Balcones District Park

— The saying goes that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time you need to capture a moment. It so happened to me this morning when I took my mountain bike for a ride. Though I’ve been riding my road bike most of the time lately, I wanted to take the mountain bike out so that I could go off trail a little for more adrenaline rush. Hard to imagine that this fairytale pond is less than a mile from MoPac, one of the busiest and noisiest highways in Austin. Although heavier, the mountain bike allows me to go places I can’t normally go on a road bike. For example, I recently did a ride from Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park to the Arboretum area, but I couldn’t go off trail in a couple of spots. The road bike tires just wouldn’t take it in that rough terrain. So, this morning, I set out to ride with the intent to visit those areas. Although there had been some rain recently, the creek along the trail was not running. The waterfall area was dry as a bone, but further up, there was still some water pools. That is where the shot above was made. The waterfall area is at the horizon of this shot, where there is some sunlight. The reflections here were simply entrancing to my eyes. That and the shadows gave the whole scene a fairy tale look.