Hot day drained the energy out of us

Coppertone and I completed a loop around the permiter of the park and had to call it a day due to the heat.  We both felt a bit more drained of energy than we expected.  It almost felt like we'd lost a bit of our Texas resistance to heat!  It may about that time of year to start focusing more on hikes near the coast.

There's a mix of vegetation here.  Sometimes you're sheltered by treecover, sometimes you're fully exposed on a pocket prairie.  The grasses have all largely shed their verdant green color for summer and fall's brown.  If nothing else, it provides a contrast from the green tree foliage.

The trail is popular with horseback riders, so dodging the horse poop was a constant necessity.  A more pleasant experience was the abundance of yellow flowers found on thick stalked bushes along the Mark West Creek Trail.  When they bracketed both sides of the trail the fragrance was very impressive.  We learned later that this plant is Spanish Broom, an invasive species that aggressively crowds out native plants when not removed.  Too good to be true.

There are a least a few more miles of trails within our loop that remains to be hiked and mapped.  Next time we'll either visit on a cooler day or make sure we get an earlier start!