New Mexico - Westward

We stayed at Brantley Lake State Park on the Pecos River for one night and then headed west.  The route took us into the mountains.  Within two hours we went from desert landscape and cactus to high mountains, tall trees and SNOW.



Snow on the road



 
The temperature dropped from 72 degrees down to close to freezing.  We reached an altitude of 8000 ft.  We drove through ski country!  The downward road out of the mountains was a 6% grade for 15 miles-all brakes and runaway truck ramps.  Once over the mountains we toured the White Sands National Monument.  These gypsum sand dunes are vast-they cover 275 square miles.  They are soft drifting sand but sort of hard packed so people can walk on or slide down the dunes.  Lots of fun and very picturesque.

White Sands National Monument

We left the Whites Sands area and took hwy 70 south through the military base where missiles are tested.  The military closes that highway when they are firing.  They have a museum and gift shop-we didn't stop.

Continuing on hwy 70 towards Las Cruces we bought a new video camera. We will be posting video soon!

We're spending the night at Elephant Butte State Park along the Rio Grande.  On the way in to the park we did notice there was a WalMart on the edge of town.  Good to have a backup plan if the campground is full.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

We've moved to a different time zone.  We're now two hours behind Stratford so it feels like we're sleeping in (until we get used to this new time.) 

We arrived at the Carlsbad Caverns early (for us) at 10 in the morning.  We started with a self-guided tour which began at the natural opening of the cave.  This cave was discovered by a 16 year old cowboy, Jim White, in 1898.  He saw black smoke rising from the desert and he rode over to check it out.  As he got closer, he noticed that parts of the smoke were breaking off and moving in different directions.  Closer still, he saw that the "smoke" was really millions of bats flying out of the mouth of this cave.  He spent his life exploring this cave. 

Our exploration of one of the cave chambers (the Big Room) took 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Once underground, the temperature is a constant 56 degrees.  Looking around the cave, the stalactites, stalagmites, columns and underground pools were magical.

In the afternoon we took a ranger-guided tour of an area called the King's Palace. This was one and a half hours long and truly spectacular.  To get there we took an elevator which descends 754 feet (75 stories) down ino the earth at nine miles per hour. When we were in the Queen's Chamber the lights were turned out so we could experience total darkness.  It was like a velvet darkness-very calming.

There are other cave tours that we opted out of.  They were all-day adventures which required knee pads, headlamps, three forms of light (flashlights), replacement  batteries, climbing down rope ladders.  Cavers get muddy and scraped up.  We said no to this.

Monahans Sandhills State Park

It isn't far from Big Bend out and north to Marathon but there is nothing to see.  The mountains look like one big construction site with rubble piled everywhere.  Marathon to Fort Stockton, same scenery.

In Fort Stockton, we did laundry, washed the dust off the van, gassed up and headed for Monahans Sandhills State Park.  What an unusual park.  The entire area is sand. 

 Over every dune you expect to see a beach but there isn't any water anywhere.  In fact, they haven't had rain for 300 straight days.  They rent sand disks here for tobagganing down the dunes.  It seems we've traded dust for sand.  It is everywhere.  The wind has picked up overnight and the sand is blowing.  There are sand drifts across the road much like we see snow drifting. Al says he can write his name in sand, just like he can in snow. 

We heard coyotes howling again last night. Spooky. 

Texas was great.  We're off to New Mexico and the Carlsbad Caverns.

Hiking in Boquillas Canyon

Before we left the Rio Grande Village we hiked along Boquillas Canyon.  Great views.  The Rio Grande cut a path through the mountains.  Kind of sketchy here, though.  Mexico is a gully away.  The Rio Grande is very shallow here.  Mexican men were wading across it.  Of course, this is illegal.  Two men had horses.  These guys were selling Mexican handicrafts (and likely drugs, too). 

Still in the back country

We've moved from Chisos Basin to the Rio Grande Village campsite.  Much nicer.  Still no showers!  Holy cow-dusty and hot.  We asked at the visitors centre about the condition of the road to the hot springs.  We heard that a dually pick-up truck had one of its wheels go over the edge of the road.  That was true.  The ranger confirmed it.  He said the road wasn't suitable for anything but a car.  It is too narrow, no guardrail.  Just rock face and cliff drop off.  Well, that was GAME ON on for Al.  This is the kind of challenge he can't resist.  We drove our van (not a car)

1.9 miles down a narrow, sketchy, winding, washboard, stoney, washed out, dusty road.  Then had to park the van in a dusty parking lot.  The day temperature was 89 degrees. We hiked 1/2 mile down a hot, dusty trail. The trail followed the side of the mountain-very narrow and close to a 40 ft high rock wall.  Al said to me, "Watch out for falling rocks."  Mid sentence, a rock fell on to the path right in front of us.  We got to the hot springs.  We saw a man lounging in a water hole.  If he wasn't there we would have walked right past it.  The hot springs haven't been turned into anything touristy yet.  We were hot and dusty so we went right in.  The temperature was 105 degrees in the water.  It made the air feel cool.  Al jumped into the Rio Grande.  That water was cooler.  He didn't swim over to Mexico, although he was certainly close enough.  It was under 30 feet to Mexico.  He later regretted that he didn't do it.  Then we trudged the 1/2 mile back to the van except this time we were wet, hot and dusty.  Picture dust clinging to wet and hot.  This creates a whole new type of hair mousse. 

Back at the campsite, we had fried chicken cooked on a charcoal bbq, in a cast iron chicken fryer. Yum.  We took Sid for a bike ride.  He was hot and luckily, we found a boat launch ramp so he was able to use it to swim in the Rio Grande. Throughout the night we could hear coyotes howling.  They sound like a group of university students partying.  The next morning, we were walking back from a hike and we saw a coyote wander away from our campsite.  Good thing we had Sid in the van (dogs aren't allowed on the trails-likely because wild animals will attack them).  Coyotes have attacked dogs at this park as recently as last week. 
Ah, the toilets.  We can't call these stations washrooms because there are no wash facilities-no showers.  We were so disgustingly dusty we had to use the compact shower in the van to get clean.

We're back in the land of communication technology!

It seemed like a short drive from Fort Davis to Big Bend.  Wrong.  The road is so twisty through the mountains that it adds many extra miles.  Before we entered Big Bend National Park we stopped in Alpine to load up on water, gas, and food. We hit the road, fully loaded, for Chisos Basin Campground.  The drive was long and dusty.  At the campsite, it had a bear box to prevent bears from taking food.  Yup, there's bears and mountain lions here.  Each mountain lion kills one deer per week.  We had four deer meander through our campsite.  We are no longer thrilled about deer roaming near us if they are luring mountain lions.  Good thing Sid was inside.

Davis Mountains

The Davis Mountains are volcanic mountains, formed under water so they look like fingers of rock pillars.  We are in the Chihuahuan Desert, which is the largest of the four North American deserts (the Chihuahuan, Mojave, Sonoran and Great Basin).  We hiked through the desert-down a canyon, along the mountain ridge-truly spectacular.



Canyon trail




Sid takes a break





Mountain look out

 

Scout Al


Fort Davis is a National Historic Site so we went.  It is strategically placed along the San Antonio to El Paso wagon train route being 400 miles from San Antonio and 200 miles from El Paso.  A covered wagon averages between 12 and 16 miles per day.  The trip took about 4 months to make and that trip must have been hellish.



Fort Davis supply





Wagon train




Laundry day



 These mountains are formidable and the ground is hard and filled with cactus, plus the wildlife. The forts were necessary because of Apache and Comanche raids on the travellers.  Fort Davis is unique in that it had as it's armed force Buffalo Soldiers-a group of African-American soldiers.  Of course, racism was rampant and these men were commanded by white officers.



Our campsite has an abundance of wildlife.  At dusk we were having dinner outside at the picnic table.  Sid wasn't tied up.  We looked at him and saw his ears were up.  Al checked Sid's sightline.  Sid was ready to go-frolick with two deers which had come into our campsite.  So we tied up Sid.  We moved inside to enjoy dessert-brownies made in my new cast iron fry pan (on the bbq).  We heard a really low growl from Sid-Al looked and  began to yell, "Get him in NOW!"  I didn't know what was going on but I pulled frantically on his rope.  Sid was non-compliant.  He wasn't moving inside.  There was a javelina (pronounced havelina) -a wild pig-full grown (about the same size as Sid) roaming beside our picnic table.




Our campsite


Our camera was on the picnic table.  As the javelina went past the picnic table Al convinced me to sprint out and get the camers (since I was closest to the door).  As I opened the door I looked back and caught Al, poised to make a screaming sound.  Can you imagine the skid mark I would have left if Al had succeeded in scaring me?  Not trusting Al, I didn't go.  He went instead and got a quick picture of this thing.  At 5:30 this morning there was a herd of them in our campsite.  They don't get along with dogs.



Javelina on the run

 We saw a poster at the showers this morning warning campers that mountain lions are in the park and to watch carefully over small children.  In true Chevy Chase Vacation form, here we were tying up our dog outside to be preyed upon by javelinas, mountain lions.  We won't let him out anymore without one of us going with him.  That person will be Al.
We're heading in to Big Bend today and likely won't have internet for the next few days.

Balmorhea State Park-Texas

We've spent the last three days here at Balmorhea State Park in Texas.  This became a state park because, while we are in a desert, there is a natural spring here that gushes 3.5 million gallons of water per hour.  The pool that was created holds 22 million gallons of water - which is naturally heated to 72 degrees Fahrenheit.



Walking on water




One side of the pool




High dive




Swimming with the fish



The pool is huge.  It also contains fish-which nibble on your toes as you swim, turtles (which haven't nibbled yet) and ducks.  The water is very mineral-rich.  After a swim your skin looks dry and chalky.

The park's location is very scenic.  It is nestled in a plain, surrounded by mountains.  We've had a few gorgeous sunsets.  We're sure the sunrises are nice too, we just haven't seen them! 





Yikes! We've got ticks!!

Well, we've all had them.  Yuck.  Al was the first.  He had what looked like a big, blood-filled skin hanging thing attached to what looked like a cut on his shoulder.  He gets cuts all the time and he never knows how so, of course this time he didn't know how he got it.  Upon further examination, it was a tick-heartily sucking away at Al's blood.  Ticks attached themselves firmly and this one wouldn't budge.  It had to be cut off with scissors.  Again, yuck.  Al is still walking around with a piece of the tick in his shoulder.
Next, Kim saw one on her leg.  She was creeped out.  Fortunately this one didn't have time to attach itself and she was able to fling it off.



Yikes


Poor Sid.  He's had three.  We had him on the operating table this morning (our cement picnic table).
He had one under his chin and two on his ears. We used tweezers to pull these gross suckers off him.
Here's the information about ticks.  They cling to long grasses using their back feet, waiting for some unsuspecting passerby (dogs are their favourite).  They latch on and find a nice, juicy site to start feeding.  They are flat, tiny little discs until they begin to feed.  Then they swell up, filled with blood.  They become huge.  Sid doesn't like to do his daily business out in the open.  He prefers to hid in the long grass.  He'll have to become less shy!



Operating table

 In the first picture-look just below the tweezers.  That tick just came off his neck.  In the second picture, Al is tweezing the tick off Sid.


Sid back in the swim of things



Seminole Canyon State Park

This State Park is just a short 7 mile hike away from the Rio Grande and Mexico.  There are spectacular views here with a scrudland of  desert plants.  Every plant here is out to get you with some sort of pricker or secretion.



Ocotillo




Prickly Pear



  We hiked along the desert trail to where the Pecos River meets the Rio Grande.  The cliffs are up to 160 feet high and the water is 100 feet deep in the Rio Grande. The hike itself gives a good idea of what the early settlers had to endure.  There is no shade.  We are taller than every plant.  It was hot-85 degrees, and sunny.  Poor Sid.  He could see the water but couldn't get to it to swim.



Ah Mexico



 We could see evidence of wild animals-didn't see any up close, though.  When we got to the end of the trail and we were looking out over the river we heard voices-they were Canadian!  Hey, they were us!  We were echoing off the canyon walls.  Never had that happen before.
This state park also has a section of canyon that has rock paintings from between 3500-4000 years ago.


These canyon shelter paintings are about 10,000  years old.

  This Big Bend region desert park is along the Rio Grande. Steep canyons can be found throughout the park. The canyons empty out into the Rio Grande. The water from the Amistad resevoir backs up into a number of these canyons. It is in these canyons that ancient peoples painted on the canyon walls where they lived. These canyon shelter paintings were done continuously from around 10,000 on through 4,000 years ago.

A state ranger leads this tour to prevent any kind of damage to what's left of the paintings.  This was a 2 hour walk inside the canyon-very interesting.
Met some people here from Switzerland.  They are camping in a Toyota truck camper which they shipped from Zurich to Bolivia and are driving north.  They're now touring the USA in it.



Seminole Canyon Limestone




Park guide explains the history of the Fate Bell Shelter





Raven




Kitchen stone with a view



Justin Bieber Comes to Texas

Ah-warmth.  Sunny, too.  Very Mexican here so we went to El Mexicana restaurant for dinner.  Hmm.  Didn`t count on the menu being entirely in Spanish (and no pictures to point to). Fortunately our server spoke some English and we managed to get two plates of yummy Mexican food.  Then we took in the new Bieber movie in Rio Grande City.  Wow, in 3D no less.  We had to stand in line with 12 year old Hispanic fans (who screamed loudly during the film).  No one recognized us.  I guess all Canadians look the same.

Our campground at Falcon State Park is 45 minutes away from the movie theatre, on the Rio Grande river-the border of Mexico and in the middle of nothing!!!  When we got back to our campground at 10:30 we found the gates padlocked.  There was no way in.  We couldn`t go into town, it was too far back.  Our only option was to pull up to the padlocked gates and spend the night locked in as tightly as we could get.  It is kind of dangerous here at night (not just the animals-cougars, wild pigs, snakes and bunnies) but also the drug runners.  We got lucky-the Border Patrol drove up and let us in.  They weren`t messing around.  Not sure if the front gate was under surveillance or if they just happened to be out in the middle of nothing.

Falcon State Park-Falcon Heights, Texas

Finally-it`s warm! 



I can't watch



We`re camping along the Rio Grande river.  We can see Mexico from here.  The landscape is very flat, and prickly.  It is so arid that every plant has thorns, and those thorns and prickles and burrs fall off, only to be stepped on by unsuspecting northerners and their dog.  Poor Sid-we`ve tweezed his paws repeatedly.



Texas Sunset