February 24, 2013 Big Bend day at camp

We took a day off and hung around camp and relaxed. John relaxed by smoking up a pork loin and converting a couple more lights to LEDs. I relaxed, hiked the campground nature trail and finished my masterpiece. Photos of it to follow.

John smoking and constructing. A huge field of cane near the river.

A vaquero across the river in Mexico. He came across the river to the USA and went back to Mexico. You can walk across the Rio Grande in most places. It suffers the fate of most mighty rivers, all it’s water is dammed up and never reaches the ocean. The Rio Grande from the look out, looking west.

Boquillas in front of Boquillas canyon near dusk. The almost full moon rising.

Moon rising, John plucking the moon out of the sky,.

Sunset through blowing dust. Yellow flowers, pink flowers. A moth on an evening primrose. I love the last shot where he has his whole face buried in the flower.

We met a man in the hot spring who was a retired Dr, said some one bought out his practice for a ridiculously large amount so he retired at 42 and is now into his 10th month of traveling in his 5th wheel and loves it. We also met at sunset a man who retired 3 months ago and has been traveling ever since in his car with an 8 x 10 tent which is plenty of room for he and his wife. Everyone else is loving travel also.

February 23, 2013 Big Bend

We went up into the Chisos basin to hike the window trail. The basin was once a volcano caldera(crater) and the window is where the lava flowed out. The window faces the west, so you can watch the sunset through it.

The inside of the basin is volcanic pinnacles and hoodoos. The trail begins at the campground in the middle of the basin. It quickly drops into oak creek canyon-so named for the Oak Creek spring. At the bottom of the canyon it is lush and wooded.  

And shady. The canyon gets narrower and deeper.

And steeper. There are steps on the trail, it gets narrower and deeper still.

And narrower, and then the window. At the window it drops off hundreds of feet from this smooth, slick rock slot. I didn’t look over, I would slide out.

John in front of the window. Then back up the steps.

And more steps. In the shade the light , the textures and water marks were  beautiful.

More light, textures and watermarks. We hiked up above the window and looked over at the view.

John going up and John going down.

It was very hot in the canyon. The temp in the 60’s, but there was no breeze in the canyon, and the heat reflected off the walls. Hardly any shade. We stopped for lunch in the shade of this big pinnacle, but as soon as the sun came around it was time to keep going.

Back into the cool woods. Casa Blanca peak with a prickly pear cactus and a dead agave bloom.

Back at Chisos Basin lodge we relaxed on the deck. The top of the window, where you watch sunset is seen between John’s feet.  Some of the pinnacles on the rim on the way out.

The almost full moon rising over the Sierra Del Carmon's on our walk to the hot spring. John in the hot spring near sunset. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

Dusk on the Rio Grande. A great blue heron at the confluence of Tornillo Creek and the Rio Grande.

Agaves before blooming. They bloom once after about 10-20 years, then die. The stalk of the dead bloom. Some of these stalks are 15 plus feet high, and the base diameter 6-8 inches.  A sotal plant and a rainbow prickly pear.

grasses, pink flowers, more grass, and two different kinds of seed pods seen.

Circles seen in nature today.

February 22, 2013 Big Bend National park

Today we hiked Pine Canyon. It starts at about 5,000 feet and goes up to about 6,000 feet into the mountains in two miles.  It is on the outside wall of the caldera which is the Chisos mountains.  From the mid desert to the high desert mountains. We have been at sea level most of the last year, so we felt the altitude.

Yucca blossoms on the road in.  Sotal and prickly pear in the mid desert.

 

John took this of me heading up the canyon.  The beginning of the pines.

In the creek bottom hardwood trees. The trail dead ends at 6,000 feet at the poor off. John having lunch.

Some of the jagged rock cliffs  and pinnacles at the top of the trail with pine forest below them. These mountains are part of the volcanic caldera. John on the way back.

Tall yuccas. The Sierra del Carmon's in the distance with some colored foot hills

Javalinas.  Prickly pear skeleton, madrone trees with their red smooth bark, pink flowers and a huge beetle.

ferns seen in the lush high canyon, yuccas with curly edges seen on the mid desert.

tiny pink flowers, tiny white. A baby agave, evening primroses, a holey prickly per pad-I am thinking not natural holes, yellow flowers and a couple of knarly dead trees seen in the lush area.