North Side of the Lake

Today is my cousin Jan's birthday. I called to wish her a happy birthday, and we had a very nice conversation. It's really good to hear her voice and know that she is gaga over a rescue kitty she has named Lucky.

We drove to the north side of the lake today to hike and picnic and explore. We managed a hike and drove through a couple of the parks, but no joy on picnicking. We ate in the truck in the Dollar General parking lot. The COE employees at the parks did not have much information and were generally clueless about hiking opportunities. Several of the places we tried to visit were closed. We had to park outside the closed gate at the Old Hancock trailhead. There was a large empty parking lot, but it was inaccessible.

The trail follows the north shore of the lake and is mainly an equestrian trail. We saw lots of evidence of horses in the softer areas especially. The trail offers nice views of the lake, but it's mostly unshaded, so we were glad we started out before the heat of the day. For the first part of the hike, it was cloudy, which was ideal for hiking.

We did find a couple of small groves of trees.

We saw lots of wildflowers and deer, and I found some ripe dewberries. We also passed a dead skunk (ewwww). The trail is supposed to be 3.5 miles one way. We hiked 2.7 miles and were unable to find any continuation of the trail, so we think is is perhaps overgrown. Much of the trail is a mowed swath in the grass. Anyhow, we turned around and headed back, for a total of just under 5.5 miles

We ate an early dinner at the Silver Sage Grille in Canyon Lake. It got some very positive reviews from Yelpers and on UrbanSpoon and TripAdvisor, and we were intrigued by the eclectic menu. We were the only patrons for most of our meal. The "nice little house salad" included mixed greens, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We chose the Champagne Habanero Vinaigrette, which as you can imagine was very hot but interesting.  The rest of the meal was delightful, but the chocolate decadence cake and Blue Bell vanilla ice cream for dessert was both beautifully presented and the perfect ending to a great meal.

We spent some time in the Family Dollar, mainly waiting in the air conditioning for the restaurant to open. We also used the Family Dollar restrooms to change into something more suitable for dinner. Canyon Lake is very small and has no fast food restaurants.

We watched Michael Mosely's Gut on PBS tonight--literally. He actually swallows a "camera pill" which takes photos as it travels through his gut. Interesting.