Biking the Shoal Creek Trail

One evening I had some time to myself, and decided I was going to watch the Austin Aztex, the local minor league professional soccer team, have their game, but was going to watch through the fence, kinda circumventing the purchasing of a ticket. That's not fair to them, of course, and after a few minutes I felt lame, and moved on.

And by moved on, I mean, I got back on the Shoal Creek Trail and kept riding a bicycle found at my house. Austin's Shoal Creek runs on a meandering path through the city on the north-south axis, and some years back a hiking/biking trail was built along it. Many spots are beautifully concealed areas of pure nature, and a visitor would never guess that one of Austin's main thoroughfares, Lamar, is right on the other side of the thicket of vegetation.

Technically the Shoal Creek Trail starts at 38th Street and runs all the way to Town Lake, as the dam-induced bulging of our version of the Colorado River is called, right south of 1st Street. At 32nd Street, the trail gets away from off-the-beaten-path streets and into the nature area, right up along the curving creek. From there it goes through Pease Park (the sight of Eeyore's Birthday Party and a nice disc golf course), past House Field (home of the Aztex), where it takes on a more urban feel, almost a mix of secret New Orleans tunnels and locals-only saloons. After a few switch-backs and road crossings, you get to the water.

When I made it I dropped the bike, wiped the prodigious sweat, drank some water, and quietly congratulated my amazed self...actually made it. It wasn't that bad, really, those six and a half to seven miles there. The bad part was the last mile and a half home, the long stretch of Woodrow from where it branches off of Burnet all the way to Dwyce. I had stopped at Bailey's Park somewhere in the upper thirties (our house is probably the equivalent of upper fifties to low sixties) to rest--bad idea. From then on I was done, with a few miles to go, mostly up hill also. That was a lesson I learned for my second ride: no stopping to simply rest.

I have some pictures from that first ride, not too many of which came out because of the lighting conditions and my Old Reliable camera has some issues in shady, overgrown areas. This first shot is of 32nd street, before the entrance to the nature-section of the trail. This property has some weird crap out front, and it looks very cool. I love the ceramic heads sneaking a look out the bottom of the window frame. They remind me of Rico and Mary Jane, the heads that Ryan and I, er, salvaged from somewhere on campus.



The next is a picture of one of the many tunnels one goes through along the Trail, the overgrown brush, and a snazzy Austin condo in the background.



This last picture is of Town Lake, at the end of my journey, just to prove to myself that I made it.