Big Bend Part 1: Overview

First, some disclaimers.

1) So much happened and we took in so many sights in just 4 days that I don't really know where to begin so I apologize in advance if it seems unorganized. I’ll try to split up the recap of our trip into separate blogs, so you can skip the sections you don’t care about, and only read the ones you want to.

2) Evan and Heather Kittleman are our friends that we knew in our Indiana days, who came down to go on this trip with us. They did not get to proofread this blog before I posted it, so if I misrepresented them in any way, I did not intend to - please forgive me! They are wonderful friends and we hope to travel with them again in the future.

3) I cannot take credit for all of the photos posted in the Big Bend Series as I have in previous posts. All four of us (Evan, Heather, Paul, myself) were picture taking fools thanks to the digital era and between the 3 cameras that we toted, I estimate that we have close to 2000 pictures of desert land...no, I won't subject you to all of them here, but if I post pictures of the same scenery, please understand my predicament in sorting out which pictures to post.

Now, on to our vacation story!

It started at 6am on Sunday Oct 7th, when we left the camp in search of the west Texas desert known as Big Bend National Park. We stopped for kolaches (sausages wrapped in super yummy bread made fresh that morning) and donuts for breakfast in an effort to introduce Texas cuisine to Evan and Heather.

Then Paul drove for hours until we came to this rest stop where we stopped for lunch. Evan had mentioned that all TX rest stops have wireless internet available, which we attempted to take advantage of, but which failed since the service was so slow.

(Note the laptop on the table).

Around 4pm we arrived at Big Bend National Park where we briefly visited the Persimmon Gap visitor’s center, paid our park entrance fee, and continued on to the Chisos Mountain Basin campsite area. I think we were all pleased to find that the campsite (higher in elevation) was at least 10 degrees cooler than the visitor’s center, because when we first got out of the car at the visitor’s center, all I could think was “Man, we’re gonna be HOT and MISERABLE”. But we weren’t! The trip was great!

After driving in circles around the 60 or so campsites that had concrete slabs with tables and shelters (to save the occupants from the scorching sun), we found the best choice for our tents and got settled. (This is probably the best view I've ever had while car camping in established campsites!)

As Heather and I were starting supper, we realized that we hadn’t planned on arriving early enough to cook supper and had planned on eating out on the way to the campground…which meant that the supper we were about to eat was supposed to be the next night’s supper…which meant that we were short food. Not a good thing to discover out in the desert with two grown men to feed, but hey, we’re on vacation…no worries, right?

After supper we went up to the Chisos Basin visitor’s center and found a short overlook area that has a view of the “Window” so we took in the sunset and were introduced to a sampling of desert plants that we would soon come to recognize and even know some of the common names.

That evening we played card games by lantern-light and reacquainted ourselves with each of our “friendly-competitive” natures. The first night we started out easy with Boom-o and Hallelujah (similar to spades, but no with no partners), but as the week progressed, we moved to a seriously competitive game of Hearts, which many of our neighbors could probably testify to (we obeyed all the camping en masse etiquette rules and were quiet after 10pm, though if anyone watched the shadows on the walls, they would have seen many wild gestures of aggravation, frustration and conquest)!

Now for the quick recap of the rest of our time in Big Bend:

Monday: Went on a Geology for Dummies tour (the next blog will have more details) in the morning. Then we drove all over the park and visited key landmarks/points of interest, including the Rio Grande! After supper we played more cards and did our best to get Evan all worked up over his losses. :)

Tuesday: Hiked about 10.5 miles, starting at the Chisos Mountain Basin visitor’s center and going all around on various trails. We encountered a mule deer (I’m pretending that’s what it was – I don’t know for certain though – feel free to correct me in the next blog), a couple Mexican Jays that wanted our lunch, 2 snakes, and countless numbers of century plants, lechuguilla plants, and other plants that I can’t identify by name. (A Wildlife/Plants blog is coming in the future). In the evening we went to a Ranger-led talk about the National Parks and the history, variety, locations, and importance of preserving them. It was more interesting than it sounds, I promise. The Ranger made us break up into groups and take a “quiz”, so it was interactive, too. And after that we picked up where we left off in our card playing competition. This time I was the aggravated/animated loser.

Wednesday: Packed up our tents/gear in the morning and then drove around to the remaining landmarks that we wanted to see before leaving the park. We encountered a tarantula on the road (the Ranger said it was tarantula mating season - glad I found that out on the last night!), we saw a fox, and a couple of lizards (small ones). We hiked to the balancing rock which was fun, and then headed down to the Rio Grande Village area and to the Boquillas Canyon Overlook. After we’d seen all we could fit in that day, we headed to Fort Stockton and checked into a hotel for a SHOWER!!! (the first shower since we left on Sunday morning). We ended with supper at IHOP for pancakes and French toast!

Thursday: Drove for about 7 hours to Winchester (small town south of Giddings), ate at Murphy’s Steakhouse for a good ol’ hometown meal, then headed back to camp (Camp Tejas that is).

Friday: Went to Dublin, TX and visited the original Dr. Pepper bottling factory. Then we went to a TX winery on the way back to Waco, where we ate at Rudy's BBQ, and finished it off with a milkshake at Health Camp (on the infamous "circle" in Waco).

Saturday: Went to San Antonio for the day to see the Alamo and Riverwalk. It was the perfect day to be in San Antonio because it was Living History day at the Alamo, Chalk Drawing day on Houston St, and the International Accordian Festival was going on at the same time. (A separate blog will cover these days...I bet you can't hardly wait til I post them!).

Okay, now for some highlight pictures. If you don’t want any more details, then don’t read the next few blogs. But if you do, y’all come back!

Evan & Heather Kittleman (first day picture)

Paul & Kelli (first day picture)

This is a century plant which I'll talk more about in another blog. They're very cool plants.

This is Casa Grande Peak viewed from the Chisos Mountain Visitor's Center.

This is the "Window" viewed from the NW looking SE. (Casa Grande Peak is in the center of the window in the background).

(Paul took this pic...he's so creative...we all copied his idea in later pictures)

Does she look Texan yet?

This is Santa Elena Canyon. Mexico is on the left of the river, the U.S. is on the right of the river. (You can't actually see the river in the picture, but it's in the middle).

Evan & Paul on the trail (waiting for us as we took pictures...but some day they'll thank us for taking so many pictures so we can remember when we're 85...or even 45).

The two peaks in the background on the right are called "Mule Ears". Check back later for a more "creative" picture of Mule Ears.

Paul waiting for me to catch up on our hike up to Emory Peak.

Boot Canyon. Think of a leg sticking straight up with a boot on it. The heel of the "boot" is on the left, the toe of the "boot" is on the right (highest part of the rock).

The "after" picture once we finished our 10.5 mile hike through the mountains.

Yep, it's a tarantula. It was as big as my hand! Later I'll get the video of it up so you can see it touch Paul's shoe to give you a reference point for its size.

If you look closely, you can see the snake - his head is lighter in color and is aiming at the rock, which he slithered under/around as we approached.

This is Balancing Rock. I think it's in the Grapevine Hills area of the park. Strangely it's not marked on any of the maps I have or looked at online, but it was a worthwhile trail to take to see the view!

This is a lechuguilla plant that's still partially green with evidence of it's blooms (Supposedly the blooms are purple and yellow, but we were there after all of the plants were done blooming).

Okay, that's a taste of our Big Bend Trip. I'll post more pics and stories over the next few days to give you details!

Where's the camera???

Ever have those moments when you needed your camera, but didn't have it? I've had a couple of those recently.

During the first instance I was driving, so it was probably a good thing (safety wise) that I didn't have the camera. But man I wished I had one! I would have snapped a shot of Paul on a tractor driving 20 mph on a highway where everyone else is driving at least 65 mph or more. Yep, he was "that guy" on the road that causes everyone to switch lanes and then check their rear view mirror after they pass him, thinking "what's he doing on the road"? I was the car behind him with my flashers on so that no one would hit him (instead they'd hit me, but I guess the theory was that I would have an airbag...which would probably hurt me more than help since I'm short, but that's beside the point).

The next incident involved our sailboat on Paul's birthday. One day I'm going to get a waterproof case that I trust for our camera, and I'll capture these moments. For his birthday, we took off work and went out to Clear Lake near Kemah Beach, TX (the lake feeds into the Gulf). We stayed on the lake part - didn't venture out into the Gulf part (I'm too chicken).

It started out kinda rocky for me - I just have trouble with getting the sail up and keeping the boat pointing into the wind while we get the sail up. So I started out pulling the sail up, then switched with Paul so he could pull the last 6 inches up (it always gets caught at that point and I just don't have the guns to pull it the rest of the way). So I'm now at the tiller (while he's pulling) trying to figure out which way the wind is coming from so I can stay pointed into it. It didn't work, and by the end of it I'm on my knees on the bottom of the boat with my head touching my knees to avoid the boom (holds the bottom of the sail) from coming across and hitting me (because the wind has caught the sail that's partially up - all my fault). We did survive this, and after 10 minutes I was able to speak and relax and enjoy the sailing part. Paul's comment was "I don't remember you being so nervous about this when we were in North Carolina" (refering to high school days sailing at his grandmother's cabin)...to which I replied, "I was young and stupid back then - I know better now" (because now if the boat capsizes I have to figure out how to un-capsize it and pay for any damages that occur).

But that's not the part that needed a picture. The really great part was as we were coming back. We had survived--and had fun--going all the way down to the end of the lake, and had survived coming back (a little trickier to tack with the wind behind you we found out, but we did make it work). But on the last tack, Paul said, "Coming about", I switched sides, and then a crazy gust of wind or a big wave came along and tipped the boat up so that I was literally looking DOWN at Paul. I started to lean way back to try to counteract the boat's movement, Paul was scrambling to try to climb UP to get to my side of the boat, but in the meantime water was pouring over the side of the boat. By the end of it we were ankle deep in water inside the boat, but thankfully we were upright. Paul immediately starts laughing hysterically and can't stop, and I'm left sitting in shock wondering how in the world we're going to make it into the dock without crashing our boat (another time during sailing when I get pretty nervous).

My next research project is to find an electric motor that we can have on the boat so that we can motor out away from docks and cement walls to put the sail up and bring it back down again, and be able to motor into the dock (not paddle).

I do have a "before" picture of us with the boat. The car took the picture (timer on the camera), so that's why it's looking down at us, instead of at eye level.

Below is a pic of the concrete that we had to navigate around. It helped keep the dock area calm and broke the waves, but it still made me nervous and I paddled super hard to make sure we didn't hit it.

Okay, tell me if I'm alone in this, but doesn't this sign seem a little odd to you? I mean, usually with the "don't" or "no" signs, they have a picture of the activity with a circle and slash through it, or a No preceding the picture. But this picture doesn't look like a person swimming. It looks like a person drowning. But they're clearly trying to say no swimming. Maybe they needed to put the words "Swimming", then an equals sign, then the picture of the person drowning. Or just put a person that is swimming inside a circle with a slash. But this sign is just a little disturbing to me. Maybe I'm the only one though.

I'm going to combine blogs here and add Saturday to our Wednesday adventures. Paul installed a garbage disposal. And not just any garbage disposal - one that doesn't use electrity. It uses water pressure only. It's a little slower at chopping up the stuff, but it is so quiet you almost don't know it's running. So that was fun. Paul had fun installing it, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching (there's only so much room under the sink, so clearly I couldn't fit in there to help, especially since I know NOTHING about plumbing). :)

Paul said I needed a "before" picture so you can appreciate the improvements. So this is the "before".
Here's the "after" picture! What a beauty.

Okay, that's all for now. Until next time!

Fall Pictures!

On Friday, I left work a little early and headed out to the meadows to see if there was anything worth taking pictures of. Paul and I did this back in the spring, but I hadn't been out there just to explore since then (in the summer I hibernate in the AC as much as possible). I discovered that there was a lot of fun pictures! That put the "creative" bug in me. Since I had Saturday off this weekend, I decided that instead of sleeping in, I would get up and get some more pictures out in the meadows, while no one else was around to bother or interrupt. So at 6:30am, I got out my Carhart overalls and my work boots (I knew there was a reason I kept all that gear from my landfill sampling days), and I set out with our "trusty" digital camera to see what I could find. Below are a few of my favorites from Friday evening, and Saturday morning:

I loved the smell of the hay as I got up close to take the picture. I definitely love being out in the country!

Check this guy out - there were several tiny spiders making webs between blades of grass. They would make a white thick circle in the center, and then hang underneath that white circle (so you could only see the spider from underneath). The rest of the web was transparent, just waiting for an unlucky bug to find it.

I almost didn't see this tiny little hopper. His whole body is probably smaller than the nail of my pinky finger - and I have a small pinky finger nail!!
Peas anyone?

I took this picture in the early morning on Saturday - the sun was starting to come up, but my flash accidentally went off because it thought there wasn't enough light. It made a cool picture though.

This is the same picture when I turned the flash off. I tried to get the shot as the spider was in the center of his web because it was pretty cool, but I made him nervous, and he climbed to the top to try to hide from me.
Someone's leftover target practice items. Guess they missed. The pepsi can in the background is really shot up, but they didn't have much luck hitting the poker chip.

Morning dew on a blade of grass.
This was my favorite shot of the morning. This little guy stayed completely still for over 3 minutes while I tried to get a good picture of him. He's clinging to a big JCB bucket (used on the excavator for digging up stuff). The bucket doesn't appear to have been used yet - the tag is still on it, and it's still clean. Guess it made a good place to hang out and catch bugs. I'm just super excited that he didn't hop away and I was able to get the shot. I didn't have much luck with the frogs near the puddles/ponds. They all jumped in the water as soon as they heard me coming!

I felt kinda bad for this guy - I think he's a cicada??? Anyway, he looked like he was having trouble moulting - he kept kinda twitching - I think his wing got stuck in the mud after he came out of his shell.

No explanation needed. I love trees!

This is just a great Texas picture to me. Everyone uses barbed wire fencing around here, and this was a fun shot to take. It can symbolize a lot - old and new working together, different people working together...whatever you can think of.

Another great Texas shot - an old wagon/trailer left in the tall weeds. Will it ever be used again?

Well, that's all for now. I took a TON of pictures, but I won't post all of them for you here. I was out there for over 2 hours on both days.

Paul's triathlon...

Well, on Monday (Labor Day), Paul participated in the Austin Triathlon. It was an international distance triathlon, which means it was a 1 mile swim (okay technically he swam 1500 meters, but most people don't have a concept of what that means - here's a hint - a mile is 1609 meters, so he was pretty close), a 24 mile bike, and a 6 mile run. Another note on the swim - it's in a lake, and you don't have lane lines, so adding in his zig-zagging, he probably truly swam a mile. So he covered 31 miles in different loops (1 swim loop, 3 bike loops, 2 run loops).

You can find out Paul's official results at http://www.texastriseries.com/events/austintri/results.asp.

Jack and Adam's Triathlon shop hosted the race - that's where I bought my bike, and it's our favorite source for splurging on training equipment that we store in our spare bedroom instead of using. :) The guys that run it are down to earth and really helpful (we've actually met both Jack, and Adam, and Drew, who joined after they had the shop name). I think one guy had experience working at a different tri/bike shop, and then 2 others were lawyers that decided running a triathlon shop would be more fun. They do a good job with their shop, and the race was run really well - better than some of the other races we've been to, so that was really nice.

The building on the far left, is actually one of the buildings that is caricatured in Jack and Adam's logo (far right building in their logo). Because I'm not from Austin, and didn't do my homework, I don't know what building it is. But it was fun to get a picture of it in the early morning just after the sun came up. It also shows how cloudy it was that day.

We got up at 4:20am to start preparing for the race that started at 7am. We left our hotel at 5am, and Paul got his transition area all set up. It rained the night before, and had threatened rain on Monday, too, but thankfully God held back the rain and just allowed the clouds to stay, which made a perfect race day - cloud cover and cool temps (especially for Texas in Sep!!)

Yep, it was a wetsuit legal race, which Paul really enjoyed. All that neoprene helps keep you afloat and you swim much faster!

This is a bad picture of Paul's wave getting in the water (jumping off a floating dock). I couldn't tell which guy he was - I was too far away at that point. But we can pretend that I captured him in pixels here. :)

Okay, this is a side-note to Paul's race. I just want to point out that the guy who won the race, won because his swim time was almost 2 minutes faster than any of the other guys. His bike time wasn't the fastest out of the crowd, and his run time wasn't the fastest, either. But his swim time gave him such a great advantage, that he won the whole race. Above in the first picture, he rounded the last buoy, and no one was even close to him. You probably can't even see him in the first picture - just know that he didn't have any chasers nearby. The second picture shows him getting out of the water. The big crowd at the top of that picture is the chase pack. I think there were 3-4 swimmers in between him and that big chase pack that aren't in the 2nd picture. But it gives you an idea. I think he swam a mile in roughly 17 minutes (I looked at my watch - his official time may be longer because he still had to cross over the timer pad). The announcer said that this guy is a professional triathlete, so if he took longer, I guess I would have been disappointed. :) But it was still amazing to watch.

Okay, back to Paul's race. Below he's the one in the red cap - looking at me and smiling for the picture. So that was a good sign. Did I mention that he didn't really get much training in before this race? So I was glad that he was cognizant enough to recognize me. I was pleasantly surprised that he took a few seconds to look at me for the picture, too! He finished his swim in about 40 minutes.

Below is his transition area in the daylight (since the earlier ones showed them in the pre-race, pre-sun, darkness. He was number 242.

Another transition picture (between swim and bike). He's still smiling!

I was impressed that this picture came out (maybe I'm improving my photography skills...or maybe my camera is super cool and compensates for my lack of skills). He was probably passing me at about 22 miles an hour. Notice, though, he's still smiling. He said that his average bike speed was maybe 22 mph on the flats, 7 mph going up hill, and 30 mph going down hill.

Here's the first time I saw him on the run course. You may notice that...he's not smiling anymore. Not even a glimpse. But he said that he only walked at the 3 water stations, and 2 additional places, so for the most part he was jogging the whole time. And for not training before this race, I'm super impressed that he did so well.

Below are pictures of him crossing the finish line. It was kinda nice because they had 2 plastic "winner banners" that they would alternate throwing across the finish line. So everyone got to raise their arms and "break through" the winner banner. I did wonder how much sweat was transferred from each runner by the end of the race. I hope they threw those banners away - I sure wouldn't want to be the person to clean them. Yuck!

Above you can see the clock time on the left. Subtract 3 minutes from that, since his wave started 3 minutes after the official clock did. So the whole race took him roughly 3 hours and 19 minutes.

There's that smile! I guess he just needed some cold pizza to re-energize him...and to see his lovely wife that supported him all the way. :)

If you're still with me (I know, this was kind of a long blog, but still fun in my opinion), here are some aerial pics of the race courses - the red line marks the course.

Swim course:

Bike course:

Run course: