Walking around Lake Travis

This morning I took a walk while waiting for the rest of my team to arrive. This is an interesting area, because it was all laid out to be neighborhoods, then no one showed up to build houses, so the land has stayed pretty much untouched. Now, people are finally starting to move in, as the Austin suburbs move further and further out. Still, where we are staying has a lot of empty property.

This means that you can get a good idea of what the area around Lake Travis looked like, at least since the advent of all the cedar (ashe juniper) trees.

I’ve been here in the spring, and know the wildflowers are spectacular. It was easy to see from all the dried seeds heads I saw.

The land is limestone, with a lot of karst areas. The native wildflowers just love the alkaline soil.

Believe it or not, the poop I saw was pretty interesting, too. There must be a zillion raccoons in this area. About every ten feet there was more raccoon poop (of course deer scat was everywhere!). The one below is very interesting. There’s a lot of raccoon, plus a bird feather, then on top of it, coyote poop. Some kind of dominance thing, I guess.

I’d have a lot more flower photos, but the phone decided not to focus on many of the little flowers I saw. It’s a bummer, because two of them were new to me, but I couldn’t get them in focus. Of course, they could just be drought-stunted specimens of things I recognize, since most of the flowers were really small.

Speaking of drought, it rained a good bit today when we were on the lake looking at ducks and fish.

I know the lake will be happier with a little extra water, as will all the carp and catfish swimming around the Gnarly Bar restaurant. There are some BIG fish in there!

Tarot card today is the 3 of Wands. Someone reminded me I have a phone app for my deck. It’s a card all about success in business and watching your ship come in. Interesting choice for a business meeting day.

It’s been fun being a tourist in your old stomping grounds (I used to have friends who lived here, and we re-did a house near here, which is looking great).