Guadalupe River State Park - I

I've been feeling a bit under the weather last couple of days. Nothing major, just an annoying cough and feeling stuffed up in the morning. That seemed to be a good reason to camp out on the couch with warm blanket, a book, and some lemonade - not having had the foresight to lay in some Jack Daniels. I must admit I haven't gotten very far in the book yet, with bowl games scheduled for nearly every waking moment. So far, seven of "my" teams won and seven lost. I've got two more games before the BCS championship, so I'm hoping that the Ramblin' Wreck and the Horn Frogs both win to bring my average up above .500. Then, of course, on Thursday night the Longhorns will play Alabama. I'm okay with the fact that few give us any chance for a win. I'm hoping that we've lulled the Crimson Tide into a false sense of security. In any case, I can't wait for the game. I can't take it any longer!

So today, with no college games, I'll push out this post while watching the Cowboys and Eagles decide who's going to represent the NFC East.

*****

These pictures were taken 31 December 2005. Gillian was spending the Christmas holidays with me and we had driven down to San Antonio for Ellen's and Stan's New Year's Eve party. I had been talking to Ellen about their occasional campouts at Guadalupe River State Park. When she mentioned it was, for all practical purposes, "just up Blanco Road", Gillian and I decided we'd drive up and see what we could see.

The first thing I noticed about the area were the monotones, any autumn colors having long since faded. My initial impression was that there would be nothing to take pictures of. Then, I somehow managed to shift my attitude and was able to see all kinds of things to shoot.

The trees on the river bank, I believe, are bald cypress - at least, that's the closest thing I can find in my Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Trees. You might not want one dropping its needles on your lawn, but every one seems to have its own character, and beside the river there are more than enough view points to keep the photographer busy all afternoon.

The water was shallow and the water's surface served up reflections attenuated by a light breeze. With the Longhorns going to the championship game against USC in the Rose Bowl in a few days, I remembered thinking the needles being shed by these trees were nearly, if not actually, burnt orange. (Okay, at least concede that they're "rust colored" - that's close enough to burnt orange for me.)

All these pictures were taken along a quarter-mile section of river bank, with the sun alternately shining or hiding behind broken clouds. Towards the end of that quarter-mile section, I came upon several much older, larger trees with lots of the character I mentioned earlier. And as I panned farther to the right, I started picking up reflections of the sky which I hadn't seen before, but which added some great contrasts - in value and color - which I found interesting.