This weekend has been a glorious January one for the books. Yesterday we kind of got rat-holed by what should have been a 30 minute project at the house, but it ended up consuming the day.
Today, however, i was determined to get outside. The level of Lake Travis continues to remain woefully low at 624′ above mean sea level. Happily, though, the rain from last week raised the level about 9 inches. We just have another 684 inches to go before the lake is full!
One of the features of the land that surrounded the original river that the drought has uncovered is the piece of land referred to by locals as “Sometimes Islands.” When the lake basin is flooded, the peaks of this piece of land sometimes stick up; sometimes they are covered by water. Well, for the last 3 or 4 years, Sometimes Islands has become For-the-Foreseeable-Future Peninsula.
We set out today to walk the length of the peninsula. So we packed a few snacks for lunch, brought our GPSes, and tossed my Christmas present from Monte – a metal detector – in the trunk for its maiden voyage.
We stopped briefly at the historic site for the original Anderson Mill – the mill that operated near Cypress Creek in the 1800s – a NW Austin neighborhood and road still bear its name. They have a museum here as well, but it is only open for a few hours on the 4th Sunday of every month between March and October. We’ll have to come back for the tour.
Then we headed for Mansfield Dam Park and started our trek.
This is the old highway that used to cross over the top of the dam. It is closed to ordinary folks these days, and Highway 620 is the throroughfare now. I’d love to get a chance to stroll across the old road now, though.
I walked the length of the peninsula – about 2.5 miles out from the park – and found all the geocaches that didn’t require scuba gear. Monte marked a couple of points on his GPS that will hopefully be boating hazards and/or navigable cuts once again at some time in the future. This was the view from the park looking out over Sometimes Islands…the structure on the top of the hill in the center of the picture is the Oasis.
We also tried out the metal detector for the first time. And I have to say: “Pretty nice!” We were able to detect and reliably find nearly every piece of metal (aluminum, lead, iron, steel, …) that it sounded on, even if we had to dig 6″ or more to get to it. I’m looking forward to bringing it along on some of our cove-explorations when the weather gets warmer. No treasure this time. But it was fun.
I go back to work a week from tomorrow. This weekend was a nice adventure. I’m hoping to squeeze in few more next week.
Sheila365 