Warm weather at last.

Hi all,
I’m sitting on a comfortable couch at a place called Stillwell Ranch and RV Park, just outside Big Bend National Park in Texas. They only have Wi-Fi at the office so it’s difficult to check Email.
 The gold medal hockey game is on so if my spelling and grammar suffer I’m sure you’ll understand. I couldn’t get our satellite dish working though another Ontarian I met had. He says we are on the edge of Bell Satellite coverage and dish alignment must be perfect.
We arrived on Wednesday and have spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday driving (mostly driving) and walking in the park. This place is big. We have to drive over 1 ½ hours just to get to the main visitor center then an hour to most of the other sites.The speed limit is 45mph. That doesn't help.  It’s a very impressive place. If you have ever seen a desert you’ll know what I mean. The Chisos Mountain Range is encompassed completely by the park.
It’s hard to believe that people actually lived and thrived here but we have been assured they did. For over 4000 years too. The aboriginal peoples lived and traveled throughout a huge area as their many petroglyphs and other artifacts attest.
(I think I’ll put the computer down for a bit as there are less than 7 minuets in the game and I can’t concentrate.) Oh no! Over time!
One negative watching the games here in the US is just that. Everything has a US slant. But, I can’t really complain.
I almost forgot. The temp got up to 81F on Thursday. We have finally found heat. Lucky for us it’s a dry heat and the nights are cool. Right now the clouds are gathering and we may get rain. That might get interesting as rain in the desert is a rare thing and the plants will bloom very quickly. Of course it snowed less than a week ago so go figure.
CANADA SCORED! GO CROSBY! GO CANADA!!!
The wind has really come up out of the northwest.  It looks like we’re having a dust storm. The rain is still coming.
We plan on moving tomorrow to a RV park on the other side of Big Bend. If we get wifi I'll try to update with pictures.
Take care till then.


Carolyn and Pat

What a differance a day makes

Yesterday was sunny and warm. We went on a 6 mile (round trip) bike hike to panther cave. It's only accessible by boat but we could see it well enough. It's in a rock outcrop where the Seminole Canyon and the Rio Grande  meet. Speaking of meeting, on this little hike we met 3 groups of Canadians. One from Hamilton On. another from Red Deer Alberta and one from Quebec. How bout that eh!




                                                                                              See the Panther? ^ In the top half.
Then we had a spectacular sunset (red sky at night is good, right?)

     Over night the wind came up and this morning about 9:30 it started to hail and snow. Nothing stayed on the ground but still, I felt cheated. We drove a long way to get away from this. Maybe one of those other Canadians brought it with them.
Any way we carried on and went to visit Langtry the home of Judge Roy Bean, the only law west of the Pecos.     You can learn more at  Judge Roy Bean        

                                                                       
We plan to leave tomorrow and Carolyn hopes there will be no wifi at Big Bend. We'll see.
Below is a view out our window.  Take care, hope I'm not boring you.

Back in the desert again.

We arrived yesterday after a short drive (about an hour) in Seminole Canyon State Park. It was a pleasant drive on a nice sunny day. The park area reminded us of our time in Arizona a couple of years ago. Lots of prickly pear cactus as well as many other thorny plants out to get you. It's hard to believe that people actually lived here but as our hike leader said everything needed for survival is here. We were on a 2 hour guided hike into the canyon to see were people have lived for over 4000 years. They are not sure who the people who lived here were or how long they were here. Judging by the number of pictographs on the canyon walls they spent a lot of time and effort here.

It was nice to have shorts on again. We even put the air on in the trailer for a while, but rain and possibly snow is forecast for tomorrow. I think we'll sit tight. The desert is supposed to be interesting after a rain. We will see. In the meantime there are several bike paths in the park so we'll check them out today.

Moving west again--

We arrived from Rockport Wednesday (Feb 17) in Del Rio after a bumpy ride through the South Texas Plains. Miles and miles and I do mean miles of flat scruffy plains. The only break in the sameness were the sometimes spectacular entrances to the ranches. Most were fairly simple but a few showed real imagination with huge stone works and landscaping. One place had a 6+ foot white painted wrought iron fence that seemed to go on and on. I know it was painted because it was showing signs of rust.

I was surprised at how rough the roads are since they don't experience the freeze/ thaw cycles that we get at home. Then again maybe it's the heat. I guess that could cause heaving or blistering of a sort. One lady we spoke with said they had more than four weeks of over 100 F last summer. We did see 2 road runners (more like road crossers) and several deer with long horns. Off in the far west horizon I could see mountains which I assumed are the Chisos in Big Bend Nat Park. It was almost dark when we finally pulled in to Lonesome Dove RV Park. Luckily it was a pull through and after a few minutes of leveling we were in.
I noticed that the web site for the park we stayed at in Rockport, (Anglers Retreat) has been updated with a pic of us and Terry and Barb at one of our many happy hours. Check it out  www.anglersrvretreat.com

Thursday we stayed fairly quiet.

 Friday was Carolyn's birthday and she wanted to go out for breakfast so we went out for breakfast. A place called Skillits was recommended and we enjoyed it. After that we had a look at the oldest winery in Texas. Not overly impressive (wrong time of year) but we did buy a bottle of rose'. We went to a movie that I wanted to see called The Lightning Thief. It's a Disney film directed by the same guy who did the Harry Potter series. Had to be good, right? Well it was good, with the requisite amazing special effects. It's hard to believe anything you see anymore. In the first few minutes of the film the image went out while the sound continued. One of the other patrons went out to tell the staff and after a few more minutes the light came back on. You may be wondering why I'm telling you this. Well I was impressed that a staff member was waiting  for us on the way out with complementary passes to another show all because of the technical glitch. That's service. Oh did I mention that the ticket price was $3.25?
That evening there was a pot luck fish BBQ. They served salmon and tuna and sausage (I guess for those who don't like fish) The tuna was amazing. They even had a cake with ice cream for Carolyn.

Today (Saturday) didn't start out well. I haven't said too much about Molly but after a brief respite she got much worse. She would not get up in the morning and when she finally did start moving she had no appetite and had trouble standing. She was obviously in distress and we decided she shouldn't go on like that. She was at the maximum dose of the pain meds. We found a vet who was open and he agreed we had done all we could for her. It was over in a few minutes.
We carried on with our planned visit to The Amistad Lake National Recreation Area but more about that later. 

The sun is out

Hi there,
Just a quick update. Many of you have sent emails asking about our dog Molly. So far so good. She is back on her old meds and though she still prefers her bed in the morning, once she is up and moving she does seem to be a little better. She is eating again.We keep referring to her as an older dog but according to a web site I found (Dog years to people years)she is only 73 in people years. Her main problem seems to be arthritis in her back legs. Her running days are over I'm afraid. Our main objective now is to keep her comfortable. When we where at the vet a few days ago, I was waiting in the parking lot when a lady came out carrying a small bundle wrapped in a blanket. Through her tears she said "We had to put him down". Not really knowing what to do I said I was sorry and she thanked me. A pet owners reality.

We still plan on heading for Big Bend National Park next Wednesday. The weather there seems a little warmer than here. Locals I've spoken to say this is the coldest, wettest winter they can remember. One lady even apologized, feeling all the snowbirds in the area are being robbed of the good weather they came so far to get. I agreed with her somewhat but let her know things here are still more pleasant than the temps and snow the north east are getting. Today the sun is shinning and the rain has stopped. We may even get out and do something!

As usual, I don't know what the internet availability will be once we move so I'll update when I can.

Hope your winter is going well.

Pat, Carolyn and Molly

updated news

I know I published a blog a short time ago but there is a small change of plans. Molly (our poodle) have been on medication for a while now for arthritis. (She just turned 15) We have felt for a couple of weeks that she has not been responding as well as she did earlier so we went to a local vet. He has put her on a new prescription and we feel it would be wise to put off our travel plans till we're sure she is ok. So we will be staying here in Rockport for one more week. Luckily our hosts can accommodate us as our site is available til the 20th of Feb.

 

Molly greeting the resident park manager (Butter)

Pat, Carolyn and Molly 

Not much to report

This past week has been a wet one. It's hard to believe this area of Texas has been in a drought for the past few years. Now the ground is saturated. The owner of the campground said he will have to raise the rates now that we all have water front lots.There have even been ibis and other wading shore birds fishing or frogging out behind us. The storm that made us so wet was the same one that paralyzed the US east coast with snow. If things don't improve this will be our coldest, wettest trip south yet.

The lake out back of our trailer.

I've been meaning to say a little about Rockport. It looks like it's really a summer town so we are here off-season. There are lots of Snowbirds about. And lots of RV parks. This is the only town I've ever been in were there doesn't seem to be any rules about were an RV park is located. There are small parks all over. The Chamber of Commerce has over 40 listed and I've sure there are many more. Also there are unimproved road allowances all over. Seems when the town was laid out over 100 years ago all these roads were thought to be necessary but I guess they never found the money to pave them. It drives my GPS crazy.

We are leaving on Wednesday for Big Bend National Park. I don't know if it will be an improvement but it will be a change. All the folks we have talked to about Big Bend have raved about it. We tried to find time last trip to Texas but couldn't so we don't want to pass it up this time.

We have been getting out and about here in Rockport. One cloudy day last week we drove to an area were people had told us they saw Whooping Cranes feeding.  It was foggy so photography was difficult. Didn't find any Whoopers but it was an interesting drive. We saw Sandhill Cranes and lots of other shore birds (including the Roseate Spoonbills, Carolyn's fave) )  as well as a housing subdivision with some strange looking houses. The one pictured had it's own lighthouse appendage attached. And no it wasn't a real lighthouse. At least, I don't think it is.

I've included a few random pictures because believe it or not a few blog readers have asked for more pictures. That's one thing I like about this blog, it's easy to add pics. These ducks to the left made interesting patterns in the sand as they swam about searching the bottom for food.