JAN 15 2016 HOUSTON TO BIG BEND AND WEST TO CA

January 15, Friday

We left home about 8:30AM, driving south through Houston.  We won’t miss this!

 We are heading to Junction, which is about 2 hours west of San Antonio – 5-6 hours.  A fair amount of traffic on I-10, which is the major east-west highway.  Busy San Antonio which is a sprawling city, and then things begin to thin out.

We wind through hill country, and then into dry, rocky land with mesquite and other scrubby trees.  Lots of cattle and goats.   We arrive at Junction, get gas and then find the city park.  It is along the Llano River and offers free campsites to travelers.   Quite nice, with clean flush toilets, playground, benches, etc.   We pull in about 2:00 on what has become a gorgeous day – sunny, high 60’s, blue sky!

 Spend the afternoon walking and relaxing in the sun, reading.  I am finishing The Orphan Master’s Son, next month’s bookclub book, and Greg is reading a biography of Dwight D Eisenhower.  Several vehicles arrive, two other campers and several locals who are walking dogs or playing with their kids on the playground. Someone has made  an interesting eagle carving near the playground.

The mountain across the river picks up the golden glow  of the setting sun, but temperatures tumble too.

We have some humus and pita, followed by chicken soup.  Highway 10 is probably less than ½ mile away and we can see some headlights, through the trees, but the sound of the water tumbling over the impoundment nicely drowns out any noise.

Saturday, January 16

We wake early while it is still dark and about 40 degrees, and decide to head out.  Pass several deer who are enjoying the park without people! Will have to check out the town of Junction another time.

Traffic isn’t too bad as the sun rises.  The speed limit is 80 here but we dawdle along at 62, which we’ve found is optimum for gas mileage.  We pass a State Trooper going even slower and assume he is doing border patrol work.  We have seen a few motorhomes/rv’s on the road but this one is unique.

We pass many ranches – this steer caught our eye with his rakish horn display. 

While I was taking his picture, a large herd of cattle across the road spotted us and, we assume, thought they were getting food.  They stampeded to the fenceline and put up quite a racket!

Outside of the little town of Iran (yes, Iran, TX) there are many wind farms with twirling turbines.  Texas leads the US in wind production and it is apparent why as Greg wrestles with keeping the Trek on an even keel in the strong winds.  Something about the combination of mesas and low lands funnel the winds.This is also an oil well area, as you see the jack pump in front of the turbines, below.

We have breakfast and turn south near Fort Stockton and travel through lots and lots of unpopulated land.  We stop for gas at the small town of Marathon, which will be the only town we go through en route to Big Bend National Park.  A herd of antelope and occasional hawk or other bird are the only life.  We stop at one of those roadside “Historical Marker” spots and learn about the military’s experimentation with camels in this area in the mid 1800’s.

Arrive at the entrance to the Park about 2:00 and decide to head first to the Panther Creek Visitor’s Center with some questions.  We forgot that this is a holiday weekend, and learn that one of the three campgrounds in the park is already filled! They have many backcountry campgrounds, but we find that the only ones accessible with the Trek are already booked.   So we head to Rio Grande Campground where we snag one of the last available sites!

We revisited a trail that begins at the campground.  Things are not nearly so green as in Spring-Fall, but still pretty.  We take a new path that winds alongside the RioGrande for a while and see a band of javelina which quickly melt into the brush.

We’ve seen a few interesting birds, including this roadrunner.  

We ride bikes to a nearby camp store but Beth is having problems with the gears not shifting.   We walk a trail hoping for a nice sunset but the sky was too clear today and there was little color.  Spotted this screech owl along the trail on the way back to camp.  

Sausage with red beans and rice for dinner.  Nice, quiet night but temperatures dropped to near 30!

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Rose early and drove over to Boquillas Canyon, where we had breakfast and then hit the trail.  It is cold until the sun finally reaches over the mountains.  We notice these horses on the Mexican side of the river, and at one point we hear someone singing and saying hello.  Mystery solved as we come across a donation box for the “Mexican Singing Jesus”.  

We have decided to go across the river to the town of Boquillas this trip.  There is a crossing area and we have to show our passports.  A ranger named Ryan is very friendly and informative and tells us to just follow the path down to the river, where the “International Ferry” (aka row boat) will take us across. 

A nice young man takes us across for $5, and we are met by another singing Mexican who heartily welcomes us to Mexico and points us towards the transportation to town.  We have a choice of burro, horse or pick-up truck and decide to go with the burros.  We are also greeted by Estaban, a man of indeterminate years, who will be our guide.  He helps us onto the burros and he walks while we ride about a mile over a rough dirt road to the town.

Here we go to the Federales to get a free one-day visa, and then walk around the town.  Many of the homes have tables out front from which they are selling crafts – wire sculptures, hand stitched cloths, braided bracelets, etc.  Young children also are hawking these items.  

We walk through town, see their church, a small school where Estaban says they have kindergarten (I think he means small children) in the morning and highschool in the afternoon.   There are only about 200 residents.

We walk out the other side of town, up hill past a solar panel field – this is the only source of electricity in the town . 

There is also a large water tank.  Water is pumped to this tank from wells and then is gravity fed down into the town.  Estaban seems proud of these accomplishments, which he says his government provided.

We stop for lunch at the Boquillas restaurant where we share tomales (good) and enchiladas (ok) and rice. 

There are many dogs in the town.  There is another section of town which does not have electricity and which, according to Estaban, can flood.  The government paid people who lived there to build a house on higher ground, but many of them prefer to stay there.  Estaban bought  one of government provided houses from someone  who didn’t want to move.  The houses are very small squares with several windows.

Estaban also does guiding into the mountains and showed us some pictures of groups he has taken to high peaks, old mines, etc.    We look in a small shop and buy some Vanilla for our neighbor – they have excellent vanilla.  Then it is back to Federales, back on the burros and back to the International Ferry.  We speak with a couple from Washington state and note that many of the license plates are from “snow birds”. There was only one other car when we arrived at the crossing and now the parking lot is full.  We passed many gringos as we were eating and leaving town.  The whole town of Boquillas lives pretty much on tourism.

It is still early afternoon, so we head over to another trail we have heard about.  It is all uphill through rough, rocky terrain, but there is a beautiful view from atop the cliffs.    And the walk back was all downhill :).  Temp around 70 now!

A quick visit to the camp store for ice cream and beer (you can guess who got what ), then back to the campsite to relax a bit.  Around 6:00,  we decide to drive to an overlook to check out the sunset.  Talk with a few folks there, including two girls from TCU that we take photos for on their camera and phone.  Nice sunset.

Dinner is a sandwich.  Temperatures falling again.  We read/look at photos/start blog.  No service here for cell phone or internet, but tomorrow we will stop at the store (which also has the only showers around) and use their internet – we hope.

Dec 30, 2015 S Texas Birds

December 30, 2015

Woke to 49 degrees and signs that there had been some rain during the night, but this morning is cloudy but dry.  We walked some of the trails and on the way back to the campsite, a neighbor, Mike from Colorado said hello.  He invited us to come into his campsite as he was getting ready to feed the birds.

An interesting man, he pulls a tiny teardrop shape camper with his jeep.  Back in Colorado, he lives in a trailer on some friend's property, with no electric or running water.  He has a solar panel and finds that is all he needs! He showed us some photos he has taken as we talked about birds and more.  He also joked about being the "old fart of the back-packing crowd" in travels through India, Sri Lanka and more. Well spoken and polite.  He sprinkled bird seed and we enjoyed watching many birds -  grackles, cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds, plus some interesting "locals".  Several green jays visited - they are called green jays but also have blue and yellow and are quite beautiful!

This fellow is called a pyrroloxia and as you can  tell, is related to the cardinal.

The great Kiskadees are also colorful.  From a distance they look like lemons in the tree.

 This Roadrunner ran by the campsite.

Some other neighbors, from Virginia, came by too.  Both they and Mike will be staying here for a week or more.  There is another Roadtrek in the campground too, and the owners walked by our site and complemented our choice of vehicle.

Back at our campsite, we made ham and eggs for a late breakfast, cleaned up and then headed down the road to another birding area called Salineno, which several people have recommended.  We have been traveling on Route 83, which parallels the Rio Grande River (also the TX/Mexico border).  Have seen many Border Patrol and Texas State Trooper folks out and about.

Salineno is a tiny town with a church in the square, surrounded by palm trees.  We went through town (don't blink!) and onto a dirt road toward the Rio Grande River and found a small parking area with a hand-made sign welcoming birders.

Checked out the river which is slow-moving and not very wide here, then walked a trail till we came across an RV with outdoor seating and a jovial Santa look-alike named Meryle. He, his wife and his friendly dog are from Iowa.

 They have been spending winters here for 7 years, volunteering, feeding birds and educating folks like us!  He invited us to sit and then put out various feeds, including a paste made of peanut butter, lard and cornmeal, nectar, sliced fruit and seeds.   Within a few minutes the birds arrived and Meryle identified many and talked about them.

Green jays, kiskadees, a couple of different woodpeckers, sparrows, cardinals and more.

kiskadees

Golden fronted woodpecker 

green jays

 He was not crazy about the red-winged blackbirds and grackles which come in large numbers and can quickly empty feeders.  We saw three different types of colorful orioles ( altamira, audubon and hooded) and three kinds of dove (morning, inca and white-winged). A very educational visit!

audubon oriole

Altamira Oriole

From here, we headed back down I-83 to the town of Roma which has bluffs overlooking the river,

and Rio Grande City where we hoped to see Fort Ringgold, but it was closed. Continued on to Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, home to The World Birding Center Headquarters.

 Known as the sub-tropical tip of Texas, it is 586 Acres bordering Mexico.   The park is closed to motorized vehicles due to "issues" (which may or may not have to do with the border).  They had a van, though, which took us into the park.  We got off at a nature center and watched these chachalacas  clambering around fallen trees - also known commonly as Mexican Chickens.

 We walked to several other sites with bird blinds and saw many of the same birds we had seen at other locations.

Woodpecker but has a long tongue (Look closely)and was lapping up nectar from the orange.

green jay

There were a few other folks walking or riding bikes. We caught the van for a ride through the remainder of the park.  Went back to the Trek for lunch and then headed back to I-83.

As we headed east the weather worsened, with temps in the 40's, wind and rain.  Looking at the weather forecast, which called for this type weather for the next four days, we decided to head back towards Houston.  We headed north on I-77, stopping briefly at the border patrol checkpoint.  Though we saw quite a few orange trees filled with fruit, the only fruit stand we saw was closed, so no citrus this trip.

Tried to stop at a restaurant called The King's Inn on Baffin Bay, but it too was closed until January 3 (they have great Gulf seafood). Stopped for the night at Kingsville, home of the King Ranch, which we have visited in the past.  We feasted (?) on hot dogs and baked beans, but wandered into a store and found some Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia for dessert!

Decided to head for home tomorrow, with a stop for lunch in Rosenberg at a barbecue spot called Witt's Pit.

Arrived home around 1:00PM, after 978 miles.  Cloudy, but warm and dry :)

South Texas, Ranches, Birds

December 29, 2015

First stop this morning was the small Longhorn Museum in Pleasanton, about 30 minutes south of San Antonio.  This is a rural, ranching area and the Longhorn Museum is a collection of photos, clothing, home and farm implements, etc. from the area.

It seemed that whatever someone wanted to donate, they gamely added it to the collection.  Gowns from "Miss Wool" pageants, a set-up from the state's first country music radio station (KBOP), a collection of salt shakers, you name it.  This unique piece was a trophy awarded to the state's most outstanding school bus driver  lol.

From Pleasanton, we turned south toward the Rio Grande Valley.  We traveled for several hours, through ranch land dominated by mesquite.  Some of the entries to the ranches were interesting:

This one looked like it had seen better days despite the name...

We also went through Eagle Ford, an area central to a great deal of fracking and oil field suppliers, along with jack pumps and flares where they were burning off excess gasses.

 We saw cattle, horses, javelina, deer and many crested caracaras - a colorful kind of falcon mostly perched on fence posts and poles.  Hard to get  photos,  as most of the animals took off as soon as we stopped.

Next stop was Falcon State Park which features a huge reservoir fed by the Rio Grande, half of which is in Mexico. The rangers at the entry were friendly, as were several of our neighbors in the campground.  Most of them were snow birds, from Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and other snowy regions.  

This area is where the central and western flyways merge, so birding is very popular. Hundreds of  bird species visit the area throughout the year.  We walked and spotted a few interesting birds along with a few javelina.   

Enjoyed hot showers, and Greg managed to scrounge enough wood for a campfire.  The wood was mostly mesquite which burns slow and hot and kind of pink! Mesquite trees abound in this part of the country and ranchers are not fond of it, as it readily takes over pastureland and is difficult to eradicate. Many of the plants and bushes in the area also feature thorns, so it is best to stay on trails!

The day has been grey with a chilly wind, but no rain! After a quick dinner of cheese and crackers followed by taco soup, we called it a night.  The state park has wifi, a relatively new trend, which is good for email but not strong enough to do anything with photos.