Our last night in Terlingua

 Today is our final last day here.  Roads are open and there has been sufficient time for snow to melt in Van Horn.  We have made reservations for the next 2 nights and the third day will have us in Safford AZ.  We’ll spend a week or so there on BLM land, boondocking.  Then someplace else.  Maybe Tucson.  Maybe Empire Ranch.

For our last day’s events we drove across the park to RioGrande Village and hiked the Ernst Ridge Trail to the hot springs and back.  5.6 miles, up onto a couple high points with great views of the Rio Grande.  We met several people out there too.  One couple was only half way out to the spring saying they wanted to get back before it got too cold.  It sure didn’t seem like they had time to do that!  And we met a Mexican riding a horse on the rocky trail we were on.  I was a bit ahead of Carlene and stopped to let him pass.  I commented to him that it was a bit rough going for a horse, especially right at that point.  He said it was OK, but then as the horse stepped down a steep narrow spot he faltered and slipped on the rock, hitting his knee against another rock.  He wobbled just a bit and I was afraid that they were going to fall over.  That would have been a bad spot to fall.  The horse steadied himself and stepped on down.  The rider said “he’ll learn” and kept on his way.

Back at camp we said hello to our new neighbors.  A bit later we went back to Tivo’s Place, this time for Chile Rellenos and Fajitas.  The those same new neighbors came in too.  Back at camp I asked them how they liked it, we all had a great meal and went on talking for quite a while.  They both retired a few months ago and just got this camper, so this is their first time on long range camping.  It also turned out that we had seen them at the hot spring.  

I forgot to mention that we saw a Javelina on the side of the road a couple days ago, when we were driving west toward the State Park.  That is our best wildlife sighting yet.  But too quick for a photo.

Yellow Stungbush