Horns, Thorns, Fangs & Stingers

Since departing Dublin, Tx we have been without an internet connection or mobile phone service so this post is coming after a few days break. 

The trip from Dublin to Caprock Canyons State Park was almost a six hour drive, after a number of stops.  We did make it on just one tank of fuel, but only barely.  However our bladders just can’t go that long.  The landscape got so sparse on settlements that one time there was no option other than to pull over to the side of the road and open the rig and use our on-board facilities. 

Traveling north and west for nearly 300 miles brought on a significant change in geology and climate.  We moved from the low, rolling plains and Oak and Cottonwood covered hills and ravines to the high plains with its climb of over a thousand feet in elevation, scrub mesquite, massive farm fields, three-digit temperatures and one-digit humidity. 

 

Long, straight roads from which you can almost see the curve of the earth.

We flowed into the campground like lava.  It was the middle of the afternoon and the campground check-in parking lot asphalt was sticking to the tires.  If you have been keeping up with these posts you know to expect me to say we got the A/Cs hooked up and headed out to find a bite to eat while the camper cooled down.  But not this time, the nearest open eatery on a Sunday afternoon was over 50 miles away.  In fact, there was almost nothing from a shopping or dining perspective anywhere nearby.  At least I could get diesel, and thank goodness for that because I was on fumes.  Another feature that came with the new location was wind, lots of wind.  When you are 13’ tall and 60’ long it does not take much wind to really up the fuel consumption to keep things moving down the road.  I can’t even bring myself to calculate what my mileage was. 

The last time we were in this State Park was 30 years ago this month.  Things are really different.  Back in ’83 it had just become a state park.  Other than a few trails, there was no development.  Now there is an RV campground with water and electricity as well as numerous walk-in and back-country tent camping areas.  There are multiple interpretive kiosks, a bison herd, lake and equestrian campground and trails. 

I really like the RV spaces.  They are wide spaced and the mesquite brush is thick enough between sites that it is hard to tell you even have a neighbor. 

Wind is such a prominent feature that the picnic tables have built-in wind breaks.

Cyndee is liking her new front yard.

 

There are no spaces behind us at all so we can open the blinds on our rear picture window and watch the wind whip the mesquite around and keep an eye out for critters.  And have we ever been seeing critters!

 

We saw our first rattle snake today on the drive in.  It was big fat one about 4’ long just boogying down the shoulder of the road.  No pictures, we just had to enjoy that one as we slipped by at 65 mph.  But once parked, the camera came out and animals started making themselves available for portraits.

 

 

Two mule deer wondered through camp at sunset.

These guys were everywhere

A herd of buffalo free-ranges throughout this 15,000 acre park. 

One of two tarantulas that wondered through our camp.

These rodents are cute to many but can be
a serious pest to the rancher and farmer.



Prairie Dog Towns are common in this area.
But this one was next to the campground bath house.



The bull of the herd.  He preferred to keep to himself, grazing in a deep draw
where the sage brush was tall and thick.  I got this portrait of him from about a half mile away.
Photo heavily cropped and enlarged.

Unlike the lizard on the post, this one was camera-shy.  I had to chase
after him and get this shot while on the move.

Millipede

There is a saying about the flora and fauna of this part of Texas, everything either has a horn, thorn, fang or stinger.  Just from the few things we have seen so far, it appears to be a pretty accurate description.

 

We got to do a little hiking on our first morning in this canyon, before the temperatures soared.  Our memory of it being a beautiful place was not wrong.

 

 

 

The park had experienced deluge of a rainstorm just 4 days before we arrived.  They got four and a half inches of rain in two hours.  That is almost a third of their annual rainfall in a single, two-hour event.  Signs of damage to roads at low-water crossings were everywhere but the good part was that deserts respond quickly to the little rain they get.  The canyon was green and little blooms were everywhere and you could see the cactus were just going to explode with blooms in a few more days.  But the contrast between the red clays, white gypsum and deep green of the waxy vegetation was spectacular.  Don't forget, you can click on the photos and they will enlarge.

Our second day started with much lower wind speed, as it usually does.  Mornings tend to be calm but as soon as the heat starts rising, so does the wind.  Our excursion into the canyon on the first day was all the way in to the area known as the South Prong.  Today we visited the North Prong.  It was getting hot fast so we set a short goal of hiking out to the "notch" and back.  It is a place where the trail passes through a V-notch (some natural erosion, some trail-built), in a butte that leads into a wide area of the floor of the canyon.

 

 

It did not take too long before it was too hot to be traipsing around the canyon floor.  We retreated to the air conditioned comfort of Big Gulp and headed out to another part of the park.  It is not in the canyon proper, rather, it is 90 miles of a rail-to-trail conversion.  They took this old rail line, pulled up all the rail and cross-ties, added a layer of gravel and made it available for hikers, bikers and horses.  This trail has the added feature that there are at least six trestles to cross and one tunnel that is now home to a large population of Mexican free-tail bats.

The tunnel was about five miles in the direction the above photo was shot.  But this was not a 10 mile walking day for Cyndee and I, or anybody else either.  At 104° it would have been a challenge to enjoy the walk.

Time here is too short, after two nights we are moving again.  This time to Palo Duro Canyon State Park.  On our way out we made a stop at the park headquarters to meet the park volunteer coordinator in person.  This is who we will be working for next spring for 60 days.  We hope it works out but there may be a showstopper.  The Texas State Park System requires volunteers to acquire a "non-owners liability insurance policy".  So far, of six insurance companies that we have contacted they all looked at us like we had two heads.  They said there was no way they would accept liability for state-owned equipment.  Evidently Progressive Insurance will add it as a rider to their policy, but you have to have your insurance with them.  That is fine, but they won't write a policy for full timers.  We have us a catch-22.  The volunteer coordinator is going to call headquarters in Austin and see if they will waive the requirement or come up with some other alternative.