On the afternoon of May 27, 2019, which happened to be Memorial Day, I decided to officially begin my training for my Australian trip.  On April 27, 2019 I had a little health scare.  I began experiencing pain in my left arm late in the afternoon.  I tried to ignore it, but by midnight it was much worse and I was beginning to fear that it might be cardiac related.  So we trotted down to the emergency room in New Braunfels and spent the night as they checked out my ticker.  They found nothing wrong with my heart and the ER doctor thought the pain in my arm might be nerve related.  I followed up with my cardiologist and, after a stress test and a calcium score, he came to the same conclusion.  I had gotten sloppy with my diet, so I cleaned that up and started to be more regular with my exercise.  My blood pressure fell into line, and I experienced a modest loss of body weight.  Encouraged by these developments, I decided I needed to start putting some boots on the ground in preparation for Australia….

On Saturday morning, May 25, 2019, I went out to Guadalupe River State Park to join a guided hike of the Honey Creek State Natural Area, which is adjacent to, and accessed from, the state park.  Access to this natural area is restricted to guided hikes for small groups.  Our leader for that hike was a very nice retired physician who is also a Master Naturalist.  His commentary during the hike was informative and interesting.  We began at the Rust House, and first hiked to an overlook on the Guadalupe River.  We then hiked down to Honey Creek before returning to Rust House.  It was not a long hike, and it rained off and on, but it was an enjoyable morning.  Here are a few photos from that hike…..

When I stopped at Park Headquaters for the Honey Creek hike, they gave me a map of the trails in the state park.  Looking at the map, I decided that I would next visit the Bauer Unit of the park and hike the trails there.  The Bauer Unit is north of the Guadalupe River, across from the main part of the park.  You can’t access the Bauer Unit from the main part of the park, instead, you must drive about six or seven miles and loop around to get to it.  The Bauer Unit has no facilities, just a parking lot and hiking trails.  As such, it sees very few visitors compared to the main part of the park.  I arrived at the Bauer parking lot a little after 3 p.m. and by 3:15 I was on my way.  I started out on the Bamberger Trail, intending to follow it to the Golden-cheeked Warbler Trail (GCWT) and on down to the Littleblue Stem Loop by the river.  The Bamberger Trail was well marked and easy hiking through the open savanah.  After about a mile, a trail went off  to the left.  Although it was unmarked, I decided to take it, thinking maybe it was GCWT.  After about two tenths of a mile, it was apparent that this was a new trail under construction, not GCWT.  I followed it to the end —  it will be a nice little trail once it is finished.  Looking at my route on Google Earth, I could see that where the trail ended it was overlooking Curry Creek, not far from where it flows into the Guadalupe River.

Once back to the Bamberger Trail, I decided to bypass the GCWT  (due to time concerns) and take the Bauer Trail down to the river.  On the Bauer Trail, I passed by the Bauer House, which is an interesting historic structure (see http://ccs.utsa.edu/pdf/BauerFarmsteadHSR.pdf if you really want to get off in the weeds and see the details of this farmstead which dates from 1878).  I made it down to the river and spent a few minutes enjoying the view and making a short video for my grandkids.  On the hike back, I took the Hofeinz Trail instead of hiking back past the Bauer Farmstead.  I enjoyed this hike, and got a pretty good workout, covering 6.5 miles.  Here are some pictures of the rest of the hike….

When I originally headed out to the Bauer Unit on Memorial Day, I was hoping to hike all of the trails in that area of the park.  I was overly optimistic and failed to hike them all.  I went back today (Thursday, May 30, 2019) to hike the two trails I missed on Memorial Day —  the Golden Cheeked Warbler Trail and the Little Blue Stem Loop.  The combination of these two trails made for a nice hike, and I got to explore a different area along the river.  As it turns out, the part of the river accessed from Little Blue Stem is right across from where Honey Creek (where I hiked last Saturday) flows into the Guadalupe.  I got out to the park early and spent most of the morning out there.  Here are a few pictures, and a Garmin Basecamp map of the hike….