“Nice dog,” he said. “Boy or girl?”<\/p>\n
Izzy was sitting in my lap. I was sitting in a folding chair in the middle of creek. The seat of the chair was in the water. A bright sun was shining, which was good for Izzy who was drying off from her fourth or fifth swim across the creek.<\/p>\n
Yes, Barton Creek<\/a> is flowing. We’ve a few rains this spring, and although the creek has dried up a few times already, it was flowing from the rain early last week.<\/em><\/p>\n The man had just waded into the water from the far bank where he had been climbing\u00a0Seismic Wall<\/a>. This is one of several popular spots for climbing in Austin. The canyon wall shoots straight into the sky just a few feet beyond the creek’s edge. There are always climbers here.<\/p>\n And this guy was a climber. He had just scaled the cliff, planting a rope onto bolts and chains for other climbers not as adept as he. It was like watching Spiderman, his limbs splayed out grabbing the slightest toe- and finger-hold as he scrambled 50 feet into the air making it look easy. At the top, he almost succeeded in getting over the flat shelf that juts out ten feet.<\/p>\n “A girl,” I said. “Her name is Izzy.”<\/p>\n He nodded.\u00a0“I should have known. Otherwise he’d have to be mighty confident of his masculinity with a pink leash like that.”<\/p>\n