Three favorite things at this moment: the river at dusk, gravel roads, and “Riders on the Storm”.

11-11-09

Veterans’ Day, I went to a different part of the river today, off Houston Levee Bridge.  I started downstream first heading towards Gray Creek.  The temp was about 65 and partly cloudy.  The water was a less muddy today.  It’d been over a week since it had rained.  There were a lot of logs and sticks in the river.  I saw a large stump on the right hand bank.  There was also bald cypress trees on this section.  There needles had changed to red.  There is more of a mix of trees here with sycamores, maples, and others that I don’t recognize.  A red tail hawk circled near the power lines.  Most likely a female since it is so large. I love the way its red tail catches the sunlight. The underside of her body and wings are mostly white.  She continuously circles even on my way back.  Except, she did land on a tree for a brief period.  The river winds in this section with the inside of the curve having large white sandbars.  The outer curve were crumbling clay bluffs 20-30 feet high.  After about three curves, I reached the confluence of Grays creek and the Wolf.  I start up the sluggish creek.  There isn't a current and a lot of logs in the water.  Gray’s creek snakes with small sand bars on the inner curves.  I continue for about a hundred yards.  At this point, I can’t continue because of logs in the water.  There is also a slight current on the creek where I stop.  I walk another 100 yards up the creek on sand bars.  Then I returned to my boat and weave through log jams back to the river. Twice, I have to scoot over logs and duck under branches to get out.  I head up stream and stop at the first and largest sand bar.  I built a small fire out of twigs from an unknown tree.  While looking for dry leaves, I found a 3006 rifle.  It was propped up against a tree and was rusted having been under flood waters at least once.  I get the breech to move and eject a spent shell.  The inside of the breech looks good but it is otherwise muddy and appears to be ruined.  I continue back to the bridge and went upstream for another third of a mile.  This section looks worth exploring in the future.  It is full of nice, white sand bars.  I stopped on one of them on the left hand bank and relaxed in the sun for a while. There was a  great blue heron in the distance and  a belted kingfisher perched on a giant log jutting from the bank.  At about 3:00, I returned to the bridge and pulled my boat up the rip rap bank.  This was a nice section and the water is clearer than it has been in months.  However, entry is difficult.  There is not a ramp and I must go up a difficult bank full of rip rap rocks that are hard and possibly dangerous to walk on.  Someone also smashed a couple of pumpkins where I put in.

Three favorite things at this moment:  the river at dusk, gravel roads, and “Riders on the Storm”.