WARNING: off-trailing may be dangerous.
March transitioned into April and with that the end of the semester (my final semester) drew nearer. Back in College Station, life was different than it ever had been. Spring sports were officially canceled which meant Kaylee and I were out of a job since there were no sports that needed to be ticketed. The end of my 12th Man Foundation career had come and gone without my knowing. I had spent three of my college years working in the ticket office, and I loved every minute of it. I met some of my closest friends (shoutout to Donald Blair and Hannah Chapman) and of course had met Kaylee. I’m still not sure if it has struck me that I will never be a student manager of the ticket office ever again. But life goes on, and it doesn’t slow down.
We visited Lake Somerville State Park in the middle of the week. It is probably the closest state park in proximity to College Station. Like Ray Roberts, Lake Somerville is split into multiple portions around the lake, although they are connected by a 13.5 mile trailway around the western edge of the lake. We started on the section north of the lake entitled the Birch Creek Unit. There we had the opportunity to explore some trails and eat a patented sack lunch before doing anything strenuous. We hiked a place called Eagle Point named that since there have been bald eagle sightings around that area. Unfortunately, there were not any for us to gander at. We did, however, get to do a bit of off-trailing to help Kaylee gain a bit more footing for terrain.
We left there to hike a smaller trail, and it ended up that we went on a completely different trial than intended. I am not pointing fingers, but Kaylee was the one with the trail map. Anyway, no harm no foul, and we got to see a bit more nature while we were at it. Just a little longer walk back to the car than originally planned.
This marked the end of the Birch Creek Unit and we headed to the other side of the park, the Nails Creek Unit. A bit more interesting if I do say so myself. After the 45 minute drive around the lake, we got to Nails Creek. Doing our classic state parks visit by hitting up the ‘Points of Interest,’ we headed to a point to see if we could get any interesting looks at the lake. It ended up that there were patches of bluebonnets out on the end of this point. This called for, you guessed it, ring pictures! With the shot focused on the rings, the bluebonnets in the foreground, and the lake in the background, I think these were some of the best pictures of our Aggie Rings yet. I ended up carrying Kaylee back to the truck because she wanted me to (boyfriend of the year? You tell me). We went straight from here to an overlook trail that the platform was actually roped off. This didn’t stop us as we went on the platform to get a view of what the parks and wildlife department wanted people to see when they built the platform in the first place.
Along the trail back, we saw a bridge (which Kaylee enjoys) and of course got some pictures. The trail itself had some cool scenery including moss dangling down from trees and a natural tunnel-like feature from plants overhanging and encircling the trail. After that there was one more place we went before calling it a day in Somerville and heading back to College Station. It was another marked overlook down a different trail. We set off walking down the trail which ended up to be a bit longer than we had anticipated. On a hot, muggy day this had us working up a nice sweat. We got to the where the overlook was labeled on the trails map and were a bit confused. There wasn’t much of an overlook since trees were blocking the entire view of the lake. We decided to investigate further, and that required more off-trailing and more of Kaylee having to fine tune her footing skills. Down a steep hill we went through many bushes and thorns and stick piles, all the while making sure Kaylee didn’t fall. We finally reached the bottom and what we found was interesting. Lake Somerville is fed by three different creeks that all meet at the mouth of the lake. We got to witness first hand the creeks flowing into the lake and the stagnant movement right there at the entrance. Now the tricky part was getting back up to the trail which took some encouragement, but we eventually got up and back to the truck where we could then head back College Station way.
It was an eventful day, and we got to do a lot of trails. We found one of our favorite places for ring pictures, and got some practice in for trails that aren’t flat and solid. Even though it was another lake park, we still found stuff to do and places to go exploring around the bodies of water.
ANNOUNCEMENT: I am writing this on May 1, 2020. Today my final assignment for college was due and it has been turned in. So I am officially done with college as I sit here typing this out!
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