Geek Habitat

After being ill a couple weeks ago, and some other assorted (less well-reasoned) excuses, I finally got back on the bike today. This evening around 6 PM, Jus and I headed to Guadalupe River State Park (about 20 minutes from our house) and biked around until the park closed at 10 PM. I’ll post the GPS mileage and track when Justin syncs up his Garmin tomorrow, after our AM flight (Fredericksburg, I think, weather permitting). My GPS’s batteries were dead. The mileage wasn’t amazing (6+ miles), mostly due to me feeling like crap for the first hour. Never, ever, take 2 Benadryl to stave off a sneezing, itching allergy fit if you’re about to go mountain biking. Yes, it’ll stop your allergies… it’ll also stop you, and make you dizzy, light-headed, sick to your stomach and whiny — “This is fun. Yeah, I’m having fun. Oh boy, thi— No, I feel awful!” After lots of stops in the shade, and an energy bar snack, I finally felt better and enjoyed the duration of the ride.

We hoped to catch some of the Perseid meteor shower, but the moon just wasn’t cooperating. However, we did get to enjoy the setting sun from our perch atop of 20+ foot high bluff overlooking the Guadalupe River. This trip cemented in my mind why biking is a terrific addition to our outdoor activities — the bluff we sat on? Despite literally tens of dozens of visits to the park over the years, we’d never before seen this bluff. The greatest irony? We have camped within 1/4 mile of the bluff once, but every time we hiked the trail spurs connecting to our campsite, we somehow missed the one tiny spur leading to the bluff overlooking the river! On a bike, though, the spur was the most logical path to take and, voila, a new discovery — sort of like the recent discovery of a giant waterfall in a well-travelled California National Recreation Area. It’s surprises like these that make every trip camping/hiking/biking/flying worthwhile! You never know what you’ll encounter!

Speaking of which, we heard a great-horned owl and observed the following — wild turkey, armadillo, white-tailed deer, jackrabbit, zebra lizard, Northern cardinal, turkey vulture and a few others I can’t recall. {Aside: Man, I need to devote some time to filling out that old Wild Guides section of WildTexas.com!} Anyway, the trails were dry, not muddy and only a little standing water in some of the rocky areas. Further, the park wasn’t swamped with people, as it so often can be on Friday evenings, particularly in the summer… must be a side-effect of the end of summer vacation.

For any knee geeks reading out there, my post-op knee fared fine. I always feel a little twinge of pain and lingering soreness after resuming an activity I’ve taken too much time off from (most notably, hiking and biking), but it goes away quickly. I was going to ice the knee as a precaution, but realized my Elastogel ice pack wasn’t in the freezer — guess that tells you how rarely I’ve had to use it for swelling reduction or pain relief, eh? I see my OS on the 24th of this month for my next checkup and for my KT1000 test to determine the laxity/tension in my new (reconstructed via a hamstring autograft) ACL. Non-knee geeks, check the cheat sheet for that in English!

I’m out. 12:15 AM on Saturday and I’m heading outside to see if I can’t spy any Perseid meteors from our backyard. Even with the low, fast moving cloud cover last night, I observed 5 bright meteors in a 40 minute period last night. Addendum 12:37 AM: No meteor viewing tonight — the cloud cover is higher, thicker and slower moving… I can only see about 3 stars through the muck, and they’re faint due to the clouds. If I’m still feeling adventurous, I’ll set my alarm for an hour before sunrise (7 AM CDT, per wunderground.com) and poke my head outside for awhile.