Hello out there! It’s been almost two months since I’ve cracked open Substack to write. I’ve opened the app and desktop to glance at Notes and read a newsletter or two but I’ve not done much reading or writing on Substack since early September. I’ve had my head down and nose to the ground hiking the last two months, finalizing the last areas I needed to finish for my book. Floods and hurricanes in 2024 really wrecked plans to visit some of these places which is why they were held off until last. Thankfully no hurricanes this year and a late summer drought made some of these areas much more accessible to hike.

I’ve been mostly working on maps when I’m not hiking, though not as much as I should have been doing. I’ve gone through several incarnations of maps before I finally settled on a format I liked and that a few reviewers appreciated, too. Next stop: writing my way to the finish line. NaNoWriMo doesn’t exist anymore, at least the capacity writers knew of for years, but I plan to basically use November as a NaNoWriMo to get this book finished. The good thing is, I already have a template based on my proposal and have been writing in my head for nearly two years now, so I already know what to say.

The Big Sandy Trail in the Big Sandy Creek Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve was my last trail to hike. Coming in at around 15ish miles (actual mileage tbd as I compile my GPS data), this one is relatively tame terrain-wise due to it being on old, graded logging roads. It is the length that gets you and it is one way in, one way out, generally. I say generally, because there are a couple of alternative two-tracks that are still accessible and would offer up other entry points into the Preserve if the NPS maintained those. I digress, but will absolutely be writing more about everything I found and thought about our public lands while hiking the last two years.

I had no desire to do an overnight backpacking trip or a really long hike for this one so my husband and son came out with me and they meandered down the trail and drove down one of the dirt roads in this unit while I biked my way deep into the Preserve. This is one trail in the Preserve that is open to bike users and I was going to make use of that to knock these miles out. To say that I am burnt out is an understatement. I am ready for some slow ambling. To sit in a small perimeter and watch butterflies.

All of this is to say, I have many things to write about but have this priority first. I’ve had a number of new subscribers plus a couple of paid subscribers so I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging without writing for four months. Consider this a little nugget of writing to get you through until the end of the year. And hello new subscribers! Thanks for reading!

I’ll be back in January with more essays.

Oh, don’t forget, election day is November 4th. There are a number of propositions on the Texas ballot, including one regarding funding for water resources infrastructure. I had a lot of conflicting thoughts about that one and even the environmental orgs I follow were somewhat conflicted. We need vital upgrades to much of our water infrastructure in the state but this funding was paired with potential projects like more desalination plants and reservoirs, which are complicated issues that come with a whole host of their own environmental issues. I went ahead and voted for it, hoping we could just fight any unsavory projects as they came. I’m not sure what the answer is here, other than revising how propositions are written. Because I don’t know about you, but what our elected officials give us for propositions is atrocious. Of course, that’s by design, though it shouldn’t be.

Alas, until January!

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