Big Bend - Day 2

Saturday, April 2 - We did not sleep well last night because it was so warm (hot), so this morning we moved over to the public campgroound which has electricity, and we have our a/c cranked!  We took a 140-mile drive in the car today, over most of the roads accessible by car.  Big Bend looks a lot like Arizona, so although it's pretty, it is not that impressive to us, especially since it also has Arizona's heat!  I think the heat wave that hit there Thursday/Friday has arrived here.

We drove all the way down to the Rio Grande River, but it is pretty small and shallow at this spot, the Santa Elena Canyon.  They do rafting trips through this canyon, and in fact, we saw some people on rafts, but one guy got and walked and the water was only about knee-deep in the middle of the river.

This Canyon is pretty and it looks like the river turns here, and cuts through these steep canyon walls.

There is a hiking trail here too but we didn't think we could stand that much exercise.  It was near 100 degrees by now.

We did see another roadrunner, but no other wildlife.
We stopped at the Chisos Basin Lodge, which is a higher elevation, and the temperature was back down about 85.  We had lunch here while I posted my blog from yesterday.  We had a nice view from the lodge, and there is a rock formation called the "window" which gives views of mountains beyond.  It's hard to see in this picture, but it was a pretty view.

On our way back to the campground, we had a view of this very pretty ridge, which I could see from my kitchen window at the campground we were at last night.

When we got back to camp, the car registered 101, but it had been as high as 102 a few minutes earlier.

This is way too hot for us.  Tomorrow we are heading to the Seminole National Historic Park near Del Rio.  We surely hope this hot spell gets ahead of us.

Big Bend - Day 1

April 1, 2011-Couple items I forgot from yesterday's blog.  John called to let me know Tampa was having severe weather and that he had watched the storm (tornado) come across the bridge from his office.  Fortunately, he didn't have any damage at home or work, but the storm took out several fences in his subdivision.  Second, on our scenic ride, we did see a roadrunner.

Today We broke camp and headed into town to poke around Ft. Davis, which is the highest town (elevation 5,050) in Texas.

 First we toured the actual fort, which is in the process of being restored.  It is an interesting fort, and we got to tour the barracks, 3 houses which were officers quarters, and the hospital. We got there just as a video was starting, narrated by Karem Abdul-Jabbar, so we learned some of its history, which includes occupancy by both the Confederate and Union armies, including the buffalo soldiers, mostly there to protect the San Antonio-El Paso route from raiding Apaches.
 

We learned a few things.  The early soldiers did not have any civilian clothing and the only way you could tell if they were off duty was by wearing a straw hat.  They had 4 different hats they wore when on duty.  This may have been the beginning of the saying about wearning many hats.

The mattress on the very narrow cots was made of hay, and it was very thin.  This is probably the origination of the saying, "hit the hay," or "hit the sack."  The bed wasn't too uncomfortable, but the pillow was awful.

After we toured those buildings, we went back to the officer's quarters.  Joe decided to take advantage of his fragile status after foot surgery, so we used the golf cart.





Then we toured the hospital, where I made a "deposit" in the bedpan/urinal depository (while talking on the phone to John).

We left there and drove into town to look around.  We toured the library which was pretty old-fashioned, and a nearby hotel which had antique furnishings. 




Joe found his replacement cell phone in the library.


We had lunch at a little Mexican restaurant, then stopped at a broom shop.

Finally, we headed out of town to Big Bend National Park.  As we were driving through the park, we saw 2 fighter jets overhead, don't know where they were out of.  We arrived there about 6:00 p.m., and it was probably 100 degrees.  I think Joe may have been right about making a left turn in Arizona -- we would probably be in Colorado now.  We are staying at the National Park campground, which does not have any hook-ups, and We can only run the generator between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., so we got both air conditioners running right away to try to cool the RV down so we could sleep.  Our camping neighbors (a young couple with 2 small kids, camping in a tent!) told us it is supposed to be 103 tomorrow.  Our visit to Big Bend National Park may be a short one!

Ft. Davis, Texas

March 31, 2011 - We had a full day today.  This is a really nice state campground, with full hook-ups.  Each campsite has a covered picnic area. 

We had another visit by wildlife this morning.

We went over to the office here this morning and paid our camping fee.  They said they had a wifi hotspot there, but I went back later and could never get online.  Then we walked over to their pool, the world's largest spring-fed pool covering 1.75 acres and staying 72-76 degrees year round.  This pool is crystal clear and scuba divers come here.  It has a depth of 25 ft.  Actually, there was a class of scuba divers here getting their certification today.

It even has a diving area, with a depth of 20 ft. here.  We could see a few catfish swimming around, and lots of minnows.

After I gave up on posting my blog, we broke camp and headed down the road to Ft. Davis, to the state park there, another really nice campground.  This was only a 38 mile drive, but later in the afternoon we took a 127-mile scenic drive in the Explorer.  We set up camp and went over the the Indian Lodge in the park for lunch.  This Lodge was built by the CCCs in the 1930s, and they still use a lot of the original furniture, which was also built by the CCCs.  We went back to camp and rested, and I finally have Wifi at the RV, so I was able to post my first blogs.  A little before 5:00, we took off on our scenic drive.  This drive took us past the McDonald Observatory, one of the major astronomical research facilities in the world.  They had just closed for the day, and their "star parties" are held on Tues., Fri., and Sat., (today is Thurs.), we we missed that as well.  We drove up the hill and turned around.

We continued on our drive, with scenery much like Arizona's high country.  We had mountains, canyons, a lot of dried brush so we don't know if it hasn't greened up for the spring, or it is just that dry here.  The Texas have their own language, and I thought this sign was humorous.

Most states just say "range cattle" or something similar.  But we did come across some loose cattle on this drive.  We passed Sawtooth Mountain, elev. 7,718.

And another mountain, Mt. Livermore, 8,831, but we didn't get a picture of that one (we weren't sure which one it was).  We are pretty close to the Mexican border here, and there was a border patrol balloon flying overhead.

Our destination for this drive was Marfa, Texas, famous for its sightings of strange lights.  We stopped at the Dairy Queen for a treat and information, and the waitress said they are usually seen around 10:00 or 10:30, when it gets completely dark.  There was a viewing center a few miles out of town, so we drove out there about dusk. 

We spotted 4 antelope along the way, so that was exciting.  We stayed until 10:00 (past our bedtime) but never did see anything, so we drove back to the campground, weary from our long day.  There was a pretty sunset, though, and it is said that this area has one of the darkest night skies in the U.S.

March 30, 2011 - Day 2 - Balmorhea, Texas

March 30, 2011 - Day 2 on the road.   Our start time seems to be 11:00 a.m. this trip.  I did see wildlife this morning, a bunny rabbit hopped by the front of our RV.  The only other animals I saw today was roadkill (a few undetermined species and one deer).  Our neighbor had an interesting cat cage out -- we had never seen one like this before.

But I really wanted to go for a short hike here at this park this morning, so we drove down to the Visitor Center to get some information.  Joe decided I needed a walking stick, but we didn't bring wallets with us, so we drove back to the RV and Joe got his wallet.  We went back to the Visitor Center to pay for my walking stick, and Joe then saw the sign, "no debit or credit cards."  He only had $10 in his wallet (my walking stick was $15), so back to the RV we went again, and we both got our wallets, and some money.  By this time, he decided he should get a walking stick for himself, just in case he ever gets to do any walking, so he picked out an $18 one, and we finally got out of there, and up to the beginning of the trail.




This is a half-mile trail, mostly downhill after the first part, one I carefully selected!  A lady had just finished the 1.5 mile trail and was doing push-ups leaning on the rock wall, getting ready to hike the same trail a second time.  Joe thought I should follow her example.  She did take some pictures of us, just in case I didn't survive my hike.

Although Brenda did not return our rock collection box, we did find a Brenda rock here.

So off I went, with my sack to collect rocks.  You can take 15 lbs. of rocks from the park.  By the time I got back, I decided my sack must weigh 25 lbs.  But as I rounded the last curve, a welcome sight awaited me -- Joe was coming to meet me, using his new walking stick!

The Visitor Center had a display of the rocks that could be found here.

Here's my collection (which remains unidentified).

While I hiked, Joe got the RV ready to travel, so we hit the road, heading to Texas.  We hit the Texas state line about 12:50 and made a fuel stop, and I picked up Subway sandwiches that we ate while Joe continued driving.  We are trying to offset the increased price of gas this year by camping at state parks (and Walmark parking lots, with an occasional casino parking lot thrown in if I can talk Joe into that).  Our first day we averaged 7.59 mph, which is pretty good for this RV.  Fortunately, we've had a tail wind most of the time, so that helped some.

Joe put in 290 miles today, about 6 hours driving.  We lost an hour yesterday, and a second one today as we changed time zones again, so it was 7:00 p.m. when we got to the campground.  We are staying at the Balmorhea State Park tonight, heading to Ft. Davis and Big Bend National Park tomorrow.

Day 1 - Getting out of town

3/29/11 - Here we go!

We still had a lot to do this morning and didn't leave until 10:50 a.m.  We are both glad to be on the road again.  It's warming up in Arizona, and Joe was barely out of Apache Junction when he said he just wanted to turn left and head straight north.  But he didn't, and we drove on through Superior and Globe.  We stopped in Bylas at a rest stop for lunch and had a short nap -- worn out already! We did have a view of snow-capped Mt. Graham in the distance (elevation 10,720) so we pretended to be in Alaska. 

Then we drove through Thatcher and Safford, crossed into New Mexico and spent the night at a real nice state park about 10 miles southeast of Deming, Rockhound State Park. We haven't looked for any rocks yet, I think that requires hiking.  We drove 286 miles (over our limit, and on the first day!) and I (myself) even drove about 50 miles on I-10 between Lordsburg and Deming.  Pretty straight stretch of road, not too much traffic (lots of trucks), and only one curve and one hill.  I managed to keep it between the white lines (although I think I took up the whole lane).  Joe probably expects more driving out of me in the future, but I'm not too sure about.  I think I can threaten him that he has to do more cooking if I'm driving, and that should take care of that.

Alaska is the page right in front of Arizona in the road atlas, so every time I look at Arizona, I keep seeing that and remembering our wonderful trip last year.  This year's trip won't be anything like that, but we are hoping to see lots of interesting things, spend time with family, and enjoy life on the road.  Right now we think we'll be back home in August, and that does NOT sound like a good idea, so we'll see what happens (when we run out of money).  Joe has to have surgery on his other foot when we get home, but it is not scheduled yet so we have no deadlines.  We have to be in Corpus Christi, Texas by next Thursday, 4/7, to pick up John and Bridgette at the airport, then attend Bridgette's defense on 4/8.  So we are heading in that general direction.

Hwy 60

I think she's pointing East. Maybe Globe?

Alaska 2010 - Wrap-up

Well, it's over.  We're home.  The house phone doesn't work.  The TV picture is fuzzy.  It's hot.  And I just started my first load of laundry.  Reality has set in.

But what a great trip we had.  Joe drove the RV 10,290 miles, and probably another 5,000 in the car.  We went through 7 states and 3 Canadian provinces.  We toured 8 U.S. National Parks and 3 Canadian ones, and one National Monument.

We went fishing for halibut and salmon (reds).  We soaked our tired bodies in 4 different hot springs.  We took scenic boat rides in Waterton and Moab.  We watched an awesome Air Show.  We toured two knife factories and two candy factories, 2 paddle wheel boats, two fish ladders, and a dredge.  We went to numerous museums and climbed on an oil derrick.  We went to a wine tasting, watched clamming on the shore, watched dip-netting for salmon in the Kenai River,  watched fishing boats being launched and retrieved by tractors at high and low tide.  We took a plane ride to Prudhoe Bay and a van ride back, a ferry boat ride from Skagway to Haines,  a dog-sled ride at the Iditarod Headquarters, and a street-car ride in Edmonton.  We went to a musical show and a vaudeville show, watched a rodeo, went to a zoo, and drove through a wildlife preserve.  We walked on three different types of tundra, 2 glaciers, and held glacial ice in our hands.  We looked at countless totem poles, saw beautiful wood carvings, hung a sign at the Signpost Forest.  We watched thousands of salmon swimming upstream to spawn, lots of eagles soaring overhead, and lots of wildlife (some in the middle of the road).  We got to pan for gold several times (all without success, but it was fun wading in the creeks).   And with wonderful traveling friends, who made the trip even better.

Wildlife count:
Buffalo - thousands
Caribou - hundreds
Antelope - approximately 90
Deer-154
Moose-40
Bears-32 (black and grizzly)
Elk-49
Wolves-5 (both black and gray)
Bighorn sheep-58 (including stone sheep)
Wild turkeys-4
Fox-2 (1 red, 1 gray)
Plus several grouse (some ptarmigan), beavers, snowshoe hares, some whales and sea otters, and even a herd of camels in a fenced lot.

So you can see we had a busy summer!  But we wouldn't have wanted to miss a single day of it.  Every day was amazing, from Day 1 to Day 137.  What an EXCELLENT ADVENTURE it all was!