I wasn’t tired
last night; finally called it quits at 1 a.m. and still tossed and turned a bit
before falling asleep. Not sure if it was because of twelve hours on the road, the
5-hour energy I had in the early afternoon, or the fact that I drove the last 3
hours of the trip. Whatever the cause,
it was a late night for me. The sun was fully up when I opened my eyes this
morning. We’re in Central time zone, so even though I woke up at my normal
Arizona time, the day is starting an hour later than normal.
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Went to a little
cafĂ© down the road for breakfast…there was some talk between a patron and the
waitress about a well-attended meeting held the previous night. The man said “Well,
I think they’re still going to do it, but at least….” Obviously, I didn’t have
a clue what they were talking about. But it made a little more sense when we
saw a protest crowd gathered at the intersection of 118 and 170. More than 100
people were holding signs protesting the building of a border wall. Wait…are there plans to build a wall near
Terlingua? Where? Down the middle of the Rio Grande?
Later, in the day, curiosity got to me, so I googled “border
wall near Terlingua, TX”. To my complete
surprise, I saw this headline pop up on nbcnews.com: “Texas’ Big Bend braces for border wall in
national park, worrying local Republicans and Democrats”. Wait, what?! A wall in Big
Bend?? How did I not know about this? So, I read articles and listened to news
reports and tried to make sense of the Customs and Border Patrol website. Initially,
Big Bend had been slated for the type of technology that can monitor a remote
landscape without physically destroying it. Now, on the CBP’s map, the “technology
only” label for Big Bend has been replaced with a 112-mile “primary border wall
system”, stretching from Santa Elena Canyon to Mariscal Canyon. That means
sensors and cameras are out and steel bollard walls, patrol roads, and lighting
are in. Yikes! And the kicker is that
the data of illegal crossings in this area doesn’t support the need for a wall
of this magnitude in this area…locals say the technology approach would be
sufficient.
What happens to
the darkest sky in the country? What happens to the eco systems of the park or
the animals/birds that call Big Bend home? Would the park have to be closed during construction?
What happens to the local economy when the tourism money takes a hit? The town
of Terlingua is one mile from the west entrance of Big Bend; from what I see,
this area can’t afford to take any economic hits. What are now deemed scenic
trails near the river wouldn’t be so scenic and I have to wonder if the
historical areas of the park would still exist. And last, but not least, will the wall deny access to the Rio Grande? No wonder protesters gathered today
to voice their opinions.
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Gabe is
determined to hike the Emory Peak trail tomorrow. He’s doing it on his own; we’ll
drop him off close to sunrise and he’ll call, text or send a smoke signal when
he’s done. It’s a 10-mile roundtrip hike and estimated to take 6 to 8 hours. On
our drive through the park today, we scoped out where the trailhead starts so
we can adjust time accordingly to have him there near sunrise, which is roughly
7:20 a.m. That means early to bed and
early to rise which shouldn’t be a problem for me tonight.
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The trailhead is
up in the Chisos Basin. It’s an interesting drive and so full of terrain diversity.
The muted colors of the desert scrub gradually changes to the deeper tones of
the Chisos Mountains. Green trees, grasses, the shadows in the mountain crevices,
etc. Then it plays out in reverse,
driving up out of the Basin down to the desert again. As expected, there’s a
temperature change also as the elevation increases. Not extreme, though…just
enough to turn off the air and open the windows.
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Then we drove to
the Rio Grande Village, stopping at the Rio Grande Overlook on the way. Found
out by talking to others that walked up behind us that we all expected to see
the Rio Grande from that vantage point. Nope.
But we could guess where the Rio Grande was from the green vegetation suddenly
sprouting up from the desert brown. Vegetation must have gotten tall enough to
block the view of the water and no one thought to either change the sign or trim
back the vegetation so the tourists wouldn’t feel tricked.
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Heard the river rushing
over some rocks before I saw it. It was maybe only twenty feet wide with a
beach-type approach on our side and a 15-to-20-foot-high cliff on the Mexico
side. Far different from the Santa Elena Canyon on the western side of the park,
which also has a walking path to the river.
The canyon is 8 miles long, with 1500 ft walls on both sides and where
the walking path meets the river, it’s about 100 feet wide. Nothing so dramatic on the eastern side of the
park, but still, it’s the Rio Grande River.
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Saw 99o
on the truck today. No wonder it was freakin’ hot on the way to the river.
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Headed back to
the RV to eat a quick bit of supper. Then Kim and Gabe drove back into the park
to the stargazing program put on every Tuesday and Saturday night…I stayed back
at the RV. Didn’t even think of going
out and looking for the planetary alignment because I’d read that it probably
wouldn’t be visible with the naked eye. Plus, I wasn’t confident that I’d know
what to look for. As it turns out, the
alignment took place before sunset out here so there’s that. Gabe thought the
star program was pretty cool so that was a good trade-off.
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Meanwhile, back in Arizona, a coyote was caught on the cell camera early this morning. So, that brings our list to four: roadrunners, jack rabbits, a javelina and the coyote. None have cast a wary eye at the camera as they scoot under the fence, so maybe they haven’t noticed it. Waiting for a squadron of javelinas to come through.
