A Summer Afternoon at the Greenbelt

Today I got off work around 12:30…working part time this summer has been amazing! I was planning on spending the afternoon cleaning the house and then heading to Barton Springs to lay out for a couple of hours. Well, when I got home Jon was just finishing up cleaning the whole house! He did everything from the bathtubs to the inside of the oven. I was so excited!

Since I no longer had to clean I suggested we take Hiro down to the Greenbelt. We hadn’t been down there since last summer and it would be a place for Hiro to play and me to lay out (plus its free). So we gathered up towels, books and water and headed over. There are may entrances to the Greenbelt around south Austin, but our favorite is off 360 and Scottishwoods Trail. We call it the Hill of Life (or Death, depending on whether your walking down or climbing up).

This is one of about four, steep legs of the hill. On the way there you get to coast down, but on the way back you are basically climbing the rocks.

When we got to the bottom we headed to our usual place. When we started coming down to this spot three summers ago, there was tons of water. Our usual spot had a pretty good size waterfall and both shallow and deep parts to swim. Last summer, thanks to the drought it almost dried up completely! Now there is no more waterfall and mostly just shallow places to get in the water. We hung out there for awhile, but there were a couple of really loud groups and the water wasn’t great.

Jon spotted a new area last summer, when he was with some friends. We decided to go check it out today and just a short walk down the trail, this is what we found.

It was perfect! I spent a couple of hours sitting near the waterfall reading. Jon and Hiro spent the afternoon swimming in this part.

Hiro found a rock and tried to play keep away with his squeaky ball and Jon.

 

On our way home, we stopped at Smoothie King to get a cold drink. Now we have the evening to relax…I think we may be visiting our new Greenbelt spot a couple of times this weekend. :)

Hiro’s BFF, Woodrow is spending the weekend with us, so I am sure I will have some funny stories/ranting to post over the weekend…stay tuned!

-Lauren-

*sorry about the quality of the pictures…I took them with my iphone and the sun was pretty bright.