Day 23 – To San Antonio, Texas

After passing Panther Junction, we are back on the Main Park Road heading north on route 385 and this is our view.  We’ll drive up to Fort Stockton where we will pick up I-10 east to San Antonio.

Well back on route 385 and out of the park when we have to stop for a border patrol check.  It didn’t take long, we were asked a few questions and they checked out the motorhome and car, then they let us go.

We have been seeing windmill pumps like this one all over the place.  This one was close enough so that Carmen could take a picture.

While driving through Fort Stockton, we came upon this sculpture of the U.S. Calvary.  We thought that it was pretty neat even though we did not stop to tour the old historic Fort Stockton.

There have been a number of these electric generating windmills on bluffs and mesas all along our journey.

Check out the formation of this hill. 

This is our drive along I-10 heading to San Antonio, Texas. 

Not much to say about today other than we are driving to get to our campground.  We get there late in the afternoon and get set up.

Day 22 – Big Bend NP – Day 3

Today we decided to drive out of the National Park and head west to the Big Bend Ranch Texas State Park.  We are driving the same road we did yesterday, except that we will not turn onto the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, so I will not bore you with the same pictures.  However, while driving we saw this very large tarantula on the road and I had to stop to take its picture.  It was the about 5 inches wide.

We are heading west on the Panther Junction road and took this picture looking North West.

In a new part of the park, we pass this section where the stone is colored in layers.

Now out of the park, we are on Texas route 118 and then turn west onto route 170.  We reach Study Butte and the old ruins and ghost town of Terlinqua. 

The “Ghost Town” is on the National Register of Historic Places and is still occupied by artists and others.  They also claim to be the birth place of all chili cook offs worldwide.  Here is an old service station, including a gasoline pump.

This once was the town’s hotel, now an empty husk of a building.

There was a restaurant where we had something to eat, outside art objects, an old cemetery, and an artist shop or two.

As we were leaving Terlinqua, we saw a submarine sail sticking out of the ground.  In the middle of the desert!  How great is this place?

On the road, we have great views of the desert.  Here you can clearly see the strata lines between the different rock layers on the hill side.

Around Comanche Mesa, we see another volcanic plug along with some very interesting hills around it.

Looking back along the road we just drove down you can see the landscape we have been seeing.

A little further down the road we came across an old western movie location.  The Contrabando movie set was the site for movies like the 1993 Rio Diablo, 1994 Gambler V, 1995 Streets of Laredo, 1995 My Maria, 1996 Dead Man’s Walk, and 2000 The Journeyman. 

There are a few other buildings in the movie town, but most have deteriorated.  

There are a few dragonflies around the town and one had the foresight to land in front of me.

As we leave the Contrabando movie site we have this view.  Now doesn’t this remind you of some of the western landscapes you might have seen?

On our continued drive we pass a number of ranches, with signs warning about loose livestock.  We also pass this hill of petrified sand dunes.  You can see that there are some hoodoo formations beginning to take shape.

Stopping at the Upper Madera primitive camping area and overlook we have this sight.  You can see the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo in the middle, to the left of the road.

View from an overlook on the road.  You can clearly see the Rio Grande river with Mexico on the left and the USA on the right. 

Taking a short stopover, we turn and head to Closed Canyon and the trail leading to it.  When we parked and started to hike to the canyon, there was a thermometer to let you know what the temperature was.  Today on October 19th it is 95F.  Here is where we are headed, to the dark vertical line in the rocks.

Here we are at the entrance to the canyon.  You can see that it is very narrow and the canyon is pretty high.  This waterway is for rain runoff from the surrounding mountains and makes its way to the Rio Grande.

Entering Closed Canyon, a slot canyon entirely in the US and was not created by the Rio Grande, is only about 20 feet wide and 1000 feet high.  The canyon is only .7 miles long, but if there is any standing water it will be difficult to pass.

Carmen stopped following the canyon when we came upon some standing water.  I was able to do a little climbing and passed the water, almost falling in when I started to slip on the slick rock.  A little further, you can see there is quite a bit of sand and gravel on the canyon floor.  When the water is rushing through the canyon, the gravel is what digs the canyon out.  The water also makes the rock surface on the bottom of the canyon slippery.

Back in the car and on our way to Colorado Canyon, we are treated with this view.

I had to stop to take this picture because I just love the way the lava has eroded into columns.  Great colors and sharp rock formations makes this dramatic.

How about the picture Carmen took while we were driving by this old ruin of a house in front of the hill in the background? 

I cannot get enough of the layering on these mountains with its different coloring in the various strata.

Along the river we found these formations.  There is a rock gouged out to look like a hot dog, a little mushroom, and four balls sitting on platforms.  Is this natural or placed there?

On our way back, we stopped at this rest area which had three teepees for shading of the picnic tables.

While we were driving back to the National Park, Carmen got a picture of the road and the landscape on our way back. 

I just can’t get over the colors that are in these hill.  And you can clearly see the horizontal striations near the top of the hill.

Back in the National Park and what can I say, I find the rock formations and landscape here just fantastic. 

We again pass the same rock formations that we have seen for the past three days.  Here as the sun is directly on the mountain we have a sharp clear view of the dramatic mountain that makes up the Mexican part of the Boquillas Canyon.

Tomorrow we are leaving and driving to San Antonio, Texas, but tonight we are treated with this sunset. 

The trip here to Big Bend National Park was well worth the stop.  We would recommend anyone who has thought to come here to visit the park. 

Day 21 – Big Bend NP – Day 2

On our second day, we are driving along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive which is the west side of the Chisos Mountains we were at yesterday.  On our way we see this volcanic dome.

More of the lava spires and domes that we have come to see as normal on our drive.

Here is part of the road we are traveling on today.  You can see a volcanic cone in the far distance.

The spines of dark lava rock crossing the desert are called dikes.  Looking a great stone fence, the dikes were created when lava rose along faults or fissures in the rock millions of years ago.

You can see more of the lava flow on this hill where one side of the hill has been eroded.

This is part of the old Homer Wilson Ranch.  Although it looks active, you can see the foreman’s house in the center, it was abandoned in 1945. 

The ranch valley stretches left and rises to these mountains.

We stopped at an overlook and saw these yuccas. 

At the overlook we saw some mountains in the distance with a gorge in them; the light colored wedge in the upper right.  As we read the information at the pull off, those mountains are 14 air miles away!  And the gorge is the Santa Elena Canyon. 

One of the flowers that we’ve seen in this part of the park.

You can clearly see the white limestone strata on this hillside.  It is clear that the hill was pushed up on the one side by the shifting ground.

This is Goat Mountain, created by large lava explosion over an existing lava flow (the darker rock on the bottom of the mountain).  The band of light rock half way to the top is a pyroclastic flow deposit while the top layer is silica-rich lava.

Here’s Carmen taking pictures of the park, while standing next to the tall thin Occatillo plant. 

We are getting closer to the canyon.  You can just see the top over the volcanic cone and sand dune. 

I had to stop at the petrified sand dunes.  It looked like sand but was like walking on rock. 

We stopped at a rest stop to have something to eat and drink.  This was built in 1919 as an outpost during the Mexican revolution.  Later it was used as a trading post and a center for cotton fields.

We finally get to Santa Elena Canyon parking area and it is full of mud from a flooding from two days ago.  The park has been trying to clean it up and we find a nearly clean and dry spot to part.  Hiking about a mile to the gorge, we came to this view of the mountains and the canyon.  It’s a little difficult to see, but on the bottom right of the canyon is a stair case the you can climb to get a view from above.

Here we have a good river-level view of the extent of the carved canyon.  Santa Elena Canyon is 8 miles long and the walls are 1500 feet high.  You can see the staircase better on the bottom right of the picture.

After climbing the stairs we followed the trail along the canyon.  You can see two other people that are also on the trail with us. 

I stopped and looked back to the beginning of the canyon.  From here on it is tricky hiking along the canyon, including climbing over boulders and jumping across water puddles.  Carmen did not continue, but I did.

What a fantastic find; this butterfly landed right in front of me and just stayed there until I took its picture. 

Further in, the canyon floor gets narrower.

After coming back to catch up with Carmen, I got her picture looking out of the canyon.

We headed back to the car and when we got to the parking lot I decided to take a picture of the mud that is still here.

And this is the “lightly” flooded road.  The flood was much higher than this and this is what remains after two days.

Leaving the Canyon, we retrace our drive on the Rose Maxwell Scenic Drive and stopped to take this picture.

Once back on the main park road we still have over 30 miles to go to get to the motorhome.  But, several times today, we have seen a Roadrunner cross the road in front of us or running down the road and by the time we stopped, got the cameras out and even if you could still see the bird we could not get a good picture of it.  Well guess what?  We finally see a roadrunner when we got back to the campground.  We stopped at the visitor store by the campground and there was a Roadrunner in the parking lot.  Go figure.

Tomorrow we will drive to the Big Bend Ranch Texas State Park.