Big Bend

Big Bend National Park is in west Texas on the Mexican border.  The two countries are separated by the Rio Grande, which you'd expect to be a huge river but is really more like a wading pool and only with a distance of about 20 to 30 feet across.  We experience an intense heat wave while we are here.  The hottest day hits 110F in the sun, 96F inside our trailer as we can't use our air conditioner since we have no electrical hookup and it's not worth running our generator for long enough to cool the whole trailer down.  Thankfully we can run our ceiling fans off our batteries using our solar panels.  During our second day, we are evacuated from one of the trails (we were driving down the road from the trailhead) as the rangers are expecting a helicopter to land to airlift a hiker in distress.  We learn a few days later that it's due to a medical emergency, perhaps a heart attack.  Our initial guess is heat stroke as I myself experience intense heat reaction while we are hiking even though we drink plenty of water and I have a wet scarf around my neck to help keep me cool.  Fortunately, the days cool off while we are here, but the sun is still intensely hot.

Mexico on the left, Rio Grande, our campground on the right

 Our first hike is a nature trail that leads off just across from our campsite.  At the beginning of the trail is a small lagoon full of turtles, both soft shell and red-eared turtles, as well as ducks and fish.  We return here on our last day in the park and there are also two Great Blue Herons.  The trail leads up a small but steep, rocky hill that provides us with a nice view of the Rio Grande.  A wild horse wanders down onto the beach and drinks from the river.  We watch as it rolls around on its back in the sand, obviously enjoying the day.  We also see a roadrunner perched in an ocotillo plant (no small feat as roadrunners are a fairly large bird and the ocotillo has very tall, spindly branches) holding a lizard in its mouth for several minutes before eating it.  Interestingly, the roadrunner makes a cooing noise like a mourning dove while the lizard is dangling from its mouth.  Some Mexicans are also on the beach with their horses and we watch as they cross the river to the American side, then back to the Mexican side and ride to the small Mexican town called Boquillas (Bo-key-us).  Even though this hike is short, about two hours, I am extremely hot and exhausted when we return to the trailer.

The Mexicans with their Dr. Pepper

On the next day, we hike the Boquillas Canyon Trail which follows the Rio Grande downstream into a narrow canyon.  At various intervals, Mexicans have left small trinkets - roadrunners, tarantulas, cactus, etc. made of wire and decorated with beads - for tourists to buy by leaving a "donation" in a jar.  The Mexicans are watching from the other side of the river.  The rangers and park volunteers who work in the Visitors Centres have warned us that it is illegal to purchase these items.  Prior to 9-11, tourists here at Big Bend were allowed to wade across the river or go across in boats supplied by the Mexicans and shop in stores in Boquillas and eat in restaurants.  This was the main livelihood of the town.  But since 9-11 and the paranoid fear that has swept through this country, the border has been closed.  The Mexicans are not supposed to cross, but they do.  Tourists are warned not to cross the river as there is no Point of Entry - no customs officer with whom to make a claim for purchases or to identify your citizenship upon return to the US.  So the population of the town of Boquillas has decreased from 200 families to 30 families.  Everyone else has left.  Once a week, one of the town members drives 160 miles over a dirt road to the nearest town to get groceries and supplies for everyone in the town.  It is a tough life for those families who have remained and our hearts go out to them.  They cannot grow crops here as it is too hot and dry - it hasn't rained here in some parts of the park for over a year.  Or the river floods and washes everything away.  Brad asks one of the Mexicans "If I can give you anything besides money, what would it be?"  The response?  "Dr. Pepper!"  What a surprise.  They miss soda pop!  So Brad buys a few six packs of Dr. Pepper the next day and takes them back to the Mexicans.  Are they ever happy to get them and they're ice cold still.

We also drive out to the Hot Springs which used to be part of a resort before this was a National Park.  The Springs is right on the Rio Grande nestled at the end of a canyon.  The road to drive there is intriguingly dangerous - it's a built up one way road which drops off into a wash in the middle, with rocks jutting out from the sides of the cliff.  No large vehicles are allowed, including dual wheeled trucks which would be too wide to make some of the turns.  It's a little nerve-wracking!  The hot spring itself is about 105F, too hot to sit in during the day, although people do.  We think about coming back at night, but we'll have to see how tired we are.

Brad & Marilyn in the Chisos Mtns, Lost Mine Trail

Another hike we take is in the Chisos Mountains where it is 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler - we hike the Lost Mine Trail, which has an elevation gain of 1,100 feet.  The trail is almost 5 miles round trip, but gives us unbelievable views of both the mountains and the desert below.  Even here on this mountain trail, it is hot in the sun, but in the shade the breeze is cool and refreshing.  There are warning signs that mountain lions and bears frequent the area, but we see neither.  Climbing the final peak at the top makes me feel like I'm climbing the Matterhorn.  It is a solid rock peak and when I peer over the edge, I can see straight down the cliff on the other side to the valley below.  It's another photo that will freak out my sisters.  This hike leaves us exhausted some five hours later, but the views are worth every step.

Marilyn in Santa Elena Canyon

Our last hike is at the western side of the park (we are camping at the east side); it is the Santa Elena Canyon Trail.  Here there is another campground, but it is a generator-free zone, and well, we like our generator to run our microwave and my hair dryer!  I live the way the I live, okay?  There is also a campground in the Chisos Mountains, but the road leading up to it is limited to vehicles of 20 feet in length or less, and we are about 50 feet with the truck and trailer.  We'd never make the hairpin turns.  Back to the hiking trail.  Santa Elena Canyon is an incredible gorge where the Rio Grande has eroded into the canyon leaving walls on either side of the river towering 1,500 feet!  It's an amazing sight.  We can see the gap in the mesa wall from a distance of about 10 or 15 miles away, and from there it doesn't look that impressive.  But from the river bed looking up the sides of the walls, we feel unbelievably insignificant.  We keep telling ourselves that the other side is Mexico; in fact half-way across the river is Mexico, and the river is only about 40 feet across.  We see no Mexicans here.  The trail rises from the river at first, switching back and forth up the cliff wall, and then makes a slow descent back down to the river.  We expect it to be clean and clear, but the water is brown, muddy and silty.  The grasses are 10 to 12 feet high; and the rocks that have fallen from above are huge and smoothed from the rushing water when the river is flowing at its peak.  We see some canoeists.  The canyon is 8 miles long, so perhaps they have run all 8 miles of it, although we read that there is a very dangerous section of rapids several miles upriver.  We see no wildlife along the trail, although we can hear small animals (rodents or birds likely) in the underbrush.  This is another amazing hike, in (finally) comfortable temperatures.

There is a lot more in Big Bend National Park to explore, as the park measures about 60 miles across from east to west by about 50 miles across north to south, meaning many miles of hiking trails yet to discover.  But I think we'll leave it for future years, and hopefully for cooler temperatures.

Observing the Skies in Texas

We arrive in western Texas under sunny blue skies, but another cold spell.  Fortunately, the trend is calling for warming.  We camp in a large picnic area about 9 miles north of the McDonald Observatory on Highway 118 in the Davis Mountains.  This free camping area was noted to us in our Frugal Shunpiker's Guide that we purchased from Marianne Edwards who lives in Elora, Ontario.  We've been using her guides throughout Arizona and New Mexico; they've been helping us to figure out where to hike and camp for free or on the cheap.  Yes, there is a state park about 20 miles down the road, but free and alone is soooo much better.  And it's beautiful here at the picnic area with big pine trees and other greenery (finally - TREES!).  It's dry here too so the smell reminds us of Yosemite National Park in California - a dry pine smell.  We're beside a dry wash and hear coyotes yipping at night.  Other picnicers pull in during the day and two cyclists from Quebec camp one night but are gone by daybreak.  The only unfortunate thing is that Brad and I have both picked up the flu bug.  I haven't had the flu in at least 15 or more years.  So instead of hiking and attending the star party at the Observatory on Tuesday night, we will have to wait until Friday since it doesn't run every night.

Prior to getting sick, we do go to the Observatory for a day tour, which is incredibly interesting and informative.  Our tour guide, Shannon (a man), is an amateur astonomer, but is very knowledgeable and rather humourous.  He presents a slide show in the theatre first, explaining about our sun, stars, galaxies and such; and ends with live telescope shots of our sun, highlighting some sunspots and filaments which are bursts of gases that usually erupt around sunspots.  Then we go up the mountain to see two of the telescopes.  The first telescope, the Harlan J. Smith telescope, is a single reflexive mirror measuring 107" in diameter - that's pretty big - not the biggest in the world, but big enough to be used by the many researchers here.  It is designed to shoot laser beams into space.  For example, I saw an episode of MythBusters in which they dispelled the myth that man did not walk on the moon (there are skeptics who don't believe!).  How this was proved was by firing a laser at the moon where Neil and Buzz landed because they left laser transmitters there.  So, if the signal is returned, then the transmitters are on the moon and someone had to put them there!  And on the MythBusters episode, the signal was returned.  It was a telescope like this one, or perhaps this very one, that was used to perform the test.  The second telescope on our tour is the fifth largest in the world, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and is built with 91 1-meter hexagonal shaped mirrors that are fitted together to form one huge mirror that is 11 metres or 432 inches; however only 83% of this area is actually used bringing the diameter to 9.2 metres or 362 inches.  This one also isn't designed to view visible light, but rather invisible light rays - infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, gamma, x-ray, etc.  These invisible forms of light help researchers understand a lot about our universe - whether stars are traveling towards us or away from us, how hot a star is (blue is the hottest, red is only warm), and other such amazing discoveries.

By Friday night, we are both feeling better and go to the Star Party for my birthday!  First we attend the Twilight show, which is Shannon again doing a presentation in the theatre talking about our solar system in some detail, explaining each planet's orbit.  You know, it's amazing how much we forget from grade school, because we did learn all of this then.  And sure enough, Pluto has been bumped from planetary status; it's now just a "dwarf planet" - poor thing - along with four others.  Shannon uses software to put the planets into motion for us and shows us that Pluto's orbit is actually on a 17 degree incline from all the other planets in our solar system.  I don't remember that from school.  Earth and all the other 7 planets orbit the sun on an even plane, but Pluto's orbit, if viewed on a horizon doesn't.  Huh!

He also talks in some detail about the constellations and relates them to the signs of the zodiac.  How many are there?  Twelve?  I always thought so too.  But apparently there are really thirteen, but since people are superstitious of thirteen, the thirteenth, Ophiuchus, was booted out many years ago.  The signs of the zodiac - Aquarius, Pisces, Scorpius, etc. are constellations in the sky, and are segmented like counties on a provincial map.  The dates from one sign to another is truly supposed to be when the sun travels from one of the constellation's boundaries to the next.  I know the sun doesn't really travel; the Earth tilts, but you can imagine the sun traveling through the constellations throughout the year with the tilting of the Earth.  Some constellations have very small areas and others have large areas.  Scorpius, for example, has a very small area and would really only take the sun about 7 days to cross it, so those born in October/November would be ripped off.  After Scorpius, the sun passes through Ophiuchus, but nobody knows who that is, and it's the thirteenth sign, so Scorpius just got extended.  Most of the signs of the zodiac got averaged to roughly 30 days too, but if you have a map of the sky and their zodiac constellations, well, you'd see that how it is now isn't how it should really be.

We also go outside for some night viewing.  We get really lucky and see the space station go over us.  Apparently, there is a website you can go to where you enter your longitude and latitude and you can find out if and when the space station will appear in your sky.  Google it.  Our speaker points out many constellations including Orion, the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), Leo the Lion, and others.  He has a laser pointer that my son would kill for - it seems to reach the stars!  Then the moon rises from behind the mountain that the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is perched on - what a sight.  It is a full moon and, unfortunately for stargazing, lights up everything.  However, we will get to view the moon tonight through one of the telescopes.  There are six telescopes set up for us to view various stars and planets, but we won't be using the really big telescopes.  We get to see a couple of star clusters, which are less interesting because it's just like looking up in the sky.  But, we also get to look at Jupiter and four of its moons which are all aligned vertically above the planet, the middle cluster of stars in Orion's Belt which is also a gaseous cluster and is stunning, and our moon in its entirety using a filter to ease the brightness down to 13%.

To end the night, we watch a video called The Power of Tens, which starts with a man and a woman having a picnic in Chicago, and every 10 seconds the camera moves away by one more metre to the power of 10.  At first it doesn't seem to move too much, but then all of a sudden, we're in outer space, then out of our solar system, then for a while nothing, then suddenly out of our galaxy.  The camera stops at 10 to the power of 24 which I think is 1000 million light years.  Then it quickly zooms back in, focusing again on the man, then this time zooms in on his hand until we're looking at a single carbon atom, stopping at 10 to the minus 16 metres.  It is a fascinating 10 minute video.  Brad says we've seen a similar show on the Discovery Channel - I don't remember.  Age is a wonderful thing!  And the Star Party makes a great birthday party for me - celebrating with the moon, Jupiter and Orion to name a few.

Saguaro National Park (again) and Tucson

We meet near Tucson with Jean (French male name, for my new American friends who may not speak French) and Denyse, our friends from Quebec whom we first met in the Mojave National Preserve in California early in January.  Our plan is to visit the Saguaro National Park which we had so much difficulty finding our way around on our way out west, but perhaps if we aren't dragging the trailer around and we Google where to find the Visitors Centre (now that we have access to the internet), we'll be better off.  And we are.  We do find the Visitors Centre and so now we have maps which show us where the hiking trails are.

Marilyn, Brad, Denyse and Jean in Saguaro National Par

We camp on some BLM land southwest of Tucson (making it 23 consecutive nights of free BLM camping between Quartzsite, Why and here by the end of our stay).  With Jean and Denyse, we drive the Scenic Bajada Loop Drive, a short loop dirt road that takes us through the majestic Saguaro cactus.  We also hike the Valley View Overlook Trail, a short walk that provides us with a wonderful view of the valley.  These cactus are so plentiful here, of course, that would be why they made a national park here!  Some of the specimens are 50 feet high.  A Saguaro may be 50 years old before it grows its first arm, although average here is around 60-65 years old.  Usually, a Saguaro will live to a ripe old age of 200 years.  During their life, they may become home to an owl, the Gila Woodpecker or a Flicker, and their holes are evident near the tops of these tall prickly cacti.  Their fruit, which ripen in June and July, will produce a million seeds in its lifetime, but only one seed may grow into a new adult.  The fruit and seeds are also food for desert animals like javelinas, coyotes, foxes, squirrels and birds, as well as native people who make jams, syrup and for ceremonial purposes, wine.  The creamy white flowers grow like little cups from the top of each arm from late April through June.  Each blossom opens after sunset as the evening cools and by the next afternoon the blossoms have wilted.  But during their brief blooming period, they are pollinated by bats, bees and birds.

The Saguaro's flesh is spongy since they absorb water, as much as 200 gallons of it, enough to last all year.  Their roots may only be three inches below the surface of the desert floor, but may spread as far out as the Saguaro is high.  Like many other cacti, a Saguaro may start life under a nurse tree like a Mesquite or a Palo Verde.  But as the Saguaro grows, it will often take over the nurse tree which will die from lack of water as the Saguaro extracts all nutrients and elements from the environment.  The landscape here is certainly dominated by their humanlike stance.  The natives, either ancient Pueblos or current natives (I really should pay closer attention to the Visitors Centre's videos) use the same word for "people" and "Saguaro".

After Jean and Denyse leave and head off to Tombstone, Brad and I visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  It's not really a museum, but more like a zoo and we arrive just in time for the raptor flight show.  This is an excellent show, focusing on indigenous birds of prey like owls, hawks, falcons and ravens.  An announcer provides detailed information on each bird as it flies from perch to perch where meat is placed by handlers.  The birds swoop over our heads, often within inches and we can inspect them close up on their tree perches.  This is not done in an indoor setting; we are outside in the open desert, but these birds fly obediently from tree to tree where the meat is placed so we all get a good look and then miraculously fly back to their building, perhaps as a result of some sort of call we can't hear.  We also see wild cats - a Bobcat, two Mountain Lions and an Ocelot (all sleeping like good kitties, of course), a pair of Mexican Wolves, and other desert dwelling animals like various snakes, spiders, insects and rodents.  But the highlight of the morning is the hummingbird cage.  The hummingbirds are so familiar with people that they buzz by and hover close to us.  They particularly like my purple sweater, and one tiny green hummingbird hovers only an inch or two from my chest for several seconds.  Unfortunately, Brad doesn't get a photo!  I hold my arm out for 5 minutes at a time and stand like a statue, and she keeps returning and almost perches on me, but some small movement from another person, or another hummingbird entering the "territory" always makes her fly away.  She also hovers at my ankles for several seconds, and another photographer is able to snap the photo.  There are several other people waiting for this little bird to land on me so they can snap a pic, and although she never lands, she does come close.  The other photographer gets that photo too and I've been trying to get ahold of her to get them sent to me.

Saguaro National Park

For the afternoon, Brad and I hike a park loop trail that takes us up the Gould Mine trail, across the Sendero Esperanza trail and back to the parking lot on the King Canyon trail through the wash.  The landscape is much like our other hikes, and the view of the Sonora desert valley below is beautiful, although it's a bit hazy today.  Perhaps if we have more time and hadn't spent so much time at the Desert Museum, we might hike the longer, full King Canyon trail up to Wasson Peak, but not this trip.

AusRox - third largest gold nugget in the world

Our other purpose for coming to Tucson is to attend the Gem and Mineral Show.  The Main Event at the Convention Center is the biggest show displaying gems and minerals, at least in North America.  There are about 40 different shows around the city displaying rocks, meteorites, fossils, etc.  At the Main Event, we see the third largest gold nugget in the world (the largest owned privately).  It is from Australia (as are the first and second largest) and weighs 51 pounds!  It is worth over one million dollars.  Brad is, once again, in his glory looking at metals and minerals, especially the gold displays.  We spend almost four hours walking around the displays.  Even at that, it's a rushed day.  But it is why we have come to Tucson, and it is our last stop in Arizona before we move on to southern Texas.

Organ Pipe Cactus - Why, not Why?

I realized yesterday that I have forgotten to write my blog about Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where we visit after leaving Quartzsite.  This national treasure is near the town of Why, Arizona a few miles from the Mexican border.  Organ Pipe Cactus grow mostly in northern Mexico because of the hotter, dry climate, but a few survive this far north, in this part of the Sonoran Desert where the conditions are just right.  There are many Saguaro Cactus here too, as well as Cholla, Prickly Pear, Ocotillo, Mesquite trees and Palo Verde trees, both of which are desiduous and leafless now.  This is called the green desert because there is so much plant life here and so many Palo Verde trees, whose bark is even green, that the desert is green all the time, not brown like the rest of the Arizona deserts.  It's beautiful.

We camp on BLM land just outside of Why.  Signs are posted at the entrance that there may be immigrant and drug smuggling problems here because of the proximity of the border, but there are many RVs here, and a campground host.  We have to register, as we did in Quartzsite.  Some BLM areas require this formality; most do not.  There is still no cost to camp, but there is a 14 day limit.  We will only be here a few days as we're meeting our Quebec friends near Tucson in a few days.

Marilyn with an Organ Pipe Cactus

We arrive at night, and hope to do a couple of days of hiking, but our first full day here is really cold and very windy, so we spend the days inside relaxing.  But the next day is sunny and warm again and we head out to hike the Bull Pasture trail in the park.  This trail takes us through a canyon up about a 1,000 feet elevation gain to a stunning view of the desert and the Mexican city of Sonoita.  The day is hazy so the visibility is poor.  There are fires burning in Sonoita it seems; farmers burning their fields?  From this distance it is hard to say.

We hear helicopters over the trailer each night; we assume they are looking for Mexicans crossing the border illegally.  When we drive from the park back to our trailer near Why, we have to cross a Border Patrol checkpoint.  The Border Patrol Officer says to me "I assume everyone (there are only the two of us since Grady is back in the trailer on the BLM land) here is an American citizen?"  "No," I say.  He looks quizzical.  "We're Canadian."  He smiles.  "Go ahead," he says.  Didn't he even see our Ontario license plate?  Maybe he doesn't know where Ontario is!  A state somewhere up north perhaps.

When we leave Why to go to Tucson to meet our friends from Quebec, we see a group of five Mexicans who have just been captured by the Border Patrol.  They must have been walking up a wash when they were found.  It's a bit sad.  Most of the problems are drug trafficers.  So far, we have had no problems and have always felt perfectly safe.

Can you say Ca-Ching!

I wasn't going to write about our time at Quartzsite, but I thought I might let everyone know what's been going on.  When we arrive, we think we'll be staying a few days for the Gem and Mineral Show and the RV Show, but we end up staying a full two weeks and spending a ton of dough.  At least the camping is free!  We also meet some great new RV friends.

The Gem and Mineral Show is interesting.  Brad gets to see some gold nuggets the size of a lemon, so he is all excited.  There are also lots of other specimens of natural rocks, metals and minerals, jewelry, beads, polished gems, and petrified wood.  The RV Show has everything you need to spruce up an RV:  solar systems, LED lights, cooking utensils, propane heaters, satellite systems, as well as brand new trailers and motorhomes to view.  These shows as well as a few others, run throughout January and early February in Quartzsite every year, causing this town to swell from 3,500 residents to over 100,000 putting a strain on services and residents' nerves.  For the first time in our travels really, we encounter rude service providers.  However, I'd be cranky serving this many people too I guess.

While we are here, we outfit our trailer with a solar system: 2 big solar panels on the roof, two great big new batteries, and an "inverter" which converts battery DC power into electrical outlet AC power inside the trailer.  So no the solar panels charge our batteries all day, and we can use our electrical appliances without having to run our generator.  First and biggest ca-ching!

Next we purchase a small propane heater that stands on the floor.  We use this instead of our furnace which is only about 60% efficient; the heater is 99% efficient.  The furnace fan was running our batteries our old batteries down to zero by morning.  Even though our new batteries are much more powerful, we don't want to destroy them, so the new heater makes more sense.  It has to be connected to the gas line from the refrigerator so we also have to pay for the gas line installation.  Second ca-ching!

I also bite the bullet and get a new Verizon cell phone which will allow me to connect to the internet using its wireless technology from anywhere.  Having the internet whenever I want it and not having to sit in a McDonalds parking lot or find a library is great.  Third ca-ching!

Our last purchase is a StarChoice satellite system with an automatic satellite finder.  We are currently with Bell, so I also have to switch at home and order all new receivers and programming at home.  Fortunately Shaw Direct is have a half price sale on their PVR receivers which are regular $400.  Unfortunately, we won't be able to get our receiver for the trailer until we get home, but that's only a couple of months away.  Fourth ca-ching!

Other than the cell phone, each of the systems we buy takes time to install: a full day each for the satellite and solar systems, and a couple of hours for the heater.  Fortunately, Grady is a very patient kitty - he has to wait in the truck as we can't leave him in the trailer since the installers leave the door open and Grady might run out and get lost.  But we all make it through.  At the end of our two weeks, we've spent over $7,000 on the trailer upgrades!  It's only money right?  Quartzsite turns out to be an expensive stop.

The best part of being here is that we arrange to meet our friends Jerry and Janice from Tennessee.  We first met them in New Mexico.  They introduce us to three new couples:  Carol and Steve from Oklahoma, Julie and Mike from Florida, and Sue and Paul from Michigan.  We had some fun times sitting around the campfire telling stories.  We will remember our new friends instead of all the money we spent.

Back row: Janice, Jerry, Brad, Marilyn, Steve; Front row: Julie, Mike and Carol