugs. No mosquitoes biting, no flies on your food, and no moths around the lights. (Perhaps the famous Texas bats ate them.)
And honestly, I've never slept more comfortably camping than I did on an air mattress on that lawn that night. NEVER. It was so relaxing!
On our way back, the grass kept rustling loudly. Then about 20 feet ahead, an armadillo wandered across the path (too quickly for our digital cameras to turn on.) They waddled around nonchalantly until we came within 10 feet (they have poor eyesight), then zoom! They ran away like lightening! We saw several that way; one even came toodling through our camp. Funny!
I was so excited! I had wanted to see live armadillos before I left Texas, and with only 2 weeks to go, I did!
(Mom and Dad: Dave says thanks for the birthday lightweight grill, roasting stick, and seasonings, which we use often...what's camping or summer without a BBQ?)
We not only saw armadillos, but this young buck casually ate his way behind our camp. There were cardinals everywhere, a few large herons on the river, and a family of mini blue gray gnatcatchers entertained us in the morning zipping around singing their feeble high "tweeb tweeb". There was also a pair of birds with a funny call, but we couldn't see them.
The next day on our hikes we saw hawks, vultures, doves, owls, woodpeckers, scissor-tailed flycatchers, squirrels, 2 kinds of lizards, a rabbit, a mouse, and in the pools, turtles, frogs, 3-inch spotted and striped fish.
On the way back, we drove past an ostrich and emu farm, but those don't really count.
WILD!
Then over the cliff to the river comes not just the single waterfall pictured left, but a whole wall of waterfalls. The rocks were filled with ferns and vines and it was very lush-looking. The water is full of calcium, which is deposited there, creating little pools and growths on the cliff wall. Neat-o!
The guide was full of information and we thought it well worth the admission.
These two guys were peas in a pod as labmates at the University of Texas. They're not the same, but they got along like brothers (not the squabbling, little kind--the older kind of brothers.) They're both easy-going, practical, top-notch engineering students.
They bounced so many ideas off each other, they practically co-wrote their theses. Hey, it's much easier to write "See Rutledge, pg. 94 for an explanation of..." than to write the whole explanation. Saves trees.
Even the cactus is bigger in Texas. In Wyoming, the prickly pear are small. As a child, I remember finding a 2- or 3-pear cactus in the sage brush was common, but if you saw one with a flower, you called the others to come see. In Texas, these cacti are several feet high, covered in flowers, and have red fruits growing all over them. I guess even cactus like more water.
So we drove back to Austin sunburned and smelling like campfire, but very happy. It's a fabulous overnighter, and I think the guys were happy to be away from the lab.
Dave and Liz Robertson
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