Welcome back! In part one of this April 2024 series, I talked about the amazing superbloom that was happening throughout the park and showed the flowers, animals, and hikes that Aneel and I saw during our two weeks in Inks Lake. Now I’m back (better late than never) to talk about the total eclipse itself.

Aneel and I had been talking about and looking forward to this total eclipse so close to home for a few years. Although we’d already experienced one total eclipse before (August 2017 in St. Louis), we were very excited to be able to see another from our own back yard… back State Park? Then starting a couple of weeks before the eclipse, everyone started to get nervous. So many people had plans and had been looking forward to it, and literally… it was THE topic of conversation for at least a week because the weather looked like it was not going to cooperate at all. Not just cloudy weather was predicted, but rains and potential big storms. I wasn’t too nervous until just a couple of days beforehand because weather is too unpredictable to really forecast early, right?

The forecast did look slightly better getting closer to the big day, but nearly full cloud coverage was still predicted. Aneel and I woke up that morning and talked about our options. Like the partial eclipse in 2023, should we drive to a close-ish location with less cloud coverage? No, we decided to hope for the best and comforted ourselves that if we missed it, we’d already had a great total eclipse experience in 2017.

That morning and afternoon—the park was very full. Everyone had their chairs pulled out, their glasses ready. I worked that morning, but we started our watch at noon.

The hour and change leading up to the eclipse is an interesting experience. I would look up with glasses on to see the sun fairly frequently but read and meander around quite a bit too. Apparently, I don’t have the attention span one needs to stare at the sun as the moon slowly, slowly creeps over the sun. Also, it’s a little more dramatic to take pauses and check back in and see how the moon coverage has significantly changed.

The weather leading up to the peak eclipse was PERFECT. As we’d experienced during the partial eclipse, cloud coverage moving through actually adds to the experience. You can take great pictures, and it makes the sun through the glasses look really beautiful.

It gets slowly darker, but ever so slowly… even when only a little sun is peeking through, it still seems like a typical overcast day. And then fairly suddenly, the moon covers the sun completely, you can look at the sun without your glasses, and everything seems almost like it’s night time. Not quite… maybe like the gloaming. It’s such a weird, magical feeling.

The park was a great place to be during the total eclipse. We were very, very lucky and had cloud clearance through much of the eclipse and during the total eclipse. Park visitors cheered and celebrated.

Then, after only four and a half, the sun starts appearing again. We watched as the moon coverage slowly moved away. To try to avoid traffic jams on the way home, we went on one more hike and had an early dinner. Traffic was still a little congested on the way home but not bad.

And we were very happy to see our cats upon arrival.

https://tourtoise.quest/2024/08/20/the-main-event-inks-lake-2024-total-eclipse-part-2/

#Eclipse #InksLake #TexasStatePark

Superbluem: Inks Lake 2024 Total Eclipse Part 1

As mentioned in my last post on our Thanksgiving trip, we had reservations at Inks Lake State Park for the April 2024 total eclipse.

Aneel worked VERY hard to get these reservations because Texas state parks have limited reservations, and they don’t do anything special/raise prices for big nature events like this. So he calculated EXACTLY when they would go on sale, decided we could make reservations for two weeks (so we could book a little earlier), and then was at his computer ready to purchase the second they were made available.

I felt very, very lucky that we ended up with such great reservations for the eclipse (and even more so felt that way after the eclipse: the reason why coming in part 2).

Superbloom

But the surprise was… it was also amazing because of the spectacular superbloom. The spring flowers were in bloom and just… freaking gorgeous.

My apologies for the semi-crappy pictures. Aneel has some on his actual camera that probably turned out way better. These are iPhone camera photos with Seek identification. Please let me know if I got any of the IDs wrong.

Superbluem

We jokingly started referring to this as the “superbluem” because of the spectacular showing of bluebonnets. I love bluebonnets… they’re so lovely, and it makes me feel close to Austin in positive ways (unsurprisingly, I have very complicated feelings about Austin and Texas in general). The bluebonnets were EVERYWHERE.

It was also super super fun to search for variants. The only ones we found were the white variants. Overall, I think we found maaaaaybe two dozen total of individual white variants. We searched high and low on every hike and walk for the pink and maroon variant but no go. I guess that means we have a goal for the future.

Activities

I’ve been fairly stressed because of work and the house renovation drama we’ve been dealing with… so getting out in nature and enjoying some wonderful hiking and relaxing was really good for my mental health.

We went on some truly lovely hikes, and got some really great birding in (including two new on my birding list) and a very good stop at the great bird blind at Inks Lake.

Animals

And the animal spotting was also on point. We saw some really great insects and arachnids.

Some great lizards.

And, of course, some great birds. As mentioned, I added two new to my bird list, although I’m sure I’ve seen them before. They were the greater scaup (pretty sure greater not lesser) and also the gadwall. I didn’t get pictures – too far away (although again – Aneel probably has better pictures). The good pictures I do have are of the Canada Geese that we named because they walked through our campsite a lot-Humphrey and Lauren, so named because our cat Bogart meows/yells at us and sounds 100% like a goose. Hearing their geese noise made us think of him (i.e., Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall). We also saw little geeslings. And a truly whoa tufted common mallard.

Check Back in for Part 2

It was a spectacular trip already, and this doesn’t even touch on the total eclipse. Check back in next week for my recap on the eclipse. It was a tense week because it looked like weather and clouds might spoil everything!

#Eclipse #InksLake #TexasStatePark

For the first… 16 or so years of my life, I celebrated Thanksgiving with my immediate and extended family. It was always at either my grandparent’s house or my aunt and uncle’s house (maternal uncle – older brother of my mother). It was what I still consider the “typical” middle-class, waspy Thanksgiving day. The holiday revolved mostly around food… women in the kitchen with multiple hours worth of planning, prep, and cooking. Men mostly hanging out in the living room, watching sports and waiting for food. Couple dozen people ranging in ages from toddlers to great-grandparents.

My family always had the same food (which we then also had at Christmas): turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and more pies than people. I mean seriously… nobody agreed on the same “best pie,” so we all got our favorites and then some. Pecan, chocolate silk, apple, coconut cream, cherry, peach, banana cream, lemon, key lime… and always pumpkin. Nobody ever claimed pumpkin as their favorite pie, but it just wasn’t Thanksgiving without it. If you’re wondering, my favorite pie has pretty much always been apple. I like a good apple crumb (or french apple/dutch apple), but a straight-forward solid apple pie is A+ in my book.

And then, slowly, one by one, the cousins peeled off… celebrating with their new immediate family (getting married, having babies, celebrating with new in-laws, etc). And eventually, we all admitted defeat. No more big family Thanksgivings. My immediate family prioritized Christmas, and let Thanksgiving go.

By the time I was in my mid-to-late 20s, Thanksgiving meant Friendsgiving… potlucks with whoever was in town and blood-family free at that time of year. I still love a good Friendsgiving, but Aneel and I have a new tradition now. Starting a handful of years ago, we camp over Thanksgiving. I prep some food just for the two of us, and we head off towards quiet and have our own little family [non]-celebration.

2023 was no exception to this tradition. We lucked out on Inks Lake State Park reservations, and spent a a long weekend there from Wednesday, Nov 22nd to Saturday November 25th (spoiler: we actually had to the 26th, but we bailed early because of weather).

I prepped pumpkin risotto (recipe made veggie) and a fall salad for our Thanksgiving meal. And I picked up a smorgasbord of goodies from Sugar Mama‘s including little mini pumpkin pies (again.. not my favorite, but a Thanksgiving classic).

We had a fine time camping… good hikes, wildlife.

I attempted an apple cobbler over the campfire. It was tasty… but ugly (and a far cry from a cobbler). I didn’t take a picture of the final product – but it was a fun attempt nonetheless. We had more success with drinking mead (which we also shared with the local bumblers).

Our two biggest victories of the extended weekend were:

Sadly, the weather didn’t hold and right at the end of our hatchery visit, it started to rain. We headed back to our campground, but then after sitting inside our trailer for an hour, we realized it was going to rain for the rest of the day and we could hang out inside the trailer or pack it up and go home. We folded like cheap poker tables and packed up early. Heading home didn’t really feel like failure because of our sweet cats waiting for us and the cuddles we enjoyed.

https://tourtoise.quest/2024/04/13/thanksgiving-trip-2023/

#InksLake #TexasStatePark

The wildflowers have been spectacular this spring. Here, a couple of bluebonnets (Lupinus texenis) are visited by a winecup (Callirhoe involucrata). And some Indian paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa), my personal favorite, keep company with a prickly pear cactus.

#wildflowers #bluebonnets #IndianPaintbrush #winecup #Texas #InksLake #nature