Doug Goodman's Blog, page 5

Rapelling Into Gorman Falls

What makes one hike good and another bad? Weather? A good night’s sleep? Geography and geology? Or is it just that everybody prefers one trail’s scenery over another? I’ve been thinking about that a lot when I consider my family’s trek to Gorman Falls.

First, a brief overview of the trail. Gorman Falls Trail is a 2.6-mile out-and-back at Colorado Bend State Park west of Lampasas, Texas. It’s in the northern end of the Texas hill country. Flatter lands are filtering out of the park, but in the park there are still plenty of rolling climbs. The trail typifies this, with small elevation gains for most of the trail, but steep descent in the last half mile or so. It ends at the 70-foot falls, which are interesting for the surrounding travertine formations.

For us, this trail was r-o-u-g-h. It’s almost all rock, but unlike Enchanted Rock’s steady dome ascent, Gorman’s is all varieties of small and large sandstone, but often pointed. This rock is unrelenting with small gaps of sand and dirt for the foot to escape. But man, it was all rock. If you’re not used to it, you might be in for a surprise.

Now, I need to add that if you’re my mountain goat teenager, you’ll have no problem. In fact, most – not all, but most – of the hikers were young adults and new families. I think having that youthful mountaingoatism makes the rocks tame. Most older hikers know better than to avoid this one, but I’m not one of them, so to the bottom we went!

Some of the rocks are really interesting, btw. I had to stop and take photos. I have no idea how the domes formed, whether that is natural or man-made. If you know or have a theory, I’d love to hear it! Leave a comment.

The weird bubble rocks Spoon man, come together with your hands…

So, as slow walkers, we took our time and enjoyed the scenery and the sunny, cool day. I can only imagine (and will continue to only imagine) the amount of sweat and water involved in a summer hike of Gorman Falls. Mesquite, grasses, and prickly pear roll out to either side of this trail.

Taking our sweet time meant we needed close to an hour to get to the bottom of the falls (and you have to go to the bottom to see it). This also meant that we got to hear over and over again warnings about that final descent. “It’s really steep!” one little girl shouted out as we passed her along the trail. “And it’s REALLY slippery!!” She was not the only child to warn us about the rock’s slipperiness, which makes me wonder how many kids were slipping on the rocks. At times, I felt we should turn back. I must admit, I was a little nervous with all the warnings. But onward and forward! (We were over halfway there!)

Okay, so after all that, all I gotta say is…That final fifty yards, y’all, it’s steep! Not as steep as the Lighthouse Trail up in Palo Duro Canyon, but whereas the rough rock of the Lighthouse Trail grips to your boots (and/or skin for the unfortunate), Gorman Falls rock is slick. I was glad I had my hiking boots on, and I can definitely see where kids in tennis shoes would lose their footing. (Fortunately, no blood stains on the rock.)

For the final descent, the trail transforms into an I-45 traffic jam of families jockeying for position, coming and going. The trail is narrow, and you really have to use the cord rails they give you, which means there isn’t much room for people to maneuver around each other. The technique is to climb to a stopping point, let people pass, then climb some more.

My recommendation is to cover those last drops rappelling-style! Go backwards! It’s much easier. I’m no mountain climber, but I’ve rappelled a couple times. This won’t be true rappelling where you’re perpendicular with the rock, but the steep incline reminded me of ascent climbing. Twenty to sixty percent grades over the final 200 feet, dropping 156 feet. For comparison, Lighthouse Trail covers approximately the same elevations over one-tenth of a mile.

So that makes Gorman Falls the first trail I’ve quasi-rappelled down. Every trails brings something new. (My wife went with the sliding down on your ass method. She did this purposefully, btw. )

The falls at the bottom are nice. I don’t think anywhere else in Texas a hiker will be able to view calcite leaching into the vegetation and transforming it into rock.

Falls to the left of me, calcite formations to the right…

I also enjoyed the view of the Colorado River. I can honestly say I’ve never been to this part of the Colorado. A mile up the road and it widens into the broad expanse that I’m more familiar with. But here, it drains into a thin vein of clear and inviting water. I bet kayaking it would be fun!

Putting the “bend” in Colorado Bend State Park…

Normally, it would be the sort of thing where I’d ooh and aah, then jump back into my car. But my car was still an hour away. This leads me back to where I started: pondering the value of a trail. Was this trail worth it? The weather was comfortable. We hiked Enchanted Rock the day before, so we were all a little tired (except my son, who returned to the car about twenty minutes before us). On a side note, his mother would ask him to stop and wait for her at certain parts of the trail, in case she needed assistance, and once we got there, we’d find him sitting on a rock like some monk in meditation, waiting patiently for his mother to catch up. He is growing up to become quite the polite adult, and it makes me smile to think of who he is becoming.

All this is to say, there was nothing off about the experience. We ate well, we were well-rested, if sore. We were in good spirits, and the weather gods were cooperating.

Here is where I have to say that Texas is not the best place for viewing falls. No disrespect to the Lone Star State, but there’s no comparison to places like Hidden Falls in the Grand Tetons or some of the falls in the Appalachian Mountains, or even some of the falls in California that I’ve seen photographed. That’s not to say the falls in Texas are bad. They’re just the kind of pretty you appreciate with a smile rather than a slack jaw.

Within Texas, Gorman Falls is one of the most significant. My family debates over whether the best falls are Pedernales or McKinney, and after rainstorms, the water falling at Hamilton Pool is pretty memorable. I think the best comparison of Gorman Falls is the grotto at Lost Maples Natural Area. The grotto is beautiful and unique and lies along a well-worn trail in a very scenic part of the hilly country. Gorman Falls is also a unique beauty, but I’m not sure I’d repeat a 2-hour trek across rough terrain to see it.

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Ups and Downs

Have you ever had one of those weeks full of low points and high points? I did. What they were is less important to me than what I did with them. When Wednesday was bad, I told my son and daughter about what I was going through and how I found the silver lining in the day. Our new Roomba arrived. Our old one, which we bought in 2016, if I remember correctly, died on us a month ago. We really needed a new Roomba. It arriving Wednesday was a relief, even if it didn’t get to work until late in the day. Immediately, the tiles were different. Smooth as porcelain glaze!

(For the record, Wednesday was bad because the toilet broke, and all my effort only seemed to break it more rather than fix it. It was a smelly, discouraging day.)

Thursday I visited my cardiologist to review the results of my stress test. “You aced it!” Dr. Kumar said. Those were his exact words and emotions, and he is not one for emotions with his patients, so I’m really happy with the results. I’m clear to do whatever exercise I want, which was also good to learn. Not that I’m ready to take up HIIT classes or anything more than the walking/cycling/hiking that I’m doing now, but it felt good to get the go-ahead anyways.

I also received other good news, but I want to wait to talk about that more later. The point was talking about it to my kids. (I feel weird using that term – one’s a teenager and the other’s in graduate school!) I wanted to show them that life can be down one day, but that it usually improves. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and the night is always darkest before the dawn.

Last week, as a family we hiked to the top of Enchanted Rock one day and to the bottom of Gorman Falls the next. Both trails were some of the more challenging ones I’ve encountered in Texas. Up and Down. You get them both on the trail and in life. It’s cliché to say it’s what you do with them that matters, but I think it’s cliché for a reason. There really is truth in it. As my football coach said years ago, “Every player gets knocked down. It’s what you do after getting knocked down that’s important.” He then probably yelled at me to get off my ass and go tackle someone. I’m not going to yell at my adult children to go tackle somebody. Neither one of them play sports for starters. But I do think it’s important to show them Moms and Dads have rough days, too, and that’s okay. We wake up and try again the next day.

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That Time I Hiked Through a Dust Storm and a Wind Monster

Spring Break was pretty epic. Not only did I get to visit the Houston Zoo with my son (he loved the reptile house and we laughed at the irony of the smiling faces of the deadly black mamba), but we also did a 48-hour road trip to two of Texas’ more famous state parks, Colorado Bend and Enchanted Rock.

Now, I’ve never been to Enchanted Rock. I’ve wanted to visit since I was in college, but a combination of funds, time, and vicinity (it’s in the Texas hill country and I live in Houston, which for non-Texas readers means Enchanted Rock is a five-hour drive from here). That’s almost 300 miles, again in non-Texas vernacular.

Getting to Enchanted Rock would be quite an excursion in itself, not just due to the long roads but also to the storms. While driving through Houston, we cut through a storm front like we were the Andrea Gail. The temperature on my Jeep dropped from 74 to 58 degrees, and by the time we reached Bastrop, it was sunny and 80 degrees. But then came the massive dust storm (thanks, West Texas). So when we arrived at this secluded spot, Enchanted Rock’s alluring vistas looked very beige and lacked much in views.

Enchanted Rock is unique in Texas state parks because it is mostly primitive camping, and few trails allow cyclists or dogs (the granite dome that is the enchanted rock gets very hot, very quickly, and there is no respite from the rock).

I wanted to do something different for this blog post. My wife, frugal traveler, wrote her own description of the grueling hike. You can check it out here. I really prefer her account because it does such a good job of trying to figure out why the hell were we there in the first place, and what hiking to the top of the rock was like.

The only thing I will add (besides a few photos below) is that hiking to the top was exponentially brutalized by that pulverizing wind out of West Texas. You know those videos of people on top of Mt. Washington where they are being pushed around by the wind? It would be hyperbole to say that it was that extreme, but I’m a Texan, so I will say it was worse than that! I was never knocked off the rock, but there were a few times I was starting to wonder…

Enchanted to meet you, Enchanted Rock. The one photo on top of the dome where my hat isn’t reverse-umbrella’ed. Sunset Great view of the brown, dusty skyline…

Life is an adventure unless somebody dies, and then it’s a tragedy. I’m glad that I got to share this adventure with my family, winding through dirt roads, climbing granite domes in the middle of nowhere, and finding new places together.

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Rough Draft of Murder Dog Finished

I feel broken, beat, and scarred, but the rough draft of Murder Dog is complete. I am harrowed by that dog’s journey.

That was a really messed up dream…

This morning, my daughter and I were talking about last night’s dreams. I had a rough night brought on by a midnight snack I shouldn’t have eaten, so I only got a few hours of sleep, but when I was sleeping my mind didn’t concoct narrative stories. Instead, I seemed to be a conduit to some really weird imagery. They weren’t scary or disturbing. Kind of surreal-looking, like meshed up faces that don’t belong on the same skull. Hell, that cannot physically be two sides to the same skull. While one side balloons outward, the other scrunches tight at an odd angle.

As I was dreaming I got to wondering, where is all this coming from? Did I see this sometime in my past almost-47 years of life? Is this a stillframe plucked from some movie I watched, or an image I saw at a museum or in a book, and now my brain is recalling it? Why is it doing this? What is the purpose of revisiting these images? And if this is what’s happening, how incredible is my brain that it can select this perfect snapshot from decades ago and present it to me in such intricate detail? And if that isn’t what happened, then again, how magnificent is the human mind that its synapses fire off so randomly that it created these very detailed, very odd images in the middle of the night? Hours later, I still don’t know where these images originated, my memory or my psyche, but after last night I am in awe of what the human mind can retain/create.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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Five Great Animal & Dog Books for National Read Across America Day

March 2 is National Read Across America Day, and if you are not reading a book about everybody’s favorite cat or favorite zombie-hunting dog, but you’re looking for a good animal/dog book, I’ve got five for you.

(Note, you can keep up with my reading on my Goodreads account.)

A Three-Dog Life. Well-written and disturbing, yet it’s neither a horror book nor a dog book, per se. Abigail Thomas’ memoir of her husband’s brain injury and the dogs that accompany her in this painful time is a book everyone should read. The book’s title comes from the saying that really hard and especially cold nights were three-dog nights where at least three dogs need to get into bed with you to keep you warm.The Dog. I thought about putting Cujo here or Jack Ketchum’s Red. They are both great horror books involving dogs. But they are more about the people who own the dog or experience the dog. Amy Cross’s 2016 post-apocalypse book is told from the viewpoint of the dog, which makes it a very different kind of post-apocalypse.The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery. Okay, this is my “currently reading” book, so I haven’t finished it yet, but it has been an insightful and inspiring book. I watched My Octopus Teacher on Netflix last month, and I really enjoyed it. A friend recommended this book. She was right. This is great stuff about such an alien creature, so different from humans, and yet so similar. H is for Hawk. Another animal memoir. (Finding a fiction story that isn’t of the Old Yeller variety has always been hard.) Obviously not about dogs, and I will admit I was torn on this one. I really loved the half of the book that was all about Helen Macdonald training her goshawk, Mabel. Truly, this is brilliant writing. For anyone who has ever tried to train an animal, especially not a common one (you know what I mean, people who have watched owners of Labs and Goldens and GSDs), you will laugh and cry and shout at the author as she goes through the highs and lows of training her goshawk. The parts of the book about T. H. White just didn’t resonate with me as much, but that didn’t stop me from giving it a four-star rating on Goodreads. WE3. This is my favorite, favorite animal book/story. If I was allowed to be a Hollywood Producer for a day, this is the story I would convert to a movie. You may not have heard about this ultraviolent graphic novel, but you should definitely read it, if you are older and not squeamish. Grant Morrison wrote this scifi about three pets that are weaponized into cyborg killing machines. (Weapon-3, get it?) Once the program is successful and the animals are determined to be expandable, dog, cat, and rabbit are set free by a sympathetic scientist. They are then hunted by government agencies and their cybernetic monsters. I have rarely seen such an action-driven plot with such a tender heart. This is one of my favorite animal stories, though reader beware: it is a Rated R, MA for Mature Audiences only. Don’t give this to your kids to read!

Now, you may notice that these aren’t really “children’s books.” But you probably noticed that I’m not into those things. It is hard to find good stories about animals that aren’t geared toward children. Even harder to find ones that aren’t memoirs. If you can suggest a good animal/dog book, please leave a comment. I’m always looking for another!

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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Quality Time on the Lone Star Trail

I learned a new word this past weekend. I got it off an Instagram post of all places. (Who says social media is bad for you?)

Friluftsliv is a Norwegian term that translates to “open air living” or “free air life,” which is a pretty cool concept any day of the week, but the term is used more commonly to mean the spiritual or physical well-being gained by spending part of your life outdoors. Since I’m not Scandinavian, I will say “according to the Internet, Friluftsliv is pronounced ‘free-loofts-liv.'”

This weekend I spent some much-needed time outside, backpacking with my wife and son along the Lone Star Trail. Our trek wasn’t epic unless epic means a four-mile out-and-back, and there weren’t any bear or mountain lion encounters, but we did stop for fast food twice, so it was an adventure for everyone yesterday.

Seriously, though, I haven’t been backpacking in about two years, so I was exhilarated to be back on the trail. For anyone who doesn’t know about the Lone Star Hiking Trail, it is a 96-mile trail that winds through the Sam Houston National Forest in East Texas. It begins at a trailhead outside Richards, Texas and ends south of Winters Bayou, which is north of Cleveland. I’ve been wanting to hike it, which is probably why I was chomping at the bit to get there.

Credit to the Conroe Courier for the map.

For those who were paying attention to the news, less than two weeks ago (February 16-18) Texas was covered in snow from an arctic flexing. This blast left many people without power in frigid temperatures. Pipes burst. Houses were badly damaged. Some people lost their lives.  It was awful! Cut to February 28 — it was so hot that I was in shorts, and I sweated half a gallon. In February!

So much mist back there…where’s the T. Rex?

Because of the humidity and heat in Houston, spring is the popular time to visit the Lone Star Hiking Trail. If you are able, and you are looking for a nearby thru-hike or just a day hike, I recommend it. If I’d known more about the trail when I was younger, I definitely would’ve spent many more days on it. For one, from February to late September, camping is permissible along the trails – no fees are needed. There are places where you can reserve a campsite, such as the Stubblefield campsites that were up the trail from us, but if I’d known I could enter the trail for free and camp for free, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time in state parks. (Ms. Badass’s note: State parks have always been more than adequate and have bathroom facilities!!)

Lone Sour Hiking Trail?

And while it wasn’t vastly different from the state parks in the area (part of the Lone Star Hiking Trail passes close to Hunstville State Park, just to give you an idea of the similarity in ecosystems), it is very special to hike for a few miles, only pass a few people along the trail, then stop for lunch and not hear a soul. There was some quality tranquility on the trail, and I was glad I got to spend time with my family, embracing Friluftsliv.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

My Winter Blackout Story

It happened with a click. I felt an internal tug, the same kind of downward plunger of emotion that sports fans feel in the waning seconds of a losing game, and then the buzzer goes off. 00:00 It’s that confirmation of an inevitability. The power was out. Our house filled with silence. A quick look out the window confirmed the blackout. My wife and I went to sleep to the sound of wind and emergency vehicles, whose sirens blared more prominently in the dead silence of night.

The cold wasn’t sudden. It crept slowly, inching its way into our house. An hour after the power went out, I noticed it was still relatively warm in our bedroom, and I didn’t need an extra blanket. I covered my head with a Buff and changed to warmer socks. I knew from camping experiences that warm socks and a covered head went a long way toward comfortability. By 3am, though, I needed the extra thermal blanket.

I checked the faucets in our bathroom. Again that night I was met with silence. I turned one faucet handle and could hear the water trickling through the narrow gap in the ice. I shut it off.

Because JSC was in Stage 3 telework mode, nobody was given the day, which made sense to me. We were home already. I had battery power in my laptop, so I was able to do my best during the day to conduct some research. I also started teh generator that we got from my Dad. (Thanks, Dad!) We warmed up a cup of coffee and did a few more things before the generator sputtered to a stop. I tried a couple tricks to get it to restart, but I think I may have to clean it out and replace the spark plug and air filter before it will begin working properly.

At lunchtime, Andrea and I bought groceries. I will admit, we were not as perfectly prepared as usual, but we are hoping to move, so we’ve been in a mode of using resources instead of storing up things that will inevitably have to be moved. The Target had a line out the door, and waiting in the cold was not an option, but the Walmart was allowing people inside. We stocked up on nonperishable foods, extra soups, snacks for the kids, and non-water drinking options like Gatorade and root beer for the kids and sparkling water for me. The good think about destroying your taste buds in the name of better health is that you can drink sparkling water, so when the water isle is completely empty but nobody is touching the sparkling water, which is just carbonated water (at least the ones I buy are), there was a cornucopia of options.

And rabbit pellets. Mr. Bunny II was out.

While we were scrounging for groceries, Andrea learned that the neighborhood association was opening the pool so that people could get flush water. We filled an old dog-biscuit bucket with chlorinated water, went home, and waited for the power to turn back on. The house temperature got down to 54 degrees. Not cold, but we were all in fleeces and blankets. My bigger concern was what we would do when the temperature dropped to freezing that night. Many people had to endure that, and we would, too, if necessary, but I was thinking of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones song, “Knock on Wood,” and these lyrics were in my head:

I’ve never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if
I’ve never had to knock on wood
And I’m glad I haven’t yet

I nurtured a spark of hope that the power would return before then, but that’s all it was then was hope.

I told my son about the time growing up in Lubbock when a blizzard knocked out the power. I remember we slept in the living room in front of the fireplace that night. I also remember giant icicles on the powerlines and thick snow piled around our house. I was no older than 10 at the time.

At 4pm, my phone buzzed with a boil water notice. At the same time, I heard the hallelujah song of the blower thrumming to life in the attic. I turned on a light switch just to confirm. We had power!

All told, we spent less than 19 hours without power. We live close to the coast, further south than most of Houston, so we get a lesser weather punch from the winter gods. Many people had actually harrowing stories to tell. For me, yesterday was one more adventure in a year that hasn’t been short on them (dodging hurricanes in the summer and a pandemic that continues to boil across the country). This will be something our kids will tell their grandchildren about, and I am thankful that they will have stories to tell.

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Don’t Follow Your Dog Into the Snowpocalypse

It’s polar vortex time! Texas is one giant winter storm watch today! And this President’s Day, like many pet owners, I woke up knowing that my dogs need to go to the bathroom. As I gathered up a few layers, my wife said, “Get a video of Koda going out into the snow.”

And I did.

But I don’t have anything I want to post because what I have looks like an 80-pound dog running around the yard, trying to go to the bathroom while fighting the need to be petted by his owner. He was SO CONFLICTED! I’d show a photo, but I feel my feed is too full of animal butts lately. So instead, how about a photo of Koda getting kozy by the hearth?

I’m wishing you warmth and comfort in the middle of the polar vortex.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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Not a Blog Post: Mary Anning Rocks Update

I wanted to drop a quick line to thank everyone for purchasing copies of Terrible Lizard over the last two weeks, especially the variant paperback edition. Because of you, I was able to donate 20 pounds to Mary Anning Rocks, which felt really good! I was so glad we could help support the erecting of a statue of this prominent contributor to paleontology. My update from the Crowdfunder says that they plan to unveil the statue Saturday, May 21, 2022. That will be Mary Anning’s 223rd birthday.