May 6th may have been the slowest hike of my life. On May 5th, Matt had his rugby game. When it ended it took about 15 minutes for him to limp across the field to us, then slowly limp back to the car, where he held a cold beer on his knee for the ride (no beers consumed in the car). We all lounged in the air conditioning, recovering from our morning hike in Wild Basin (me, Will and Nicole) and playing rugby (Matt) and being in the sun in May in Texas for more than 6 hours. And THEN we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. So the morning of the 6th, we were moving a little slowly. We made the drive, and then very gradually made our way across the ridge hike in Balcones Canyonlands, Matt limping, wearing excessive amounts of sunscreen, and gradually sweating out the hydrating activities of the evening before.

Besides the speed and the overly aggressive sunshine it was a great hike, and we made up many fun riddle games as we walked, and everyone else was very tolerant of the fact that I stopped at every single flowering cactus to take pictures. Many of the cacti were full of bugs, and I’m not sure why, so if anyone can enlighten me on that I would really appreciate it. Below are all the pictures from the hike! While there were no golden cheeked warblers visible, there were some rocks with them painted on and numbers and I don’t know why. The website didn’t give me much more information so again, would appreciate any enlightenment!