Last Texas Days and Westward Ho!

 Do you see anything ominous about the sky in the above photos? We were camped at the Fritch Fortress campground in the Lake Meredith Nat'l Recreation Area. It was a free night in a lovely setting. About four the next morning we were awakened by the loudest most fierce storm of our trip. The weather service radar showed us to be in the path of hazardous hail. It was too dark to see but it was crazy loud. The storm ended by 5:30 and we went on with our day and travels. Fast forward five days... while we were at Organ Pipe Nat'l Monument in Arizona, Dan went up to inspect our roof and here is what he found.

A hole in our bathroom vent about 1.25"! Good old duct tape is the temporary fix that will get us home.

It is always something!

Meanwhile, back to the chronology of our travels. Lake Meredith is on the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle area. Nearby is the Alibates Flint Quarries Nat'l Monument. Flint has been quarried and gathered here for over 13,000 years. The flint was used and traded all over the west. The quarries can only be visited by guided tour. We arrived too late on Wednesday for that days tour but a volunteer flint knapper was there talking and demonstrating his art. It was an interesting and informative time. After he finished the volunteer gave me the product of his afternoon's labors.

The next day, after the early morning hail storm, we were able to go on a tour to the quarry area.

The flint is found on hilltops within a few square miles area of the monument. It is not found anywhere else on this continent. The most similar stone to this is only found in Italy.

This is some of the exposed dolomite.
Our tour guide/ranger shared information about various interesting plants along the trail. The lemon sumac was tasty.

 This plant is Loco Weed... I have heard of it before, it is the real deal. If other food is not available horses will eat it, it will make them crazy and they don't recover. Bad stuff, but a pretty little flower.

Besides our visit to the Alibates Quarries, our other purpose in traveling to the panhandle and Amarillo was a music performance sponsored by my favorite PBS station, High Plains Public Radio, (HPPR). They periodically have what they call living room concerts featuring local Texas talent. We enjoyed an evening of music by Terri Hendrix accompanied by Lloyd Maines. We came to Amarillo back in October of 2013 and attended one of these little performances and it was fun to revisit them. We parked at a Walmart that night, our final night in Texas, after a 7 week visit. It was time to head west.

 Our first night in New Mexico was at a quiet Bosque Redondo Lake near the Pecos River and Fort Sumner.

In Fort Sumner is the grave of Billy the Kid. His gravestone is shackled in place behind locked gates because it has been stolen several times over the years.

Our 2nd of two nights in New Mexico was at Datil Well BLM campground in the mountains of central NM west of the Rio Grande. We traveled US Hwy 60 all of the way across New Mexico and part way across Arizona. We stopped for pie in Pie Town, I had New Mexico apple, it has hatch chilis and pine nuts in traditional apple pie.

The route took us through Show Low, AZ and down through/across the Salt River canyon.

And talk about contrasts here is our next camp spot...

We had the entire Pinal County Fairgrounds all to ourselves. Twenty dollars bought us electricity and hot showers. Life is good, especially when you keep your expectations simple.

Long ago when this blog began back in the fall of 2011, we visited Organ Pipe Nat'l Monument. The desert plants here are fantastic. We decided to visit again in hopes of seeing some blooms. The saguaro were crowned beautifully. The Organ Pipes don't usually bloom until May. Additionally, the flowers are pollenated by bats so the blossoms are only open at night and close by mid morning.

I purchased a new hiking hat to try to do better at protecting my face from the sun. This pic was taken before 8 am so the sun angle was still pretty low.

Saguaro in bloom, this was a short one only about 10' tall.

Cholla heavy with fruit.

Blooming teddy bear cholla.

An early blooming organ pipe cactus.


The weather was too hot to stay more than one night. We only took a short 1.5 mile hike and finished that by 8:30

 Even in the heat we had a nice big shade over our table so I could set up my machine for some stitching. The nearby Indian reservation had a fun radio station. We listened to everything from Hawaiian, to reggae, to western oldies and old rock and roll.

We enjoyed a beautiful Arizona desert sunset.

 Last night was spent along the Colorado River on the California side 20 miles south of Blythe. It was hot and if we turned lights on the bugs came right through the screens! UGH! Today we drove on to Julian, California in the mountains above San Diego. It is cool and pleasant here at 4500' elevation, we will stay here over the weekend then go up the coast to see Dan's mom and he will go to his 50yr class reunion.

Happy trails.

Tree Tales, Bird Tales, and Travel Tales in Texas

I ran out of steam while writing my last post and I just tucked a photo of this tree in at the bottom. This "champion" live oak is located near Goose Island State Park and is cared for by the park service. It is over 1000 years old. Trunk diameter is 11', circumference is 35', the crown is 80' across. I love big trees, I feel humbled by my little blip in time compared to an old tree. Scientists are beginning to understand how trees of the forest communicate, I wish I could hear and understand their wisdom.

This photo is just a big bit out of place... it is a picture of a plaque in the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic NP. I think every tree that reaches a grand age is a "poet tree"

We left Goose Island fairly early Tuesday morning. We were attempting to get across a couple of large bridges before a big storm hit. We made it across the first one fine but it was a crazy ride on the second bridge going into Corpus Christi.

This was my view out the windshield as Dan drove. My bike had a flat tire and needed a new tube. Dan found a bike shop and I found a nearby quilt shop. Both of us were happy. We tried to find a good fish market. After staying by the ocean several days it seemed like we should have some sea food. We had lunch at an okay fish house. After lunch we did some grocery shopping at HEB they had gulf shrimp that looked good to we decided to grill some ourselves.

They came out delicious, but it was a challenge getting them cooked. The wind was blowing so hard the grill was barely hot. We were at Casa Blanca Lake by Laredo, Texas. The restroom building was near our campsite and we ended up moving the grill near it to block the wind.

Here is our Lake Casa Blanca site, I think there was only one other rig in the park. The rain, lightning, and thunder hit just after dinner.

Did you start humming "The Streets of Laredo" when I mentioned Laredo?  We went to town Wednesday morning just so Dan could see some of those streets.

Dan walking the "Streets of Laredo" The city seemed quite depressed and rundown.

We moved on...

A few weeks ago when we left Big Bend we stopped in at Seminole Canyon Park, the park campground was full of spring breakers so we didn't get to stay. It sounded like it would be worth a visit.
Getting there we drove through our biggest storm yet! The park got 3" of rain in about 90 minutes.
Seminole Canyon is not a river bed, the only water in it is rain runoff.
We took the next two photos a day apart.

The reason there is a Seminole Canyon State Park is to share and protect 4000 year old pictographs in the canyon. The caves with the rock art are only accessible by guided park tours. The statue in the top photo is called "Peace Maker". The artist based his work on some of the rock art. The day we arrived the tour was cancelled because of the water. By the next morning it was clear and we were good to go. Here are a few of the pictures we took.

The park is very near the reservoir behind Amistad Dam which backs up the Rio Grande. We took an afternoon bike ride to an overlook to Panther Cave. The cave is accessible by boat on the lake. It was interesting biking in an area the day after such a big rain storm.

Mud and gravel stuck to the tires like glue.

We had to divert around some large puddles.

I spotted a rider in the purple sage.

This is view from overlook, the boat is approaching the dock below Panther Cave.

That is Mexico on the far side of the lake. Where will that wall be built?

While at Seminole Canyon in our camp site we were frequently entertained by a mockingbird that liked to perch in the tree on the left of the above photo. I have a couple one minute videos of him singing. I am not able to insert a video in this blog... if you would like to hear a mockingbird email me and I will send the video to you.

We stayed two nights at Seminole Canyon, then started making our way north towards the rolling plains and high plains of the Texas panhandle. We managed to find a couple free spots on our way. The sunset photo above was taken at the Twin Buttes Marina camping area just outside of San Angelo. The next day we made it to Haskell. Near a beautiful city park, Haskell has a simple RV park free for the first night complete with full hook-ups.

Wine cups in full bloom in the rolling plains

I took these duck pond photos Easter Monday morning at the Haskell City Park. Afterwards we moved on to Copper Breaks

Copper Breaks State Park is near Quanah, not too far from Oklahoma. As we pulled into the camp area both of us realized we had been here before. Back in October of 2014 we spent a quick night here. Our camper log book says we arrived at 7 pm and I made German pancake for breakfast the following morning. This time we spent a quiet and pleasant afternoon in a campground which we had all to ourselves.

I did some sewing "al fresco"
There is a resident Longhorn herd at Copper breaks, but we did not see them. If we had seen them I think they would have looked like long horned cattle.

I found some more blue bonnets though. These are probably the last patch of them I will see for a long time.
We left Copper Breaks Tuesday morning heading west towards Caprock State Park. On our way we passed through Turkey, Texas home town of Bob Wills, fiddler and western swing legend.

Caprock Canyon State Park has wonderful scenery and a bison herd. We did not see any bison, but if we had, I bet they would have looked like bison.
Caprock Canyons Trailway is park of the park. It is a 60 plus mile railway turned bikeway through the area. We rode a 4.5 mile section to the Clarity Tunnel, home to a large population of Mexican free tail bats.

The ride was actually pretty boring. Dan declined to go through the tunnel, something about the guano put him off. I rode through, took a picture and came back. I think it was good to go "solo" so no one had to breath the dust from a cyclist in front.

We took a warm 4 mile hike through some of Caprock Canyon. Our destination of sorts was a "natural bridge". When we finally found it we learned we had been unknowingly walking across it for a few minutes while searching.

Let's just say it is no Arches NP.
The bird entertainment at Caprock was a crazy cardinal.

I apologize for the photo quality...darned iPhone. I am not sure if he was attracted to our red truck or if he thought it was male competition. For two afternoons he repeatedly would fly to this rearview mirror then drop down to peck at his reflection. He was very persistent and did not seem to mind us talking to him or coming fairly near. We videoed him singing and when we played the video back he really went nuts.
For an Oregon girl these bird encounters have been pretty special. I suppose these birds are quite common to folks who live in these parts.
Our time in Texas is soon to end. There will be a bit more to tell but until then...tweet tweet tweet...