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: Day 4/5

We did not ride yesterday, Day 4, as we spent the better part of the morning helping a choir sister patch a gaping hole the plumbers had left under her kitchen sink. For those gentle readers not familiar with River City and her climate/weather, biking after 11a is not something a 62-year-old out of shape journalist does unless said journalist is ready to meet his Maker. To make up for the lapse today, Day 5, we headed out about 6:30a, intending to ride the nearly six miles from Jacksboro Hwy construction site to Lake Wichita Park.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics, gets credit for the 21-Day Habit Theory, which suggests that it takes 21 straight days to establish and/or alter habits. So it goes that riding River City's Hiking & Biking (H&B) Trail should become an addiction right around the last week in June. With this month challenging June of 1980 for the most consecutive days with high temperatures over 100F, clearly this trail rider will need to get that daily fix starting at first light.

Good thing I am early to rise, even if I am lacking the wealth and health to show for it!

Yes, Virginia, there is a trail in the foreground of this establishing shot from the head of the Holliday Creek Trail just west of the construction at Jacksboro Hwy. The temperature is 78F, and at this hour the morning songs of red-winged blackbirds, mockingbirds, doves and other city-dwelling song birds are not drown out by traffic noise.