Mighty Mighty Alligator Hunters

On a balmy December 29, Jamey and I decided to check out Brazos Bend State Park. Stacey had heard that there were alligators and other wildlife there for the (picture) taking, and it was a beautiful day. So we jumped in the Subaru and headed West. We took the scenic route, down Highway 35 and west on FM 1462. It was a beautiful drive and turned out to be a stunning day--and yes, we did see an alligator or two, one of them up close and personal as you can see!

Jamey had his trusty Nikon D50 with him, and he used up almost all of the room on his memory card. Because Jamey is a fabulous photographer and it was a beautiful day, he took home some stunning shots. We've shared some of of them here, and Jamey posted the whole smash online. You can see them here.

Taking a Walk on the Wild Side

Brazos Bend turns out to be an awesome place to view all sorts of wildlife. There are beautiful trails of varying degrees of difficulty surrounding the park, as well as a generous supply of facilities, picnic tables and grills.


We only had a few hours before we lost sunlight, so we limited our visit to the trails around Elm Lake and 40 Acre Lake.

Gators!

The park literature says that Brazos has 250 to 350 alligators on the property. There are signs everywhere warning you not to get too close or feed them. They even have an "Alligator Etiquette" sheet that visitors are encouraged to read--among the informational gems on that sheet: "alligators have the right of way" and "if an alligator catches your fish, let the alligator have it."

We saw two alligators on our visit. Stacey spotted one of them through the binoculars on one of the banks around Elm Lake.

This one was just sitting on the side of the trail around 40 Acre Lake, basking in the sun. He attracted a lot of attention because he was right next to the trail--if we had been brave (and stupid) we could have reached out and touched him, he was that close.







He didn't mind the crowd of people around him at all and it was more than a little unnerving to walk past this sleeping lizard that Jamey estimated was around 12 feet long with his tail. Jamey got some great shots of him, and he seemed happy to pose.

Golden Hour

Golden Hour is a Hollywood term for that beautiful time of day just before sunset when the light is perfect, and we got back to Elm Lake for a perfectly stunning Golden Hour.


The light made for some stunning photographs, and we got to see one of the most stunning sunsets we've seen in Texas.

If You Want To Go
(or if you just like to read informational stuff)

A little bit about Brazos: The park is approximately 28 miles southwest of Houston, and it covers roughly 5000 acres, with an eastern boundary of 3.2 miles fronting on the Brazos River on the southeast border of Fort Bend County. This was the area of Texas' first Anglo colonization. It was purchased by the state in 1976-77 and was opened to the public in 1984. Activities include camping, picnicking, hiking, biking, equestrian, and fishing. Six lakes are easily accessible to fishermen, with piers located at 40-Acre, Elm and Hale Lakes. You can read that information and more at the Brazos Bend State Park Website HERE.

Christmas in East Texas

Christmas in East Texas is really fun. This being Texas, everything is big: the light displays, the food, the decorations and the holiday cheer. 

We decided to let the cats star in our Christmas cards this year--they didn't get as much of a kick out of their costumes as we did...

This year's Christmas season has been especially exciting this year because it SNOWED last Wednesday.  This is our neighbor's yard, covered in snow:

Snow doesn't happen very often in this part of the world. It's usually pretty tropical--Jamey was wearing short sleeve when he put up the Christmas lights and he was warm. So when it actually gets cold enough to snow it's a huge event, and when it sticks it's even more huge. So on Wednesday night the neighborhood kids were dancing in the street and everyone felt compelled to make a snowman and/or start a snowball fight. 

It looked so beautiful in the moonlight (that's snow on my ficus tree--very odd), and it was still on the ground when we woke up the next morning. 

Of course it melted as soon as the sun came up, but it was an exciting event for the Houston area. 

BTW, we learned that every year we have a hurricane or a tropical storm, we also have snow. Since this year's hurricane was a huge one (remember Ike, everyone?), it makes all the sense in the world that the snow would also be some of the biggest we've had in a while.

The night it snowed we brought in a new refugee kitten. She was shivering in the snow on the front porch, so we invited her in and she was happy to come in from the cold. 

If (and that is a BIG if) we can teach her to use the litterbox, we'll help her find a good home and keep her here in the meantime. But she needs to learn that little trick first...

We're planning to go to Albuquerque for Christmas. Stacey is flying out on Thursday and Jamey will join her next Monday because he gets to be a sideline reporter for the Texas State Football championships! He'll definitely enjoy that and will do a great job, endearing himself to the football folks out here in East Texas. It will be nice to see the Ford family for a week or so--we're looking forward to it.

If we don't get a chance to update the blog in the next few weeks, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!