Big Bend National Park, Texas

This is one more example of the desert in West Texas. This is the Chisos Mountain Range in Big Bend National Park.

Texas 2010

I thought you would all like to see what most of west Texas looks like. This also includes southeast New Mexico.

Wausau, WI

We stayed the night on Friday, March 12th at our friends, John & Tink Parrott in Solon, Iowa. After Tink served a great breakfast on Saturday AM, we headed for home. It rained all the way. We arrived home late in the afternoon. All the snow has disappeared. There is more snow in Des Moines, Iowa than here. Our next major trip will be in August , 2010 as we head for Yellowstone with Todd, Mary, Sam & Will.

Kansas City, MO

Hi. tonight we are camping in Independence, MO (in the Kansas City Metropolitan area). We camped in Caprock Canyon State Park, near Amarillo Texas. It was warm until the sun went down. The next day, March 10th, we drove to the Washita Battlefield National Historic site in northwest Oklahoma. It is where Gen. Custer and the 7th cavalry attcked and nearly wiped out a band of Cheyenne under Chief Black Kettle. The village was mostly women and children . Chief Black Kettle was a man who always strived for peace with the white man. He and his wife and many others paid the ultimate price. This a pretty sad day in our nation's history. We then drove to Red Canyon State Park near Oklahoma City, OK. The weather is getting colder. As we pulled into Kansas City, we discovered it has been warmer in Wausau than here. We should be home by Saturday, March 13th. At least the wind is calmer.

Carlsbad Cavern

Bill & Beth at Guadalupe Mts.

Javelina at Davis Mt. State Park, Texas

Rio Grande River at Big Bend Nat. Park, Texas

Boquillas Canyon, Big Bend Nat. Pk

The Alamo, Mission San Jose ,

Lone Camper at Bernice State Park, Oklahoma

Buckhorn Saloon, San Antonio, Texas

Continuing adventures of the Texas trip

Hi again, We were without WiFi for a week or so. West Texas is a pretty remote place. We left San Antonio on Feb. 28th and headed west. Our goal was Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. As we headed west on US 90 we saw that we were close to Mexico. As a result, we saw border patrol everywhere. In fact we were stopped twice. Beth thought that was pretty exciting. We camped out the 1st night west at Seminole Canyon State Park. We fought high winds all day. The park is near Comstock, Texas. We had no cell coverage for most of that way. There is all low desert (Miles and miles of it). In fact most of west texas is low desert. I did celebrate our being close to Mexico by drinking Mexican beer. On March 2nd, we arrived at Big Bend National Park. It is one of the largest national parks and about the size of the infamous King Ranch in Texas (800,000 acres). We camped at Rio Grande village which is in the southeast corner of the park. It is on the Rio Grande River. We stayed there 2 days. There is no cell, no TV no radio stations in this area. We really felt cut off from civilization. Beth spotted an illegal mexican crossing the river, but since there is no cell coverage she couldn't call anyone. She did take a picture. We also hiked into a canyon which is formed by the Rio Grande. We saw some birds we had never seen before, especially the road runner.
The stars at night are spectacular. The park is known for this.

We left the park on March 4th. We drove north heading for Fort Davis Natonal Historic Site (a really well kept frontier fort in west Texas). We camped at Davis Mt. State Park. We hadd all the hookups but no cell coverage. Anyway, we were ovverrun by Javelinas 2 nights in a row. There are warnings all over the place about them. Beth tried to take pictures of them but were blurred because her hands were shaking. This park has many birds that we have never seen before, such as the montazeuma quail and the acorn woodpecker. While we camped there we also saw the McDonald Observatory.

On March 6th we drove to Guadalupe National Park (just south of the New Mexicas line. We camped there also. The campground for RV's was a painted parking lot. Unlike a Walmart parking lot, there was fantastic scenery. We hiked back up a canyon on a trail thatwas supposed to be 4 miles roundtrip. It felt like 10 miles.

On March 7th, we left early because of a prediction of 70 mph wind gusts in the Guadalupe Pass. We drove north to Carlsbad Caverns. This is the best cavern tour we have ever scene. It is a thing of great beauty. We are now camped in a KOA jusdt north of Carlsbad, NM for a couple days, waiting out a wind storm.