Driving Around the Lake

Recently following lunch out someplace, Donna and I made one of our pretty regular loops of the lake area. With all the rain we've had the past month or so, things are really green and lush -- at least for our neck of the woods.

We started with a drive by the day use area at Lake Nasworthy, then went out to Spring Creek Park, one of the many city parks around the lake. We saw several deer calmly grazing along the road, and our presence did not seem to alarm them one bit.

After driving through the park, we drove farther out Knickerbocker Road to the Twin Buttes Lake area for a look at the connecting channel. Water levels out there are the healthiest I've seen in years.

Below are some pictures I snapped, along with a few notes.

Several deer grazing in Spring Creek Park. You can see the edge of the road at the bottom of the picture, illustrating how safe the deer feel.

Another group of deer grazing at the park.

A few turkeys were grazing at the edge of the park property.

The graphic below shows the lakes on the southwest side of San Angelo. The largest body of water is the north pool of Twin Buttes, formed by the Middle Concho River, Spring Creek, and Dove Creek. The much smaller body to its south is the south pool, formed by the South Concho River. The two pools are linked by a connecting channel, the thin blue line you see on the map below. Lake Nasworthy is the odd shaped lake to the east of the North Pool.

Lakes area on southwest side of San Angelo.

Photo taken from atop Twin Buttes dam looking north. It was rather hazy this day, but you can barely make out the Twin Buttes in the distance.

This rather blurry photo looks south towards the south pool. Taken from same location as the photo above.

Connecting channel looking south.

Connecting channel looking north.

We were amazed at the water in the connecting channel. For years, there was only a stream of water comparable to a neighborhood ditch, but now the channel can accommodate boats that wish to venture from one pool to the other -- just as it was originally intended. This is a rare sight for us.