Shrinking Lake Travis

Last week Abbey and I drove out to Lake Travis to walk around Sometimes Island. Since the water is so low at Lake Travis, you can now walk from Mansfield Damn park to Sometimes Island. I was shocked at how low the lake is currently! I was curious to see how low the lake has been in the past and I found this information (found on LCRA's website).....

Current Lake Travis: 626 feet

Exactly one year ago: 668 feet

2 years ago 648 feet

Lowest on record (records go back to 1943) in Nov: 616.98 (lowest ever was 615.29 Aug 1951)

We are currently just over 10 feet away from the record, and I have a feeling we'll beat that record. Based on the history of the lake, the low was typically for a month or two but then it started to raise back up. So let's hope that we can start raising back up soon!! We need rain, and lots of it!!

From the Mansfield Damn Park. At one point where I was standing was underwater, but that was due to an insane amount of rain one spring (I believe it was in 2006).



Abbey standing on rocks that are typically under water.

LOVE this picture of her! Little Miss Adventurer

One of the many boat ramps closed on Lake Travis. I believe all ramps were closed by August of this year due to the water being so low

At the end of the boat ramp... as you can see no way a truck could get down there towing a boat.

Lots of old beer cans were littered along the shore... so old they had the pull tabs on the top!

Here is a picture looking back at Mansfield Dam... and typically this part of the lake is under a lot of water and can't be seen.

There were a TON of stumps out there. I remember hearing that before the lake was damned it was an orchard, and it makes sense seeing all of the stumps out there.

Even an old trash can was out there

Transmission? or some type of mechanical part

Hello! I bet the last time I was this far out in Lake Travis, I was on a boat floating around. Who knew I would be walking along this part of the lake!

Where is Abbey? Hiding along all of the brush that has sprouted up

Lovin the weather

This past Sunday we headed out to the Barton Creek Greenbelt to enjoy the sun and get in some exercise. The dogs were ecstatic to be out and about. There are parts of this trail that get pretty narrow, which makes it a little bit of a nightmare because there are mountain bikers that zoom by. Chewie and Abbey don't really get that when a biker is coming right at us, they need to move to the side. We walked through the river bed for a bit because of the open space so the dogs could roam without us worrying about the bike riders.

A couple of weeks ago I took Abbey to the vet for a little rash on her tummy (turned out to be dry skin), and I found out that she was a little overweight. Our baby girl is 65 pounds. 65 POUNDS, she is a damn chunky girl! :) Her chest has started to barrel out a bit, and her legs stopped growing. So we have been feeding her a little less each day and we have been exercising more with her. Looks like Abbey and I will be on a quest to slim down for summer :)

Chewie sniffing the air

The hubs and I
No matter what type of noise or stomp of my foot I did, they would not look at me at the same time. Damn them, don't they know mama wanted to take a picture??!?!

We walked for about 45 minutes to an hour, and could tell that Abbey was done. She was panting but still prancing along the path. However.. as soon as we stopped at the car, she laid down on the cool ground and stayed there for a bit. Doesn't she look like some type of crazy dog in the picture?

After 5 minutes on the ground, and a lot of water, she perked back up

We decided that we weren't ready to go home, so we went to Cuatros to enjoy some lunch and drinks while the dogs rested below the tables. Well, they did a lot of standing but they did behave.

Cuatros was nice enough to bring over a large water bowl for the pups. We had a great afternoon out in Austin... I look forward to many more of these afternoons this spring

Hiking in Arizona

I had some free time on one of the days in Arizona so I decided that I wanted to go on a hike and get some photos at Papago Park. I like this park because it is near town and only took about 30 min to get there from my mom's house. Back in the day I used to go rappelling down the side of one of the mountains, which was SO MUCH FUN. I wish I could have done it on this day... start my day off with a little adrenaline rush :) It was Monday morning, so there were only a few bikers out on the trails. I saw 4 jack rabbits running around and a few quail (at least I think they were quail.) I tried to get some pictures of the rabbits, but those guys were to quick. The hike was a lot of fun, even if it did heat up to around 75 degrees at 9am :)

Here is one of my shots of the rabbit.... He is kind of hard to see, but he is in the middle of the picture, with his back to us running away
Self portrait,,, of course

There were quite a few different types of cacti in the park.

Hello

I loved this little bush thing... so spiny

Hello, me again! To get to the top of the mountain, I had to climb up this crevice. It wasn't very hard, but it did take some time since you had to search for foot holds.

This is the opposite view from my self portrait above. I wedged my ass in the crevice to take this picture. I ended up having scratches on my ass :)

These little guys were cute with their little "hats" on their head :) I think they are quail, but not really sure. There were little packs of these guys all over the park.

In case you were wondering, I was up there (see where finger is pointing) taking pictures.