We decided to cut our last day driving for a bit in half and
stopped to check out our 40-acre parcel of raw land in Kingman, just to make
sure there were no squatters – except for the Woman of course who managed one
while we were there. We couldn’t be this close to historic Route 66 without
taking in some roadside bling. We managed to find Giganticus Headicus not far
outside Hackberry.
During the real estate crash, my brother Jerry bought a home
here, expecting to retire here at some point. Well, it finally happened and he
now lives here full time with Brenda. We caught a spring training baseball game
at the Surprise Stadium, with the resident Texas Rangers AAA team going down to
the Chicago Cubs AAA team, 5-1. But the weather was spectacular, and we thoroughly
enjoyed an afternoon at the Park taking in Americas number one sport.
We also did a bunch of hiking, campfires, and game playing
in our spot at White Tanks Regional Park. We tried to stay at Sunflower RV
Resort, but because it is still winter up North, the place was completely full with
snowbirds, and we couldn’t get in. But the spot at White Tanks was quite nice,
with water and electric so we were well taken care of.
We stopped in Tucson to hook up with friends. We hadn’t seen
Ron Ezra and Teresa Bell since the eclipse party in Jackson Hole. And we were
blessed to be able to share St. Patty’s Day with our friends Georgia and Ken
Halloran who we hadn’t seen since their 50th wedding anniversary
party a few years ago. Here’s us hiking around in Sabino Canyon in Coronado
National Forest at the base of 9,200-foot Mount Lemmon.
Were surrounded by Irish folk! Both Ken and Georgia have
significant roots leading back to Ireland. We think that Ken’s favorite holiday
is St. Patrick’s Day by far. Although half of Teresa’s heritage leads back to
Scotland (the Bell side of the family), the other half of her lineage leads
right back to Ireland. So, there was a lot of green being worn around here.
As the shouts of Erin go Bragh sounded all around us, as
well as strains of Tura Lura Lura that filled the air, we sat down to a dinner
of traditional Irish Stew that Teresa whipped up. All in all, I think we did
the holiday well.
We also found two more National Monuments while we were in
Las Cruces that we had somehow missed in the past. We figured out why.
Prehistoric Trackways National Monument that preserves land with preserved
dinosaur tracks was established by Obama in 2009, which was after our last in-depth
exploration of Las Cruces. Unfortunately, being a BLM managed monument, it has
virtually no services. 
Unfortunately, the BLM has determined that in order to
better preserve the location of these prehistoric trackways without having any
on site personnel, they simply don’t publish the location of any of the gems.
We did manage to hike some of the trails in this impressive area with a
panoramic overlook of the entire city of Las Cruces, so we enjoyed ourselves a
great deal, even if we didn’t find any dinosaur tracks.
We did get a good picture of what it looks like to be in the
Southwest in very rural and remote locations. These unique decorations seem to
be evident in most of the signage in the area, even with the posted signs that
hunting is prohibited.
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument is also an Obama
proclamation effective May 21, 2014. Dripping Springs was previously a New
Mexico State Park, so it actually has a visitor center. Its claim to fame is
that in the 1870’s, the existence of a small dripping fresh water stream
attracted Colonel Eugene Van Patten to build a resort and shuttled the rich and
famous up here by stage coach. Allegedly Billy the Kid’s killer, Sheriff Pat
Garrett and Pancho Villa both stayed here in its heyday.
In 1910 Dr. Nathan Boyd built a tuberculosis sanatorium hoping
to take advantage of the warm, dry New Mexico climate to cure his well healed
clientele. The venture did not turn out to prove any significant cure results
and failed a few years after it was opened. However, most of the buildings
still remain in a state of arrested decay, just yards from the Dripping Springs
that attracted both Van Patten and Boyd to invest all they had in building
their dreams in this remote location.
k in Las Cruces. The 47th native carving in Toth’s
mission of placing a Giant in all 50 states of the Union, it turned out to be
our 11th in our mission to see as many of them as we can manage.
While 11 didn’t seem like a huge accomplishment at first, when I realized that
means we now had seen 20% of these amazing carvings, including the only one in
Canada, it seemed a bit more impressive.
While in Del Rio we learned about Seminole Canyon State
Park, about 30 miles North outside of Comstock Texas, that allegedly had
fantastic droves of ancient rock art. Sadly we arrived in Del Rio late on Sunday
and learned that the only way to see the rock art was on a Ranger guided tour,
and those only ran twice a day on every day except Monday and Tuesday. As a result, we couldn’t stop in on our way to
Marfa.
Because we can, we decided to backtrack after Marfa and take
in the Canyon. It was a 4-hour one-way trek but turned out to be well worthwhile.
Seminole Canyon is a deep crevice created from water erosion resulting from
heavy rains that frequent West Texas. The rock art has been dated back some
4,000 years. However, it is interesting that no current indigenous culture has
claimed that those residents of Seminole Canyon are their predecessors. That
doesn’t mean that those residents didn’t continue on to current times, however,
apparently no current culture has history stories that include those early
inhabitants.
Seminole Canyon, after heavy rains, drains into the Rio
Grande. When we hiked the Canyon rim, we ended up at the Rio Grande once again.
We thought that we had left the Rio Grande until our next Texas romp when we
left Del Rio. But we managed to find our way back here again. Apparently, the
river is one of those vortex areas that draw you in.
We also managed a couple of Lifers that we didn’t expect.
While on the Ranger tour into the Canyon, our guide told us that the lovely
bird calls were that of a Cactus Wren. She said they were highly elusive and
weren’t prone to show themselves, so we might just have to settle for the sound
of their beautiful voice. But on our Canyon rim hike, we were graced with an
appearance.
ssible that we have seen this guy before, but we never
got a good look, or was able to actually determine what it was. But again, our Canyon rim hike was the charm.
I got a really good image, and we were able to locate it in our Audubon birding
book. Nuther Lifer – yippee!
We headed toward the Rio Grande to take in more of the Big
Bend country. We found the ghost town of Shafter. Once a bustling silver mining
town, it boasted a population as high as 4,000 at its peak. The official census
in 2000 had the population at 11. Between the lead and silver mined here, over
$20 M (in currency of that time) of ore was extracted before the mines played
out, and the town was abandoned.
On our drive we passed the exclusive Cibolo Ranch, off base
to anyone not a current guest. Were told in town that big names such as Mick
Jagger fly their private jets into this high-end place, complete with landing strip.
They never see Mick in town, but they do occasionally see his son James. Back
in Marfa we had lunch at Marfa Burrito, but pretty much only because Matthew
McConaughey and Mark Ruffalo are both big fans.
The quirkiness of Marfa apparently attracts the rich and
famous. This building on the town’s main drag is owned by Lance Armstrong. Apparently,
Lance rents the lower floor out to artists who have galleries to quirk it up a
little bit more. The second-floor lance rents out for events or shows, and part
of it he will even rent out as an extremely high-end Air BnB.
Built in 1930, the El Paisano Hotel is on the National
Register of Historic Places. It is best known for being the location HQ for the
1956 film Giant, the last film in which James Dean acted prior to his untimely
death. We made sure to snoop around the beautiful grounds, but nobody would
tell us which room James Dean stayed in.
Finally, we visited the Chinati Foundation, a modern art
campus envisioned by Donald Judd, and containing collections of his work as
well as works of other modern artists. We walked the grounds which displayed 15
untitled concrete works by Mr. Judd. Each concrete “box” used in the works is
2.5X2.5X5 meters. As you can see, there are more than 70 “boxes” making up the
15 works, and they cover a space that is longer than two football fields.
We headed to Marfa because for years I had heard of the
strange, unexplained lights that appear each night. In 1883, resting on a bluff
8 miles East of town and looking toward the Chinati Mountains, a cowboy
reported seeing visible lights in the valley that came and went, and danced up
and down, left and right. Over the decades such reports continued, and apparently
nobody has been able to explain their cause. Watching after the sky went dark
we saw lights, sometimes only a couple, and other times 6 to 12. The lights
would appear for a while, then disappear, reappear, and then jump around. We
could tell that they weren’t car headlights, and their movement meant they weren’t
lit structures. 
The town of just under 2,000 people is very quirky. The
lights attract some tourism, but also its remoteness is an attraction as well. It
is the Presidio County Seat, and its courthouse which was built in 1886 is the
tallest building in town by a long shot. There is a total of 183 hotel rooms in
town, not counting Air BnB accommodations, and enough small independently owned
restaurants to feed about that many people.
Marfa is just North of the Big Bend, that section of the Southeast
meandering Rio Grande that suddenly jogs back Northeast and makes a big bend to
head back Southeast. This creates the thumb in Western Texas that seems to jab
down into Mexico carving out just a bit more land for the US. We drove all
around the Big Bend area taking in the expansive views.
We looked for wildlife in the Big Bend. I had caught a
glimpse of the end of a tail of some mammal that was ringed. While I can’t be
certain, I believe it was a Ring-Tailed Cat that resides in Northern Mexico and
Southern Texas. We saw not just one, but an entire herd of Javelina eating the
succulent shrubs along the side of the road. We also got a good look at 8-10 Big
Horn Sheep also grazing on the rich prairie grasses of the area. We hadn’t seen
this much wildlife in one outing in quite a while.
As we are inclined to do, we hit some of the more
historically significant cemeteries in the area. When we saw the Disney film
Coco, it reinforced to us how the Mexican folk revere those that came before
them, and believe the dead even can visit the living, especially on the Day of
the Dead. For that reason, any cemetery that has Mexican residents are always
ornately and colorfully decorated, a sign of respect for one’s elders.
Even though she lived in the late 1800’s, I know that the
term was in use back then just as it is now. So, for the life of me, I just can’t
imagine why the young Minnie Brown would willingly step into this last name by
marrying this guy. I understand she would have been beyond the schoolroom
taunts she would have been subject to had she earned this illustrious name at
birth. But imagine introducing yourself as Minnie Outhouse, or worse yet,
Minnie Brown Outhouse – go figure!
We headed to Del Rio as it was a day’s drive for us from
Laredo. We had hoped for a town of more interest, but we found just another
small town with a devastated down town area along the Mexican border. But we
did find that our President didn’t need to focus any money in this area. The
border “wall”, or formidable fencing, already spans the entire span of Del Rio.
We did manage to find a gem in the area. The Amistad
National Recreation Area, jointly managed by the Bureau of Land Management and
the National Park Service, is made possible by a dam built jointly by the US
and Mexico in 1968 to both tame the Rio Grande and control annual flooding and
provide water both for drinking and recreation.
Amistad Dam was built at the confluence of the Rio Grande
and the Pecos rivers. Lake Amistad that developed behind the dam, is the 3rd
largest manmade international border lake in the world (they had to reach a bit
in their definition to come up with number 3). We hiked our way out onto the
dam in order to find the border dedication monument, which was quite
impressive. Note that Richard Milhouse Nixon presided over the dedication
ceremonies on behalf of the US.
We did learn that folk in Del Rio are extremely precise. In
Del Rio, you don’t see signs that generally say “Brown Plaza 2 miles”, which is
obviously just a rough estimate, or a rounded measurement. That just won’t do
in Del Rio. Even Brenda, our GPS, is not nearly this precise!
We read online that there would be good birding in Laredo.
On the Mexican border, straddling the Rio Grande along with Nuevo Laredo, apparently
the migratory flight patterns of many North American summer birds are right
through here. Also, there are a number of resident birds that are different
from those we had seen along the Gulf Coast. The big chatter was about the
local White Collared Seedeater, but we got skunked on that one.
We spent both our days here looking for birds in the local
city, county and state parks. We managed to find this Eurasian Collared Dove in
Lake Casa Blanca State Park. That is another Lifer for us – yeah! The very
crisp black collar on this guy is very distinctive. There were a ton of birds
in the park, but nearly all of them we had seen several times before.
On our stroll with Kona in North Central park we spotted
more birds we were familiar with. We heard chatter that a few years ago someone
had spotted an Amazon Kingfisher, never before seen in Laredo. We spotted a
Kingfisher in the park and held our breath. It turned out to be a Belted
Kingfisher which we had seen in SPI, but it was still fun. The we spotted
another Lifer – for real! This juvenile Northern Goshawk has a Southern range that
just encompasses Laredo – not as far South as SPI. Bonus!
We're going to miss being right next door to the Coast Guard base. Every morning at sunup, a bugle sounds Revile, regardless of whether anyone is really up and about. Again, at sundown, the bugle blurts out Taps, just before the bright orange ball dips below the horizon. Unfortunately, the bugle also blasts out Taps at 10 PM as well, regardless of whether the Woman hit the sack at 8 or 7 or whatever hour. Thankfully, the powers that be decided to reward us with a goodbye sunset, not the best we've seen while in SPI, but still well above average. It will give us something to hang onto as we head inland.
We began making our way back toward Vegas by breaking camp
at the South Padre Island KOA and hitting the pavement. We started making our
way Westward along the Rio Grande, sticking to the US highways the rim the
Texas border to the South. On the way we happened to pass through the official hometown
of Freddy Fender. Born in San Benito in 1937, he spent his life in South Texas,
dying in Corpus Christi in 2006.
Fender was never a huge success, but everyone knows his
name. He managed to create many country favorites that eventually became top 10
songs. He even a handful of chart topers, as well as a number one country album.
Fender acted in a small number of films, including The Milagro Beanfield War,
directed by Robert Redford. While I don’t know for sure, I imagine that one had
something with Fender getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard.
Knowing that we would soon be heading out, we decided to get
in as much last-minute birding as we could. Heading back to McAllen, we headed
back to several gems we had been to earlier in our visit. At Bentsen State Park
we spotted some of the same characters we have become used to seeing. A juvenile
Painted Bunting had been spotted at Quinta Mazatlán, but other than seeing its
blue streak flying by in the branches, we were skunked. At the World Butterfly Center,
we scored this Lifer, an Eastern Starling. Its bill in the summer is bright
yellow, but in the winter, it looks like this.
We hit the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands & World Birding
Center hoping to score another Lifer. We saw Egrets and even spotted a Black
Crowned Night Heron in a tall tree. But the birds were few and far between,
probably because it was warm and still. Then we spotted our Lifer. A Double Crested
Cormorant. They winter in US Coastal areas.
We paid likely our last visit to the South Padre Island
Birding Center hoping to score another Lifer. Apparently, we got really lucky. Our
Audubon book suggests most birders never see this guy. It suggests he is so shy
that birders may only see him by either waiting for hours for him to peek out
from the reeds, or to put on waders and make their way through the reeds in
search of a score. We just happened upon him sunning himself for a few minutes
before he ducked back into the reeds just like Audubon said.
