Texas - Uncle Sam Wants You and a Nature Hike

 This morning (after a nice warm/hot shower 😉) I took the boys to go for our first official hike here in Texas. 

Yesterday when I talked to Nicole, the German lady, she gave me a map to the Nature Preserve by the airfield. She gave it to me with a warning of not hiking there alone due to the wildlife dangers. This of course started an internal dialogue in my brain ‘what dangers? I just moved from the wilderness in Colorado and have hundreds of miles of hiking under my belt. Bears, Mountain Lions, Bobcats, Deer, Elk, Coyotes, Foxes, Squirrels, Chipmunks, Owls, Eagles, Hawks, free range Cows etc etc etc. What could scare me here in Texas???’. Well it’s good I kept my mouth shut as her next sentence was ‘watch out for the snakes! Especially close to the water as we have lots of Water Moccasins’. So say no more…. I hate and dislike snakes like no other animal. So heck yes she had my attention. Not in stopping me from hiking but from going towards the water at all! Nope, we stuck to the very dry trails. She did say they have a pack of coyotes and an Elk. Those did surprisingly ;) not worry me one bit however.

She also mentioned to always look for the old water tower so I wouldn’t get lost. That also made me smile. I hiked in the Tarryall Wilderness Area many years with hardly any marked trails, but I do take the advice happily as I indeed can be directional challenged. So on my itty bitty 1.5 mile ‘hike’ due to staying away from the creek and the snakes I had a visual of the water tower at all times. Thanks to there being no obstructions as in trees or mountains 😉

As to ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’ I can tell you if you are younger and still in some kind of shape you might want to ask yourself if you don’t want to join the military! Listen, I never thought I be saying this but darn I drove by the gas station on the base and I had to do a double take. They are getting their gas at prices I haven’t seen in a while! $3.75 a gallon and $4.06 a gallon for premium! I tell you go sign up!!! 😂 sadly for me, heartbreakingly so they do not sell diesel on base! So we are unable to benefit from it. Oh well, we can’t have it all I guess.