Canyon River Gorge, Texas

A few weeks ago I got to check out Canyon Lake, about an hour outside San Antonio, Texas.  I previously have not been a big fan of Texas, but Canyon Lake was really a neat place to check out.  The scenery and vegetation are different than Nashville - a little more like the dry climate in Colorado, a little less foliage for some clearer view of the lake.  I hadn't heard of the 2002 storm even that resulted in some serious rainfalls.   In 2002 there was a massive flooding event, where the pool got so high it overtopped the spillway:

Spillway during the flood
picture from GeologyTimes.com

Here's what wikipedia has to say about the flood:

'A record flood in July 2002 over topped the spillway by more than seven feet and caused significant damage downstream. In the 2002 flood, the peak flow was about 70,000 cubic feet per second.  The amount of water that flowed over the spillway was about 3½ times the amount of water that the reservoir holds. Erosion over the course of three days tore away soil to reveal what is now the Canyon Lake Gorge.'


View Canyon Lake Flood in a larger map.  Or just look at the flood erosion here... crazy

'Canyon Lake Gorge is a gorge around 1 mile long, hundreds of yards wide, and up to 50 feet  or more deep, which was carved through limestone in 2002 when extensive flooding of the Guadalupe River led to a huge amount of water going over the spillway from the Canyon Lake, Texas. The gorge provides a valuable exposure of rock strata as old as 100 million years showing fossils and a set of dinosaur tracks, and forms a new ecosystem for wildlife with carp and other creatures in a series of pools fed by springs and waterfalls.'

Here's what the Canyon River Gorge looks like now:

The barren terrain exposed by the flood waters

Our guide mentioned to us that the rocky and soil-less landscape has been used as a set to film a couple alien movies



Cool rock.  I think it's some swiss-cheesy Limestone. 
I will try to find a geologist for more professional insight.
Or maybe more wikipedia. 



Reinforcement structure built at the spillway
Also a great sidewalk

While the flood event created a horrible scar on the landscape... the plus side was that it created some new unique habitats and revealed some super awesome geological and paleontological specimens.  Despite the damage from the flooding, I couldn't help but be impressed by these hidden treasures that might have otherwise never been seen. 


Dinosaur Footprint!
Revealed after all the soil was washed away



Something else interesting... my crew took the interstate out to the lake, but on the way back to San Antonio we followed River Road to Gruene.  Supper was at The Gristmill.... I went there with my aunt when I was little.  It made me smile to be riding around in a rental car and suddenly things emerge in familiarity.  LOVED it!  The scenery along River Road was pretty awesome too and it made me want to book tickets during the summer just to float the river.  Much like with BBQ in Austin, Texas may be slowly changing my mind...

State Capitols - Austin

Ta-DA!!!  State Capitol number 15!!  In February I spent an especially cold week in San Antonio, but it ended with the greatest thing ever: spending a long weekend with my sorority sister and one of my favorite people, Courtney M!  I haven't seen her since we lived in North Nashville and I got to be god-mommy to her precious kitties Penny and Pearl.

Inside the rotunda

Courtney and her husband Eric met me in San Antonio, and we woke up early Saturday morning (after surviving a *severe* South Texas blizzard the morning before) and hit the trail north to conquer the Great Capitol #15.    

Stars on the fence

So what's so great about Texas?  It was my home for a year, but I never made it very far outside Waco.  I regret not getting the chance to explore much of the state, because the energy in Austin was great, and I could see it being a really wonderful town to be in.   The robust history, next to protests for change in the world.  And the bike paths and kayak launches adjacent to streets packed with huge pick-ups.  Austin made for a fun dichotomy.  

Gorgeous Courtney and her sweet husband

I was kind of excited to see the Texas State Capitol additionally because I'd heard that it was pink.  I'm not sure I'd call it pink... more of a rosy beige.  

So just for funsies - and in honor of the 15th Capitol on my quest, here's 15 Texas facts from 50States.com

1. Texas is popularly known as The Lone Star State.
2. The lightning whelk is the official state shell.
3. Texas is the only state to have the flags of 6 different nations fly over it. They are: Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States, and the United States.
4. More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States.
5. Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation.
6. A coastal live oak located near Fulton is the oldest tree in the state. The tree has an estimated age of more than 1,500 years.
7. Sam Houston, arguably the most famous Texan, was actually born in Virginia. Houston served as governor of Tennessee before coming to Texas.
8. The capital city of Austin is located on the Colorado River in south-central Texas. The capitol building is made from Texas pink granite. It served as the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1840-1842.
9. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. The Dublin Dr Pepper, 85 miles west of Waco, still uses pure imperial cane sugar in its product. There is no period after the Dr in Dr Pepper.
10. The first suspension bridge in the United States was the Waco Bridge. Built in 1870 and still in use today as a pedestrian crossing of the Brazos River.
11. The armadillo is the official state mammal
12. Texas possesses three of the top ten most populous cities in the United States. These towns are Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
13. Texas includes 267,339 square miles, or 7.4% of the nation's total area.
14. The state's cattle population is estimated to be near 16 million.
15. More species of bats live in Texas than in any other part of the United States.

I loved getting to see Court again too!  So much fun to be gone for so long and be able to pick up right where we left off.

We might have made a stop in San Marcos en route...

And our chauffeur Eric even got rewarded for putting up with us with some AMAZING Austin BBQ!  Texas may just have wormed its way back into my heard a tiny bit... just a smidge