Rowlett Creek

Rounding out my trip to Texas...

On Monday, the day before I left, as I pulled up the Dorba site to decide where I should go, it occurred to me that if one visits the East Dallas area, one must ride at Rowlett Creek. It's an unwritten rule, but one that I had not yet obeyed on this trip. So, I was leaning toward Rowlett, but I glanced at the trail list, just in case something else jumped out. L. B. Houston did, but only because it was the only closed trail on the list. I'm not even even sure it exists any more, it's been closed for so long.

All right! Rowlett it is.

I drove over, got changed quickly, and hit the south side. A trail runner was coming in as I rode out. The trails there are numbered - 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. I passed another trail runner on 3.

There were some trees down on 4, one of which I had to push through some really scratchy brush that stuck to me like beggar lice to get around. Some bit of that brush disagreed with my skin and left a little spot that itched for days.

Past the downed trees, the ground was a little soft, like Rowlett Creek had overflowed and deposited a bunch of silt or something. Further on it was moist. Not wet, but moist. I could see that the clay wanted to accumulate on my tires, but it wasn't quite damp enough. Almost, but not quite. The very edge. Sometimes it would start to accumulate, but then it'd get slightly drier and start to fall off. Then I'd get out in the open and it would all fly off. I remember thinking that I was surprised that the trail was open, as they'd usually leave it closed until it was drier.

When I got back to the lot, I headed over to 1 on the north side, and passed the trail-status sign as I did so.

Closed!

How!?

I'd checked online before going over there. Did I just not see the sign on the way in? It seemed unlikely that they changed it while I was out there. I must just not have noticed it on the way in. Was the status online wrong?

I was puzzled, and a little upset that I'd poached the trail, if only accidentally.

Man!

Usually when I'm nearing the end of the ride, I'll cool down a bit, maybe even let the breeze dry me off, if possible, but I'd been hard on the gas for the last 8 miles or whatever it was, and sweating as profusely as the proverbial pig even as I stood there in the lot. Not wanting to get in my car like that, I changed into my shoes and boxers in the port-a-potty, and walked around half-naked for a while, arms held out to maximize exposure to the cool breeze that was pretty much blasting through the lot. Some other guy with a bike in his bed pulled in right as I was doing this and gave me that "Ha ha, I know what you're doing" smile and nod.

When I was cooled down enough, I checked my phone. How had I screwed this up? I pulled up the Dorba site. Yep. Every trail open but LB Houston. I looked for Rowlett, specifically though, and didn't see it. ??? Was it missing from the page? Heh. It turns out, there's the page, which scrolls up and down, but the list of trails is itself in an inner frame, which also scrolls, but doesn't show a scroll bar. So if you grab the list itself, and scroll it up and down, it scrolls independently of the page. You'd have to know that the list scrolls independently to even think about doing this, but it does. Goodness. Scrolling the list down... Yep, Rowlett was closed. It and LB Houston were the only closed trails. Of all the trails in Dallas, I'd picked the only one that still existed, that was closed.

Genius!

Since then, I've driven back to the ATL. Though I felt good in Dallas, I met John and Austin at Blankets and felt weak and slow the whole time. Then I went up to Cumming for a gym meet and me and Iz both caught a cold while we were up there. It's just a cold though, at least as far as my at-home COVID test says. I guess now that everybody's moving around more, we're spreading local germs. It just sucks though - since last December, I've been sick more often than well. I want to say I've had a total of about 3 or 4 weeks that I haven't been ill in some way, that entire time.

Maybe next week...