No disasters, near misses, or rampaging religions, just a simple eight-hour walk in the woods by my house.


The owner lives in New York City. Sucks to be him.


A small tributary...


...leading to Spring Creek.


Sand with no human tracks but mine.


A bit of lunch then four hours attemping to carve a spoon (not shown!).


And a snack for later.


An abandoned oil well. I have no idea how deep that water but I couldn't touch bottom of a pervious one with a six-foot stick.

So, not exactly Hawaii or Idaho. But considering it's five minutes out my front door I consider myself one lucky SOB.

-Blast

VERY nice! Thank you for sharing your day. I have a coffee-table photo book of Texas, and it looks like a great place to explore.

What kind of tall trees are those along the watercourse?

Sue

It looks like you have some useful terrai at your doorstep.

Susan,

Texas has every type of terrain except for really tall mountains (uh, and glaciers). It really is beatiful.

The trees are a mix of loblolly pines, sweet gums, maples, assorted oaks, laurels, river birch, beech, and Hercules' Club (aka toothache tree).

-Blast

Oops, to clarify for Susan: The tall trees are loblolly pines. They grow straight and tall then end up as telephone poles...

-Blast

Very nice Blast.

I bet if you had used some of the explosives that you are named after, you might have cut the spoon making time down a little bit.

You would have automatically made a whole bunch of tooth picks too.

I was using the burning technique to hollow out the spoon's depression. Normally one would use a small, glowing ember for this.

Trying to find the proper amount/distribution of potassium nitrate to do the same thing took a long time...still not quite there. I may need to spend more time in the woods experimenting.

-Blast

Great pics...I love TX, but have never had a chance to do much hiking there. Mostly driving to/away from supercells when out storm chasing, which I've done 6 of the past 8 years. We always seem to end up in TX at some point, and we always love driving through hill country. Had the best steak dinner I've ever eaten in San Angelo.

...but it will be nicer when the leaves come out.

#1, 2, 3 & 4 Son beating me up the hill:

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em!"

Nice tribe you have there! Four sons? I may come knocking when my girls reach dating age.

-Blast