Spanish missions, Great Storm, Texas BBQ

Friday 18 February 2011
We visited Mission Concepción. This was the Franciscan mission just south of the Alamo in San Antonio. There were four missions in the San Antonio area and this is the best preserved. This tiny National Park is surrounded by modern houses. The new Indian converts at the mission were called novices until they became acculturated to the Spanish way of life and live their religion like a Spaniard. The mission was brightly painted to attract Indian interest. The church is still standing and used as a modern place of worship.

We drove to Galveston Island. Instead of sunshiny beaches we found fog on that side of the island. We watched a movie about the "Great Storm" of 1900 in which about 6,000 people died in the tidal surge that wiped out the ocean side of the city. Pictures of the damage showed nothing but rubble in some parts of the city. The seaport museum seems to be the home of the Elissa, a tall (sailing) ship.

I wanted to try Texas BBQ and we found a restaurant. We had BBQ beef enchiladas. The meat was very sweet and had a mild vinegar taste. Hmmm mmm good!

Desert fog, US Border Patrol, Mexican cinema

Thursday 17 February 2011
From Fort Stockton and their giant plastic roadrunner named Pete we headed southeast toward the juncture of the Pecos River and the Rio Grande. On the way we encountered fog, in some places fairly thick fog. Now keep in mind this is the middle of the Chihuahuan desert! The Pecos River for six miles before it reaches the Rio Grande has dug a gorge several hundred feet deep. When the railroad came through they built the highest bridge in America to cross it. To see picture click here. That bridge is gone now. But nearby is a road bridge, highest in Texas. We crossed it and took pictures.

The border patrol has many trucks that patrol a white dirt side road parallel to the main paved highway. When we passed the border patrol station their flag was at half mast in honor of the agent killed a few days ago in Mexico.

In San Antonio we visited the Museo Alameda. This is a museum dedicated to the Latin influence in San Antonio. Apparently much of the Mexico revolution was plotted in San Antonio. I was impressed by two things. A Mexican artist made flyers with skeleton caricatures of Mexican politicos. He was merciless to many capitalists, but put an actual face on Poncho Villa. I hadn't realized how communist many of the Mexican artists were. The other thing that impressed me was the Mexican films. The were screening their songs which were lively, and beautiful. And after the song was finished they would whoop and whack each other with their sombreros.

BJ's finger is swollen badly from the wasp sting and getting a little scary.

Santa Elena Canyon and a wasp conspiracy against BJ

Wednesday 16 February 2011
In the Big Bend National Park we did the Santa Elena Canyon hike. The Rio Grande emerges flowing north from the sheer cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon and we hiked the west (USA) side headed south into the canyon. It was shady and cool in the canyon. The Rio Grande is a big stream at this point. So how did it dig straight down through hard rock and dig a canyon as deep at the Church Office Building in SLC? In the Big Bend Park there are two other mountains the Rio Grande has cut through like a hot knife through butter. My theory is that the mountain ranges slowly rose up while the Rio Grande cut through them. The river is probably older than the mountains. I just don't see how a suddenly draining lake could have cut such sheer cliffs. It must have been done very slowly as the mountains raised up.

The Chisos Basin part of the park was high, tree covered, and cool compared to the surrounding deserts. But BJ got stung by a wasp there (she must have a target painted on her when it comes to wasps). At the end of the day we went to the Rio Grande Village part of the park. There were two cars on fire in the parking lot of the Visitor's Center so we couldn't go in. Instead we went to the Boquillas Canyon trail. It was very hot, 96 degrees Chihuahuan desert. This is where the Rio Grande enters the third mountain range through sheer cliff walls. On the trail we could see a tiny Mexican village of Boquillas just across the river. And at little unmanned stations on the trail we found Mexican art objects for sale on behalf of Mexican school children. There were painted walking staffs, fluorite chunks, and pretty wire scorpions and dragonflies, and tiny bobble head turtles, all colorfully painted Mexican style. The signs told the price of each object, and there was a plastic bottle to place money for things hikers might purchase.

It couldn't get much better than this!

Tuesday 15 February 2011
We bought a hat for BJ at the Pecos, Texas Wal-Mart. Then we headed off to Jeff Davis County. Before the Civil War Jefferson Davis served as the Secretary of War. In 1856 a fort was built in the west of the Pecos River part of Texas and named after him, Fort Davis. Apparently the surrounding mountains came to be known as the Davis Mountains, and eventually Jeff Davis County was formed. Not bad for a guy who would later become the Confederate President.

BJ and I got to see Fort Davis. It ended up protecting the Butterfield Overland Mail route in this part of Texas. The route was used by stagecoaches headed for California. The fort also helped subdue the Apaches like Victorio. This fort was where the first "Buffalo Soldiers" units were formed and later they were moved to other places to continue their fight against renegade Apache Indians. They have rebuilt many of the quarters of both officers and enlisted, and turned them into a museum. I really liked the commander's house which was really nicely outfitted with period furniture.

A little up the road we explored the McDonald Observatory. This has the third largest telescope at 107 inch mirror and was used to bounce a laser off the moon after the first moon landing to help prove they had actually planted a reflector when they landed. They also discovered that the moon was over 20 feet farther from the earth than they expected and this somehow helped prove Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Then we drove south the Big Bend National Park. This is Sonoran desert. It looks a lot like Las Vegas or Tucson with bare peaks and lower down mesquite, occatillo, and lots of rocks. We entered the park from a town called Study Butte. I was a beautiful drive to the former town of Castolon. It is now a Visitor Center. As we walked in one ranger was sitting on the porch bench watching the sun set. When I asked him how he was doing he replied, "It couldn't get much better than this." The other ranger was irked that a building crew cut the telephone line by accident so there is no communication with the outside world. Like the man said, it couldn't get much better than this. At our nearby "Cottonwood" campground they have a sign warning us not to feed the javalinas. It was about 86 degrees before the sun went down, but it is cooling off fast here in the moonlight. I think we are only a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande so I'll go hunting for it.

Wildlife we've seen includes roadrunners, a woodpecker, a flycatcher, and longhorn cattle.

Sun so hot, I froze to death

BJ has a rough night at Great Grandma Dilts' house. Great Grandma has two electric heaters in her room bedroom that draw so much power that when BJ tried turning on the electric heater in BJ's room, it blew the fuses. It was easy enough to reset the fuses, but BJ was cold most of the night. I found her curled up in a ball covered with blankets.

Grandma started making the arrangements to have the ivy removed from her house. The guy she called told her about the problem in her attic before she told him.

By the end of the day we left the snows of northern New Mexico, and entered the sunny deserts around Roswell. I had a hard time talking BJ into stopping in at the UFO alien shops for tourists, so we tried the local Wal-Mart and made off with an out-of-this-world buy, $7 pair of shoes.

New Mexico has zones. The northwest is Navajo country and moderately prosperous with lots of churches and non-Navajo casinos. We stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Allens' graves in Farmington. Albuquerque is big and prosperous. Clines Corners is a ghost town and very poor. Roswell was lots newly washed sports car convertibles driven by attractive blonds in high-heeled knee boots—really wealthy and much bigger than I remembered. Carlsbad was poor and full of empty shops. The weather has gone from chillingly cold to over 70 degrees. But best of all, BJ enjoyed lots of sunshine, and is finally warm. Near the Texas border we spotted a couple of Joshua Trees, but the most prolific plant is oil well pumps.

We are now settled in at Pecos, Texas.

Billboards and ivy in the attic

Driving through Farmington, New Mexico we had a bit of culture shock. It seems the good and the bad are contending a little differently than one might find in Zion. We passed an "adult video" store with a huge billboard right next to it that nearly hid the store with a portrait saying "Jesus is watching you."

We slept on a sideroad near Farmington. The rolling hills and fields were covered with about an half an inch of snow. When we woke in the morning there was thick frost on the inside, but not the outside of the car windows.

In Albuquerque we found Great Grandma Ruth Dilts' backyard neighbor was concerned for her safety. It seems the ivy all around her house has grown up through the eves and into the attic. It is fairly thick in the attic and poses a fire hazard near the heating ducts and electric wires. They discovered this a few days ago and begged BJ and I to help Great Grandma remedy the situation. So I wrote up some instructions to help her hire some workers to clean up the problem. She is reluctant to take down her ivy but I think she sees the need.

It was sunshiny and about 61 degrees in Albuquerque . . . nice! We walked around the park with Grandma. There was a little ice left in the shadows from the previous storm (when it was -6 degrees) complete with frozen pipes that led to the discovery of ivy in the attic. I like it much better today than I would have liked it a week ago.

Getting ready to go

BJ and I are heading for Florida, the sunshine state. We are packing and putting our things in order to start the trip. Hope all the children and grandchildren will follow along on this blog to learn about our adventures.