The Ride: Day 10 -- Looking along the edges....

On the trail this morning under an hour. No matter the direction I took, the wind pushed against me; as if to say, "Go back, the other way!" So I followed the wind until it turned on me again beneath the Holliday Street bridge...

The shadowy underside of bridges can be scary, right? We all remember that nasty business with the three goats and a troll!

Several bridges cross over the Holliday Creek stretch of the H&B Trail, and beneath those bridges are some of the edgiest places of the entire trail system.

Both my Naturalist side and my little kid self find edgy places fascinating and well worth exploring. A word of fair warning; there is a price for playing down here!

Edges are where two or more communities meet. They can be as small and seemingly insignificant as a trickle of water through a lawn or as breathtaking as the Rock Mountains tumbling to greet the Great Plains. Naturalists have prized edges since early hunter-gatherer days, because along the edges is where the action is. It's along the edges that treasure may be found....

...as well as the trash.

A significant share of River City's storm drainage system empties into Holliday Creek. During periods of drought like the one we're in now, water runoff from city streets is the only water feeding the creek making even trace amounts of rain on the city important. Of course, with the runoff comes chemical wastes (oil-based products) and all manner of man-made debris.

The real troll lurking beneath the bridge is trash, human waste. The price for exploring here is picking up, bagging and hauling out the junk to maintain Holliday Creek and the trail system that follows it River City's finest jewels.

And some of the graffiti artwork could stand some upgrading as well. This guy here isn't too bad; kinda cute, really, in a trollish sort of sense. And while The Cave would never advocate any illegal activity like tagging city property, if you must tag, please use some creativity and class!

See ya on the trail!

Sunday Morning

The last thing my butt wanted to do at 7a this morning was straddle the saddle, so we--my butt and I--settled on a short ride not venturing too far from The Cave.

Beneath the Hampstead Bridge offers ready access to the Holliday Creek native communities, not to mention ample opportunity for voluntary maintenance along the H&B Trail.

Freshwater mussels and crayfish are two of the delicacies that attract raccoons and other mammals to the Holliday Creek buffet. Mallard ducks and cliff swallows have set up housekeeping under the bridge, while scissor-tailed flycatchers and kingbirds compete for airborne insects.

 

These Asian clam shells are fairly abundant at the water's edge. My thanks to Texas Master Naturalist Penny Miller (no relation) at Wild Bird Rescue for making the I.D. on these.

Life along the creek is challenging at best, as this eggshell attests. Prolonged, chronic drought isn't helping. How much longer will water continue to run through the creek bed if significant rain does not come soon?

After exploring a short stretch of creek and taking these pictures, two wallyworld bags (wwb) of liter were collected for removal. City Parks & Rec is tasked with H&B Trail upkeep, but their extremely limited dollars would stretch much farther and accomplish greater improvements if all of us helped keep the trail system clean and looking presentable. It is our city and our parks, right?

Dumping two wwbs before heading back to The Cave.

The Ride: Something goofy.......

"You're never too old to do something goofy." Ward Cleaver

Now in its third day, a better title for The Ride might be We're Three Days Behind and Burnin' Daylight!, but that struck me as a tad lengthy.

As a non-event attraction...or distraction...The Ride is damned near perfect; ineffective organization and failure to communicate among Staff, Mickey Mouse technical glitches, water bottle water not cold enough and on-going lack of funding. Please, children, can't we just all go ride a bike!?!

At this point I MUST insert a disclaimer. I am well aware that River City's own annual bicycling extravaganza, The Hotter'N Hell Hundred, is familiarly known as "The Ride." So is the Ann Arbor (MI) Transportation Authority, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority better known as the MBTA, at least one rodeo buddy flick, a documentary film about cycling cross country and a country music hit for David Allen Coe. I'm not writing about any of them here until the product placement and sponsorship deals are signed!

The Ride: White, unemployed, uninsured male in his 63rd year takes up touring River City's Hiking and Biking Trails, looking to capitalize his blog leading into that other big bike ride later this summer. What started as a whim three days ago because a bike was left outside is mushrooming into a one man, social and multimedia non-event the likes of which has not been seen since that Alaskan woman's I'm-Not-Running Hysterical Tour.

On the standard grade-school scale I went to school with, I'd give River City a D- for bicycling friendliness. The primary "challenge" to raising that grade would be motor vehicle driver--and I sometimes are one--attitude. Drivers of cars and trucks in this town do not play well with others! Ah, but there is a bright and shining alternate route for those who do not wish to play in hostile traffic; nearly 15 miles of 8 - 10 feet wide paved trail from Lake Wichita Park to Lucy Park that does not cross one single street nor highway.

Day One of The Ride actually was Tuesday, a short check ride from the old flea market on Holliday Road to the last link of trail construction at Jacksboro Hwy. As noted earlier in Where the sidewalk ends...., this final few hundred feet will finish the connection from Lucy to Lake Wichita that is the Holliday Creek Trail, a major stretch of the total proposed loop that ultimately will circumnavigate River City.

Day Two, yesterday, we all but completed the aptly named Holliday Creek Trail from the backdoor of the Country Club (nearest access point to the trail from The Cave) to the top of the spillway at Lake Wichita. Aptly named, I say, because the trail follows Holliday Creek as both creek and trail wind their ways through some of River City's most prime real estate, a green, living corridor that would be the pride of any city whose residents give a good tinker's dam about quality of life.

Today, Day Three, we left the Mongoose in granny gear (partly in difference to the stiff breeze hammering in from the south) to begin to get to know the Holliday Creek portion of the trail. Our ride, therefore, was relatively short from the backdoor of the Country Club to the Native Plant Landscape demonstration plot on Midwestern Parkway.

In the days ahead we will be exploring Holliday Creek in depth and watching for the completion of the final construction.

So break out a bike, and let's hit the trail!