Day 4 – Lizards, spiders and snakes, oh my!

Ok, so we didnt see man eating plants, but I was excited to unexpectedly get to see a carnivorous plant bog at the East Texas Arboretum. Cool! how many people get to see those in the wild.

Traffic was not so bad in the city early on a weekend, but I did end up getting turned around (I thought) and took a wrong turn. From my directions I was supposed to take I35 to I30, seems simple enough. I saw the sign for I30 and merged, then quickly 200 feet away theres another turn for I30, what the? So I took the second turn also and suddenly we’re going north east. Well this cant be right, now we’re going the wrong way, we need to be going south… I thought I’d somehow made a big circle and ended up on the wrong direction of I30.

So just a few miles down the road I’m already lost and had to pull over to look at the map. I was going the right way after all, who designed this mess? At least it allowed us to get a few Dallas skyscraper pictures before we hauled tail out of town.

Its amazing that just a few miles out of town and the land was nice and green and the traffic pace much more relaxed on 175. Texan roads are so nice and smooth compared to back home and East Texas so lush and green I have a hard time believing that this is Texas.

For all of my life I’d only seen West Texas, from the panhandle to the gulf nothing but hot smelly wastelands. Gas fumes, feed lots, and whatever they spray on the fields the whole area just stinks in one way or another and except for a few nice areas hardly a tree to be seen. East Texas, on the other hand, wow what a difference, so green and pretty. If it wasn’t for the heat and humidity and no mountains to be seen or no skiing for 1000’s of miles for that matter I wouldn’t mind living here.

After we passed Kaufman we crossed some long bridges over a lake that were amazing. Lots of people were out fishing and in the shallows there were tons of these water lilies all in bloom (we later found out these were Lotus flowers). I’ve never seen anything like it, there were stretches where there was nothing but floating flowers the size of plates for a good half mile or so. Some of the isolated parts were so choked by these you couldn’t see the water. I kept trying to find a place to pull over to get a picture but there was no shoulder.

Eventually just before Athens it was about time for a break and I saw a tiny little sign that said East Texas Arboretum with an arrow. There was a little tiny rickety road that looked like someones driveway and then a little ways down the road another sign pointed the other way that said the same thing. We whipped a U-Turn and took that little almost 1 lane road full of bumps and potholes with overhanging branches forming a creepy looking tunnel, I could feel Cece behind me wondering where in the world are you taking us…

Past a few houses with people out mowing lawns and waving to us we crested a hill with some of the most beautifully landscaped park areas I’d seen. Wow. We stretched and locked up the gear and got some cold drinks. The book store/visitors center was closed but there was still quite a few people walking along the paths. Only $2 by the honor system to get in, not bad.

The first walkway we took ended up taking us straight into the forest, I thought it’d come around after a short ways and we’d get to check out the gardens. Not so, it went deeper and deeper into the woods until the sidewalk disappeared all together and there was just a sandy trail.

She wanted to keep going for a break off the bike and to get a bit of exercise in. The little map said our trail was 3 miles long. Its funny that whats the first thing we do in 100 degrees and 70% humidity… Lets go on a 3 mile nature hike!

This place was pretty cool, lots and lots of oak trees and varieties I’ve only seen in books before. Black gums, sweet gums, red oaks. There was lots of long grass leaves and underbrush hanging over the trail, I warned her to be careful not to let anything brush up against you especially the long grass on your legs. The last thing we needed was to get all full of chiggers and ticks out here.

Further down the trail we saw several of these huge funnel webs. Most of them were at ground level with the webs going up chest high, 4 1/2 to 5 feet tall. This one was overhead in the trees, for prospective the base of it is about 3 inches across.

The forest was getting more and more jungle like and wetter and our nicely marked white sandy path had become a barely visible dirt deer trail. I was wanting to turn back when we came to a suspension bridge across some swampy area/creek. We better keep a look out for heart ripping bad guys out of Indiana Jones…

On the other side there was a trail map, the same that was at the beginning that neither of us paid attention to. This time out in the middle of the wilderness I studied it thoroughly LOL.

From the map a branch of the trail from the bridge lead to some wetlands and a Pitcher Plant Bog! Wow Kickass! I want to see that! Now I’m the one leading the march through the jungle and shes already dragging and looking tired heh. I’m glad she lead me all the way out into the middle of nowhere or I would have never had a chance to see actual wild carnivorous plants.

There was lots of these lizards off the trail, any sound and they’d race off through the dry leaves sounding like something huge. They’re very skittish and hard to photograph. After the 6th one I was able to sneak up on one.

Theres just no way I can grow ferns, and here they are just everywhere.

These were some pretty cool flowers, I’ve never seen anything like them. Luckily there was a plaque next to them so we knew what they were called.

This thing was weird. I don’t know if it has a disease or something but it looked as though all the bark had been peeled back flat and then pressed. Those pieces look thin and papery but they are solid, odd.

Well after walking all the way along the wrong loop we came back to the bridge and I was getting discouraged that there wasn’t a way to get to the actual bog and the map was only pointing out the swampy area under the bridge further down. We took another route along the creek to see where that went and eventually came to this. We found it!! They need to redraw that map a little bit.

On the way back to civilization one of the giant spider webs was close to the path. I tapped on the web a few times to try and coax one out where we could see it, this was as far as I could get him. Come out come out large little spider…

Eventually we came back onto a paved walkway and came out of the woods at what looked like someones backyard. There was a house a little flower garden and a car outside and a old lady working in the vegetable garden. Uhh.. Where are we? Is this someones house or part of the arboretum? I can just picture two lost sweaty bikers stumbling out of the woods into someones backyard scaring the residents senseless. WATER!!

Just practicing my photography.

These Beech leaves were enormous. The leaves were close to 2 1/2 feet across, I’ve never seen one growing before.

There were lots of play houses and things for kids interspersed along the plants. This would be a neat place to take a pick nick, as long as you stay out of the woods heh. They had a great big gazebo also for events and functions, I was amazed by this fan they had inside it. Each of those blades is about 6 feet long, you can move some serious air with that.

So thats what a magnolia is supposed to look like. The few big healthy ones in the Paradise Hills area of Albuquerque look nothing like this. I’m glad we stopped here, by the end of our hike I was having to ring my shirt out from the humidity and dripping with sweat but it felt like we’d only walked across the street, I wasn’t tired at all. Must be all the oxygen they have down here.

Anyone nearby who likes landscaping, plants or nature should come check this place out, I don’t think it get a whole lot of visitors because the signs are small and the road to it doesn’t look like there’d be anything like this at the end of it.