January 6, 2020
Natalie invited Laurel and me to join her on a trip from Lake Charlotte out to the Trinity River and down to the I-10 bridge. Since both of us are paddlers, we quickly accepted. Natalie also has plenty of boats and can haul a few. Natalie and I decided to share her canoe, since she is used to paddling for her daughter and could get me back, if I found I was unable to handle wind on the river. This was only my second paddle since I damaged my neck and shoulders in the accident that totaled my car and destroyed my canoe, canoe trailer, bike, bike trailer and other possessions inside the car. So I'm still finding out how much of my old activities I can still do.
Our leader, Tom is active in the bay conservation and was preparing to give a talk on where the water in the Trinity went when it flooded. He had paddled it when the water was so high, he could paddle over the natural levy and then paddle in lakes/streams behind it. On this trip, he wanted to find the places where pour overs had occurred and take pictures of what the land looked like in non-flood conditions. He has a group of cohorts, mostly also my friends, that paddle with him on these missions.
We met up at a gas station on the intersection of I-10 and the highway to Charlotte Lake. We decided to make the trip easy and run a shuttle, starting at the park on Lake Charlotte and taking out under the I-10 bridge over the Trinity. Otherwise, we would have taken Lake Pass back up Lake Charlotte and crossed it over to the east side where we put in. I was glad we only did the shuttle because my neck and arms still lock up from my accident and I get both very tired and start hurting. Natalie keep us going when I needed a break.
As usual, we saw very few birds. But we noticed a bird not like the others in a line of grackles sitting on a wire by the gas station. It is a leucistic female great tailed grackle. It was the only bird I photographed on the trip. We saw only a few snowy and great egrets, a couple of great blue herons, and a cormorant or two as well as a lot of resting terns, we saw at a great distance but which included either Caspian or royal terns. I took no other bird pictures.
Laurel and I still have two days left to go birding. Stay tuned
Natalie invited Laurel and me to join her on a trip from Lake Charlotte out to the Trinity River and down to the I-10 bridge. Since both of us are paddlers, we quickly accepted. Natalie also has plenty of boats and can haul a few. Natalie and I decided to share her canoe, since she is used to paddling for her daughter and could get me back, if I found I was unable to handle wind on the river. This was only my second paddle since I damaged my neck and shoulders in the accident that totaled my car and destroyed my canoe, canoe trailer, bike, bike trailer and other possessions inside the car. So I'm still finding out how much of my old activities I can still do.
Our leader, Tom is active in the bay conservation and was preparing to give a talk on where the water in the Trinity went when it flooded. He had paddled it when the water was so high, he could paddle over the natural levy and then paddle in lakes/streams behind it. On this trip, he wanted to find the places where pour overs had occurred and take pictures of what the land looked like in non-flood conditions. He has a group of cohorts, mostly also my friends, that paddle with him on these missions.
We met up at a gas station on the intersection of I-10 and the highway to Charlotte Lake. We decided to make the trip easy and run a shuttle, starting at the park on Lake Charlotte and taking out under the I-10 bridge over the Trinity. Otherwise, we would have taken Lake Pass back up Lake Charlotte and crossed it over to the east side where we put in. I was glad we only did the shuttle because my neck and arms still lock up from my accident and I get both very tired and start hurting. Natalie keep us going when I needed a break.
As usual, we saw very few birds. But we noticed a bird not like the others in a line of grackles sitting on a wire by the gas station. It is a leucistic female great tailed grackle. It was the only bird I photographed on the trip. We saw only a few snowy and great egrets, a couple of great blue herons, and a cormorant or two as well as a lot of resting terns, we saw at a great distance but which included either Caspian or royal terns. I took no other bird pictures.
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| Leucistic female great tailed grackle |
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| A beautiful little cove reachable just past our shell beach put-in |
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| Getting ready - I'll be paddling bow in the green canoe |
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| Leader Tom telling us our trip route and that we'll be relocating several pour overs from the Trinity |
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| Tom had to take a requisite group picture - we may end up in his talk |
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| Starting across lake to Mac Bayou entrance - visiting friend Laurel is leading the pack |
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| Turning into Mac Bayou |
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| After we turned into the sulfur cut, we had a particularly beautiful sky |
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| Laurel looking happy in Natalie's kayak, Miss Piggy |
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| Natalie and Tom on way to look at the paddling route in flood waters |
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| Joe and I joined them |
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| Loved the palmettos along the natural levy before we got to a meadow |
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| Hiking down a road that had been a stream in flood |
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| Tom explaining what it had looked like in flood - looking at a ditch with a big motor boat jammed into it |
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| Joe wanted a pic of Natalie/Marilyn - and no, we don't look alike but our friends and their friends keep mixing us up |
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| Meanwhile back at the river, Laurel grabbed her favorite lunch - soup |
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| Tom checking out another pour over spot - none of us volunteered to go with him around this water to look further inland |
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| Ken taking a rest at one of the stops |
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| Joe managed to catch all of us on one of the check spots - we elected to hang out in our boats while the rest explored that pour over |
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| Fun all done |
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| Nice to have guys to help carry boats to vehicles and load them. WAY easier than fighting to get ours on top of Natalie's van. |
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