Shouting Into the Void: June 2011

It's been three weeks since my last post here. I'd say that's a lot better than the four-month gap the preceded it. I was going to write something a couple weeks ago about politics but I couldn't actually come up with something to say.

I suppose the main reason I haven't posted anything is that I haven't been doing much of interest. I got Civilization IV and all of the expansion packs when they were on sale on Steam last week, so there's that. I finished season 3 of Doctor Who today. I'll be sad when I run out of Tennant, because Smith looks like such a tool. Seeing as I titled this post already, I guess I should get to the story that it refers to. This past Saturday, I decided to actually do something. There's a city park about forty minutes' walk away called Walnut Creek, and I decided to go and do some hiking, maybe take a few pictures. What I did not do was check the weather.

I headed out at 11 in the morning and stopped at Taco Deli for lunch on the way. At the risk of food-blogging, I'm going to say the place is amazing. People have been telling me to go there essentially since I got here, and now I know why. I had a Frontera Fundido Sirloin taco and a Mexico City Chicken taco. They were fantastic. Having eaten my tacos, I pressed on, stopping at a gas station to grab another liter of water (I was only carrying 20 oz). I knew it was going to be hot, and I'm not dumb enough to go walking or hiking without a lot of water in Texas.

In other news, there are watermelons growing in this retention basin that I passed along the way.

I got to the park with most of my water intact and picked a trail. The trails were all very clearly marked and there were signs pointing to the parking lots at most of the branches, so I just sort of wandered for a while.

I'm going to break up the narrative here to point out that Blogger's formatting is terrible and my hasty attempts to fix it in the HTML editor are being rejected. Grr.

Somewhere around here a lizard ran across the trail. I couldn't get a picture of him.

I should point out that all of these pictures were taken with my phone. While it has a pretty capable camera (for a phone), the ergonomics suck and there's no viewfinder (which means I was shooting almost blind because of the bright sun). Because of all of these excuses, my pictures aren't all that great, but I'd say they're on the higher end for phone pics.
Also, sidenote to owners of Droid Incredibles: the auto exposure setting is terrible and will always pick too slow a shutter speed. I've had better results since I set my ISO setting to 400. With the sensitivity thusly jammed in place, it behaves more like a camera and less like a camera phone.

After scrambling down this, I was almost to the creek. I have to say: I've missed hiking. I really enjoyed the couple of little drops I had to negotiate and all the ground I covered (probably about two or three miles in the park and four miles each way on the road.)

And here's the creek, or what's left of it. You can see that it's been a bit dry lately. From what I understand, the water level is always up and down with the seasons, but we're in the middle of the drought, and there was almost nothing left.

I don't think I can say I've ever stood in a dry creek bed before. It was kind of cool. This was not an insignificant creek either. I'd say it was about as wide as the Raritan is along river road, and maybe deeper when it's filled (I've waded the Raritan, and I don't know if I could have waded this).

Down in the creek bed, near one of the remaining pools of water were three very large, black birds. When I got closer they took off and landed in a nearby tree. To give you an idea of the size of these things, I heard a whoosh from the drown-draft each time they beat their wings. Some research on the internet has led me to conclude that they were black vultures. Here's one of my pictures:

After that I just kept walking. I explored a smaller stream, then climbed up out of the creek bed.

Eventually I found myself at the trailhead for the waterfall crossing, so I followed it to the waterfall.

The cactus should have tipped me off to what was coming.

Oh look. A waterfall.

If anyone was ever wondering what a waterfall looks like without the water, there it is. It's just a cliff.

Powerlines, for those who like such things.

I was now starting to run low on water. I had come in with a liter and a half, but I was seriously starting to exhaust that supply. I started to follow signs back to the parking lot (and water fountains).

Unfortunately, I was there^^^. (Actually, I was a bit further back when I decided it was time to return to a water source.) Because this whole alternating pictures and narrative things is getting tiresome, I'm going to just continue the story and dump the pictures at the end of the post. I finally made it back to the parking lot, where I promptly sat down in the shade for about ten minutes to cool off. I wasn't close to dehydration, but I was flirting with something new: heatstroke. I'm no stranger to dehydration. I can feel it coming and I know how to avoid it. Hell, I'd brought a liter and a half of water. This was new. The combination of 105° heat and six miles of walking had me just about exhausted. After resting a while and refilling my water bottles, I felt well enough to press on. It was definitely time to head back home. I consulted Google maps quickly and started on my way. What I didn't realize is how much hotter it had gotten since my walk there. I had a long walk along hot roads back home. Fortunately, I was now in the middle of civilization. I had passed a McDonalds along the way, and I decided I would stop there on the way back. By the time I got there, I was exhausted, runnign out of water, and overheating. I ate a burger and fries (I suspect I was starting to run low on electrolytes at this point...), drank a soda, and refilled my water. Most importantly, I vented a few kilojoules of heat into the air conditioned room. Feel much better, I headed out. The rest of the walk was relatively uneventful, aside from having to stop every ten minutes or so in the shade to cool off. Eventually I got back and immediately got in the shower and just sat for a bit. I don't know what my milage in the park was, but I went about nine miles on the road. I'd consumed over four liters of water and twenty ounces of soda, but I was still dehydrated. Apparently Texas is hot. A couple of things that I've noticed around here lately:

Homeless people. Seems like I've seen quite a few vagrant/migrant-looking people around here. The two I saw on Saturday were the classic, carrying-a-sign-at-an-intersection variety, but there are also just a lot of really scruffy looking dudes walking along the road. I dunno if they're homeless or just scruffy guys who like walking.
Lawns. Here we are in the middle of a historic drought, and people have sprinklers on their lawns. Their idea of water restrictions around here are "you can only water your lawn two days a week." The reality is you probably shouldn't be trying to grow grass around here.
Gated communities. There are a lot of these. Not developments, but gated apartment communities. Mine doesn't have a gate, but it might as well.

And now, pictures (in reverse chronological order):

This is the ramp going down to the river under the street and the sidewalk going off into the woods. I may explore this at some point.

Creek bed from above.

Looking the other way.

Creek bed (same as above, but at ground level).

Looking the other way.

Looking out of the creek at the tail ahead.

Creek bed.

More creek bed.

Powerlines and a trail. I should note that all the trails were very well-packed and some of them were rather wide. This place is good for biking, judging by the tracks I saw and the bikers I passed.