Big Bend National Park

This trip was the most fun I've had in a long time. It really gave M and me a chance to relax after a very hectic few weeks, and an opportunity to really bond and focus on each other right before he had to go back to Scotland.

Most of Friday was spent driving out to the park. We stopped in Marfa for lunch, and had a wonderful meal on the patio of Q Cafe. This used to be an old house, and much of the interior still looks like it, but they've put in some retro, minimalist furniture, and it really has a great ambience.

Friday evening we arrived at the park, and drove down to Rio Grande Village, where we planned on camping because it's the only place in the whole park that has a shower. But when we arrived, it was way too hot, so we decided to camp at the Chisos Mountain Campground. It was at least 20 degrees cooler, just from the start of the drive to the time we arrived there. We set up camp quickly, because there was a thunderstorm looming. We got the tent set up just in time for a light rain shower, but there was a massive storm that night. Lightning so bad it nearly blinded me with my eyes closed. But the tent held up, and we chose a good campsite that kept us isolated from most of the wind, and was high enough not to have much in the way of flooding. The Ranger told us that people who had camped downhill from us had water up to their ankles in their tents. Most of the people in the campsite were gone by the time we woke up in the morning. I cooked breakfast with M's help, a freeze-dried egg breakfast which was surprisingly good, and then we got ready for our first hike.

The Window Trail: Saturday

 This one goes on the list of my top 5 favorite hikes of all-time. We started out the morning following the sound of waterfalls and watching the clouds creep through the canyon. Most of the hike was through forest, following a small stream that we could hear, but never really see.

 We saw plenty of insects, including mosquitos, and I had accumulated quite a few bites, even with the use of bug spray.

 Some of the rock formations were quite impressive, and M had fun climbing all of them. I had fun watching.

 At The Window, which is basically a channel carved into the canyon that drops down into the desert below. There was a small stream of water running down. We took our shoes off and cooled our feet in the stream, Had some snacks, and played around taking photos.

We decided that since we were sweaty, overheated, and stinky, we'd go take a shower down in the Rio Grande Village. On our way there, I got this shot of the road and the cloud formations, many of which looked like they'd been Instagrammed into the sky. 

 We stopped at  Boquillas Canyon to take a peek across the border. The full hike was a couple of miles, and we were too tired to complete it, so we only went part of the way up, but had some amazing views to look at. 

Mexico is on the left of the river, The United States is on the right.

 Various Small Hikes: Sunday
It rained again Saturday night, but not as badly. Sunday morning I woke up with some severe mosquito bites on my legs, which were swollen and turning a weird purplish red, so I took some Benadryl. We decided to drive along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, but halfway through M had to take over because the meds made me groggy. We drove down to Santa Elena Canyon, which had been flooded because of the rain, so only half of the trail was accessible. In the picture below is a the canyon. On the right is the United States, on the left is Mexico. The Rio Grande is the greenish looking river in the middle, as it joins up with Terlingua Creek.

 As we were driving back, we stopped at several scenic checkpoints. This was the thunderstorm we were heading towards, which at this point is right over where our camp is. Later we ended up pulling over and waiting it out, while having a snack and a nap.

 We then did a 4 mile hike to Mule Ear Springs. I didn't include any photos of that one, because frankly, the springs were disappointing and we ended up getting rained on on the way back. :) There was some really cool frothy water that looked like foam, though.

Burro Mesa Pouroff was next, and really quite fun. It was a short, mile-long hike into another canyon, and we had the thunderstorm playing tag with us.

We stopped at an overlook, called Sotol Vista where I got this shot of the valley and the storm in the distance.

 And as evening approached, we took time to wander through the ruins of Sam Nail Ranch, where there was a lot of wildlife.

 Behind the windmill and in the photos below, the mountains that are in the background are where The Window releases it's waterfall and peeks out into the desert where we're standing. It was very cool to be able to see what it looked like from the other side.

   The last place we stopped before our showers that evening was The Hot Springs near the Rio Grande Village. We had to walk about a mile to get there, because my car isn't built for roads that require 4 wheel drive. What they don't tell you in any of the guides is that there used to be a small touristy place here, that has since been shut down. It looks like a motel back from before there was electricity. The hotsprings were a bit disappointing as the water was very dirty from the rain and the high waters of the Rio Grande, so we didn't soak, but it was neat to be able to see the river, and Mexico on the other side.

We camped overnight, struck camp in the morning, and packed up the car for our return trip home. On the way home we decided it would be fun to stop by Terlingua, as they had a ghost town marked on the map, but it looked to be more of a tourist trap, since there are still people living there. I don't think it should be advertised as a ghost town if it's still partially inhabited, but they did have a pretty cool cemetery.

Off Hiatus and the Mammoth Hike

So M was here visiting. It's great, and I love having him around. It changes my routine a lot, though. I gave up competing in the Ravellenic Games because I couldn't find enough time to knit. I'm much more active when he's here, so there were a lot of hikes and fun stuff happening, but I didn't have much time to update the blog. He's gone home now, which makes me sad and lonely, and leaves me with a big chunk of time that is unplanned. I'm trying to fill in the hours in order to keep myself from feeling depressed, but also give myself some time to catch up on sleep. I'll try to do my updating in stages over the next few days.

The first weekend M was here I had really bad bronchitis, so nothing much in the way of posts. 2nd weekend saw us at the Mexican Food Cookoff downtown with Christina, which was fun. 3rd weekend was the Plaza Classic Film Festival. We saw "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Birds", and "An American in Paris", and on Saturday morning we went hiking up the Mammoth near Trans Mountain with Neysa and Christina.  For the 4th weekend, I managed to take some time off work and we went to Big Bend National Park for a 4 day camping trip. It was amazing.

Mexican Food Cookoff/Festival

Mammoth Hike

 This was the view in the early morning as we were about 1/3 of the way up the trail.

 A panoramic view of the mountains and The Mammoth in the distance. You can just see it's trunk sticking up.

 Some rocks with lichen and The Mammoth in the background. This is about the point where we ran into Neysa, who was hiking with some other friends that day, and joined up to finish the trail with us.

 M and me at the top of the trail. :)

 Heading back down again.

 A moderate hike on what turned out to be a very hot day, but it was a lot of fun to do this one with friends.

 Charlie's Angels. :P

A Hodge Podge Update

It's been a while since I've had time to blog. Work started up again, and M. came into town. I've been taking photos, but just haven't had a large amount of leisure time to sit and write out stuff. So this will be an update with a mixture of things from around the home. 

 First on the list, I finished a sock. Not a pair of socks, just one. It's using a mystery yarn from Big Lots, and the way it pools was really interesting. I'll get around to knitting the other sock soon, I think. I used the toe-up sock method from Silver's Sock Class.

The Ravellenic Games have started, to coincide with the Olympics. This is a really bad time for me to have to commit to a knitting project, and I may have gotten in over my head with the Print O' The Wave Stole, but I wanted to participate. I don't think I'll finish it in the allotted 3 weeks, but half the fun is trying. :)

This beauty was in the garden, and we've seen 4 others since then. Black Widows are a bit scary and poisonous, but they kill other bugs, so I've left them alone. I'll give the rock wall a good spray at the end of the season to make sure they don't decide to move into the house when it gets cold. 

Mom's birthday was at the end of July. I baked a 2 layer lemon cake with raspberry filling and lemon frosting. It was really good, despite being a little uneven in the middle. :)