Big Bend Santa Elena Canyon

Santa Elena Canyon at the end of the trail

Another hot day, the high was near 100. Today we started with a tour of what used to be a small inn around a hot springs, right off the Rio Grand river. We then headed for the Ross Maxwell scenic drive and the old town of Castolon, which is now a visitor center. This was a remote farming and ranch area for many years – it certainly looked like a meager existence. The highlight of the day was Santa Elena Canyon, which is an 8 mile long canyon with 1500 foot walls, through which the Rio Grand emerges. We took what was supposed to be an easy hike (about 1.6 miles round trip) into the canyon. Surprise- this hike was mostly up and down which was difficult in all this heat. The start was up a paved set of steps and slopes for several hundred feet – we saw a lot of people give up after a few of the switchbacks. We did make it, but this was almost too much for Mary after her knee surgery 2 weeks ago. We were rewarded with a beautiful view of the canyon from a shady and sandy shore. A number of folks canoed through the river as we were watching (we envied there easier trip down the river). This evening, I went on the nature trail to get a sunset view of the both the Chisos mountains and the Sierra Madres on the Mexican side.

Sunrise view of the Rio Grand River with the Chisos Mountains

Big Bend Birding

The Rio Grand River near our campsite

Our campsite has a lot of trees and birds. There is quite a lot of racket The park has over 450 species of birds that either live here or migrate through the park, the most of any National Park. So we started the day appropriately with a ranger guide birding. For a beginner, I found it quite interesting how one approaches identifying a bird. Start with the size and shape of the bird, and then observe the shape of the beak – this will generally get you to the right high level classification. Now you need to pay attention to the patterns on the head, wings, throat, breast, and tail. The shape of the wings, and tail can also be a good clue, especially if all you can see is the silhouette of the bird. With the help of a field guide, we identified the white winged dove (very common), turkey vultures, common raven, mockingbird, and a number of woodpeckers and song birds. An interesting and hot morning, the temperature was already about 98 degrees by 11:30.
In the afternoon, we headed for Chisos basin. While most of the park is desert, here is an island of mountain peaks. Thus many species like mountain lions and black bear are only found here. We had a gorgeous view through the windows from the basin, where you see the desert to the Northwest. Then we took a hike up the Lost Mine Trail, which gives you a view of Lost Mine Mountain. Temperatures were about 10 degrees cooler than down below. The evening finished with a program on Raptors.

Midland to Big Bend National Park

Seirra Madres at Sunset

The temperatures really changed today. Two nights ago we were below freezing and today we were in the high 90’s. Similarly the terrain changed again – much more desert like with cactus and dry grasses. At the same time, we went from the endless plains to seeing buttes and as we approached the park, mountains. The mesquite trees here are in full green versus this morning where they were almost bare. We took an evening trip to Boquillas Canyon along the Rio Grande with spectacular cliffs on the Mexican side of the river and this small river running through the canyon.

Amarillo to Midland, Texas

Early Drill Rig with Steam Engine

The land around Amarillo was a surprise to me: very agricultural. There are grain elevators everywhere and lots of irrigation from the Ogallala aquifer. It’s the wrong time of the year to see exactly what grain they are growing, probably corn, perhaps wheat. As we head south the crop changed to cotton. The stems are bare now, but some remaining cotton balls are stuck on the branches. Finally, as we approached Midland, the land changed again – to Mesquite trees and oil wells.
Our major stop for the day was the Petroleum museum. Here they give you the full story of how they drill for oil: using instruments to map the underground formations, exploratory wells where it looks promising (less than 5% find enough oil for production; production wells and the techniques to get the oil out of the ground, and finally the maintenance process and secondary and tertiary techniques to gain more oil. Actually, we found the Panhandle and Plains Museum in Canyon to be more interesting than this museum. While they had some good audio/visual displays, I felt overwhelmed with minute information.

Canyon Texas

We can tell we're in bible country, almost nothing is open on Sunday! Our visit for today was the Panhandle-Plains Museum in Canyon, Texas. This museum has a little of everything - fossils, the history of petroleum industry, autos, rifles, history of the area, art, etc. We learned quite a few things. For example, this used to be the Great American Desert, but it was the investion of the wind mill which provided water and converted this area for ranching and farming - they had an interesting exhibit on the history of the wind mill. There was also a lot information on the ancient buffalo - modern buffalo have relatively small horns, the older the species, the wider the horns were. Some of the fossils had horns that were almost 8 feet wide. Finally, we've all heard how Henry Ford said "you can have any color, as long as it is black" of the Model T. Why black? It's because black enamel dried faster than any other color, allowing higher throughput in the factory. Amazing what little tidbits you can learn!

Capulin National Monument

Capulin Volcano

We arrived too late to visit the National Monument last night, so that was our first duty this morning. It had snowed last night, the low in the high 20's, the furnace definately did it's duty. This was also the first time we travelled with Cassie, Mary's cat. She did well during the traveling and finding a comfortable blanket to spend the night, next to Mary's pillow. Capulin Volcano was preserved as a National Monument because it almost has a perfect cinder cone. We drove up to the top and did a little exploration, particularly the beautiful views. We're right at the edge of volcanic rock versus the start of the Great Prairie. It was very visible both from the rock formations and from the snow cover (on rock) versus the grass (with less snow). The rest of the day was spent heading to Amarillo, Texas. We visited Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the late afternoon. After looking for miles at the prairie, all of a sudden there is a big canyon about a 1000 feet in depth. At the bottom is the Prarie Dog branch of the Red River. The temperatures were almost 10 degrees warmer down there - largely because the wind disappeared. This was also the site of a major Indian battle, where the U.S. Calvary killed only a few Indians, but captured or killed 1400 horses. This forced the Indians to give up and go to the reservation in Oklahoma.

Palo Duro Canyon

Colorado to Texas

Snow Storm on Monument Hill

We headed off for our Spring trip to Big Bend National Park today. We've never used our RV this early and the season, so guess what - SNOW. Yes, we actually went through two snow storms today. Monument hill was the first just outside Colorado Springs, followed by a 1/2 hour delay while they cleared the highway of an accident. And then another snow storm as we went over Raton pass on the way into New Mexico. All this to get to our first stop - Capulin Volocano National Monument.