The wind died down before midnight last night. I could tell by the noise the trailer wasn’t making. 😌 Woke up to a sunny day but still windy. As I
was walking back from the bathroom, I just didn’t know that I had it in me to
ride in the wind again. So I asked Kim
if he minded exploring in the truck today…he has no problem with that, so the
truck was our chariot today.
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We were supposed to be leaving today, but extended another
day. So we have to figure out where to
go next before tomorrow at 11 a.m., which is check out time. We’ve been hearing weather stories about
other parts of Texas so checking the forecast will definitely be part of our
process.
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Went back into Big Bend today. Left camp about 11, about the
same as yesterday, but because we were in the truck we made much better driving
time. We decided to go to the places
that we didn’t get to yesterday. First, we went east from the visitor center to
the Hot Springs area…although not to the Hot Springs themselves. The other place we wanted to go was down to
Santa Elena Canyon and from experience I knew that the walk to the Rio Grande
would be an hour or more. We’d made several stops along the way to Hot Springs
to take pictures and to walk to an overlook…basic touristy stops. So we decided
to skip the hike into the springs because it was a little too long for the time
we had.
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| Standing in the Rio Grande 😎 |
Next up was the 30 mile drive to Santa Elena Canyon, but
first we had to get to the turn off, which was about 35 miles from Hot Springs. And, of course, there were more stops along
the way for pictures, informational signs and a bathroom. The geology of the Chisos Mountains is
fascinating…and I’m at a loss to understand how some can claim the earth is
only thousands of years old when all the geology suggests hundreds of millions
of years. Anyway, there were stops to
make but finally we made it to the canyon parking area. Put ourselves in walking mode and hiked the ¾
mile trail from the parking lot back into the canyon. We channeled our inner
mountain goat for the trail…after winding through a jungle like area, it
climbed high along the canyon wall before coming back down to the shore of the
Rio Grande. One of us stepped into the
river for a picture and one stood on the shore and offered an arm to hang onto.
We were maybe ½ mile into the canyon and the echo factor between canyon walls
was great!!
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I struggle with the pronunciation of Rio Grande…the Spanish
version, ‘Ree-oh Gron-day’, doesn’t flow off my tongue as nicely as I’d like it
to. I usually default to ‘Ree-oh Grand’,
the more American version. But I know
better than to say ‘Ree-oh Gran-dee’, so I’ve got that going for me. 😏
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The Rio Grande watershed covers 182,200 square miles. Many endorheic basins are situated within, or adjacent to, the Rio Grande’s basin, and these are sometimes included in the river basin’s total area, increasing its size to about 336,000 square miles.
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| Lunchtime for the roadrunner 😃 |
We stopped at a store in Hot Springs to get something to
eat. Here’s how it went….1/2 gallon of
milk + Oreos/Windmill cookies = lunch. 😋 When we
got back in the truck, I noticed movement in the park area ahead of
us…roadrunner! The first one ran off too
fast but a second one strolled into view…it stopped in the shade of a tree and
we realized that it had something in its beak.
Both of us scrambled for our cameras, hoping it would stay there just a
bit longer. It seemed a bit indecisive
as to where to go, so we had plenty of time to get the photo op. Maybe it was lunchtime for him, too…the thing
in its beak was a lizard! Best shot of
the day!! P.S. Notice the crest is down while he's at rest.
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The temperature was 10 to 15o cooler today than
yesterday. In the mid-70s at Santa Elena
Canyon with a nice breeze blowing. The
breeze helped with the hike to the river but it was still hot…I was sweating like
crazy and Kim claims he didn’t sweat at all.
What’s up with that?!
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Yesterday we didn’t take the ‘short cut’ because it was an
unpaved road and we assumed that meant gravel.
Today we took it because we were in the truck and gravel is right, but the
description unpaved road is an
overstatement!! OMGoodness, we were
driving through washes and areas where the water had created deep ruts and the
road was like a washboard for a good deal of it. Although it must be said there were a couple
of sections that were typical gravel road, but those sections were few and far
between. Kim was having a good time…I
was envisioning the truck falling apart.
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Retraced our route up Hwy 118 back to Alpine…not only were we
able to drive the speed limit today but it was interesting to see the sights
that I missed last night…my focus was on staying in the locked and upright
position on my bike, I didn’t look around at the landscape much. We ate supper at Penny’s Diner in Alpine and
then cruised back to Marathon, arriving back at camp about 9:30 p.m. It was a full day!!
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Wildlife sighting:
deer (5), a fox and a roadrunner with a lizard!
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