A Drying Out Kinda Day

 No! Not that kinda drying out!!

No booze or hangovers to be seen here so just move along - - -

After a mildly soggy week it was nice to wake up this morning (May 20) to a decent, rain-free dawn.

Being my last full day here this trip I quickly take advantage.

And I'm not the only one glad to see some rays.

But since I'm pretty crap at perching in the tops of trees, I plot out a hike instead.

I start out by heading up Lemon's Ridge.

Which is not named for the fruit but rather the family that owned this place just before it became a State Park.

This is me comparing a footprint I just made up on the ridge with an old one to see if it was left by me the day before.

Clearly it was, and there obviously hasn't been much foot-traffic around here this week.

But my climb up the ridge this morning is highly rewarding,

in part because of that solitude.

The Cedar Flats used to house a community of workers and their families harvesting the cedar up here back in the day,

but, as usual, my efforts to find definitive evidence of their residence

falls short, with only some - maybe - possibly - but probably not - possibilities.

So it is as a failed archaeologist that I make my way back down off the flats by hiking the Old Gorman Road down to the river, hanging a left,

and making my way up Gorman Creek

to the spring where this old pump used to lift the crystal clear, limestone polished water, which has traveled underground from the area of yesterday's tinaja before surfacing again here, up to the Lemons ranch house.

Actually this is the second pump here, as the Lemons replaced the first, smaller pump at some point.

From the pump it's back down the creek to where the trail is squeezed between the river and the bluffs, and finally back to camp.

I know when I get to this old 'bee' tree

 with a constant stream of workers coming and going that I'm just a few steps from the end of the trail.

And in this case, the end of the trip.

Well - almost the end of the trip.

It was such a nice day this foxy little thing came around and checked out my fire-pit while I was sitting just a few feet away. I guess she was hoping I was one of those sloppy campers that treats my fire-pit like a garbage dump and left (mostly unhealthy) fox-goodies laying around in it. I'm not, so she went away empty pawed.

I did do another circuit of Spice Canyon the next morning before packing up camp and heading out, but y'all don't need to be subjected to that again so soon.

Hopefully, with this May trip under my belt, I have enough blog-post material to carry on through the Central Texas summer lull which is now here and shuts down camping for a few months. I'm waiting to see how the summer's end family reunion trip and this latest Delta variant surge goes before making fall plans. So see-y'all on the other side!