Another fine day in BBNP

Dropped off the tire and headed for the park.  

Nice easy 3 mile hike around Lone Mountain.  Nice views of the Chisos Mountains (high points of the park) and other surrounding mountains and hills.  Made a quick visit to the HQ Visitor Ctr, didn’t find anything to buy but found the recycling can.

One thing about hiking out here.  It is so far from anyplace that it is totally quiet.  You can hear a footstep from yards away because there is no background noise at all!

Back home to get the tire and rotate that in place of the ragged one.  Nobody open that sells tires.  Not even sure anyone does, did I mention this is a Small Town?  We’ll try in the morning.  If not then we have a ragged spare for 200 miles.  There are several tire stores in Van Horn TX, our next stop.

After the tire I got to work on the tail light.  It works!  It’s fastened on with super tape because it is a sealed unit, no way to screw it on without breaking it open first.

Some views from the campground 

This time with the moon and Saturn 

BBNP hike and other stuff

 Do you believe in a jinx?  I don’t.  Officially anyway.  Recall my comment last night about tires.  this morning I’m sitting at the picnic table with my coffee looking at the trailer.  You guessed it!  Another flat tire.  Later!  We’re going for a hike!

Not too far from yesterday’s hike is Homer Wilson’s Ranch.  All we can see of it is a well built line cabin that was abandoned with the ranch in 1945.  We made a 7.2 mike hike up the Blue Creek Trail.  Plenty of variety in the rock, vegetation and color along the way.  And we saw some Deer!  3 deer were up on the side wall of the canyon, a buck and 2 doe.  they made their way out of sight in a few minutes but gave us good opportunity to watch and take pictures.  But those photos are in another camera that I can’t import quickly.  There is no functional WiFi in this campground to do things the simple way.  So we had a great day in the mountains.

Came home and changed a tire.  I’ll take it to Diego, the tire guy, in the morning.  While I was looking at tires I found another one that’s a bit ragged and worn.  I’ll have to replace that after I get the flat fixed.  So there will be yet another tire change tomorrow afternoon.  Maybe after that I’ll find time for the tail light.  Life on the road!

 

Terlingua & Hiking Big Bend

 Late last night we heard a loud hiss coming from my parked truck.  Yup, a tire leaking air.  I wiggled the valve steam and it got worse, wiggled again and it stopped.  “DO NOT TOUCH IT AGAIN”. I walked around to the office & gas station and got the number of a local tire guy.  Left a message for today.  He didn’t open until noon but got right to me.  It’s a home business, he has a garage in his back yard where he does tire repair.  7 days/week.  Only takes Saturday morning off.  I guess all the backcountry roads must keep him busy.  I had just enough air left to drive it over there, 1.2 miles.  In a half hour all’s well and I’m off.  We headed up to the park and went hiking.  I’ll get to that in a moment.  Coming back we see 4 young women parked awkwardly in a random spot, waving.  I pull over, park, put on the flashers and my red light (how often do I get to use my red light in another state!). Sure enough, they had a flat and were just getting to work and not entirely sure how to go about it. None of them had changed a tire before.  They had all the tools and a mini spare.  I just coached them through it, for the most part.  I helped here & there, used my 4 way lug wrench when their short handle wrench just wasn’t enough.  In a half hour we were all on our way.  They are all in college in San Angelo TX, where we camped at the store lot 2 nights ago.  Hopefully that’s my allotment of flat tires for this year!

For this afternoon’s hike we did the Tuff Canyon trail.  It’s about 30 miles into the park.  The trail goes down onto the floor of the canyon and runs maybe a half mile before you get to a place you can’t climb up.  Or in our case, I was not sure how we’d climb back down.  When we got back to the top and looked down at that spot we were glad we stopped.  It was only 200 yards to a really big wall.

Back at camp we took Skye out for a walk.  Being a National Park we can’t take her on any trails.  So she stays in the camper.  With the AC if it is a warm day.  That’s why we camp in Terlingua, with power, water, sewer, and TIRE Service nearby! 

After our supper we celebrated Skye’s first Birthday with a hamburger & candle!  She was impressed!

Tuff Canyon hike

A couple views from Sotol Vista on our way home

The Birthday Party

Terlingua TX & Big Bend

 Beautiful sunny day for a 310 mile drive to Terlingua and a five night stay in a campground.  

Terrain changes again all day, from grasslands on the prairie moving into the Chihuahuan Desert and on to the mountains of Big Bend National Park.  Delightful viewing all the way.  We came by way of the north entry to the park.  We have only come that way a couple times. Since we usually don’t go over there once here it was very nice to see that portion again.  Drove through much of the park to get here. Great to be back again!  

Camp set up nice and easy, got all the utilities hooked up & dumped the tanks.  Took a couple walks around with Skye. She is so curious about every new place she goes. So much to sniff. 

We both sat outside in the sun this evening for the first time this year.  I had a chair out at the ranch 2 days ago. Being here for a few days we’ll have time to reorganize the trailer, especially the garage.  It needs it!  

In some places the wind turbines extend as far as you can see

Here are dozens of acres of solar panels

Just liked this trucker’s style!

Coming into Big Bend Park

Sunset at camp.  That’s Venus.