We are now in Dallas and it is Sunday March 24.  We finally figured out what was going on with the cellphone; we were not in a Verizon coverage area, and although the phone was connected to a system and looked like it was working, it could not receive our calls, nor make a call without giving the foreign network a credit card.  Thus we could not receive calls for 2 weeks, and did not know it until the last few days that we had the problem.  Verizon tech support would not tell us why either; they just said they would fix it in a few days.  A Cellular One rep at the rattlesnake roundup finally gave me the clue I needed, when he said "Verizon does not cover this area; we do, and we stop working in Dallas."  Ahhhh....Head EAST!!  We saddled up when we had seen the rattlesnake roundup, and did not stop until the cellphone worked, 4 hours later just west of Fort Worth.  We apologize to those concerned about our potential demise, and now have a Walmart Phone Card if these problems arise again, which I do not expect between here and home.

March 15 to March 22, 2002

 Friday March 15 I awoke early and checked for a net connection on the cellphone in Ft Stockton. There was a  strong digital signal, but it refused a Verizon Direct To Net or a dial to my ISP connection. We went to the Post Office; our mail had just come in.  We bought boxes to send packages, sorted mail, mailed packages and paid our auto excise tax bill due March 20, then filled out a form to have our mail held in Sudbury rather than forwarding to our mail forwarder in Marlboro.  We fueled, checked the visitors info booth in a surplus railroad caboose, then filled propane.

We tried to call big Bend Park, and the cellphone demanded a credit card....Hmmmmmm. We proceeded to Big Bend National Park without calling. The cellphone stopped working completely, with no signal; a first!  This was SOME scenery we were approaching.  

We never were satisfied with the detail in the information we could get at any visitor's info booths about the campgrounds in Big Bend, and had not called only because the digital cell phone service asked for a credit card. One kind soul who shall remain unnamed to protect their job suggested that there was an overflow RV area at Rio Grande Village (evidently a closely guarded secret about this area over 50 miles from the main gate) that opened only after 6 PM. Others said only that their info about the reliability of the data they had received at noon about 3 available spaces in Rio Grande City was suspect due to it's age now at 4 PM, and that they would consider commercial campgrounds outside the park at this hour, rather than risk having to drive back.  It turns out that the official position of the Big Bend management is to manage the first come first served camping areas by keeping new visitors in the dark, and encouraging them to use commercial campgrounds OUTSIDE the park.  GRRRRRRRRRR.  A kind camper told us all this as we drove aimlessly around looking for a site at Rio Grande City at 6PM.  He pointed us to the campground hosts, who then offered to open the overflow area in 30 minutes when we knocked on their trailer door.  Everyone in official positions is VERY nice, while withholding vital information about how the place works......  Such a deal!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! At least this place accepted our National Parks pass, unlike most places.  Our National Park Service does seem to need a bit of H E L P!  The wind was up and I was VERY uncomfortable from the blowing dust; I had burning eyes, and difficulty sleeping.  I think I want OUTTA here now!!!

Saturday March 16 I awoke at 7:45AM, VERY late for me.  The wind had died; I slept like a baby after midnight, when it cooled enough to close the windows.  I also found that washing my face & eyes helps immensely when they start to burn. My sinuses seem to have adjusted to dry air, as the continual headaches I have had since we left Kerrville have subsided.  I drink LOTS more non-coffee fluid, which helps keep the sinuses draining.  Claire does not seem to have the problems here that I do with dryness and dust.  We ate quickly and biked the mile from the overflow area to the main campsite area to seek a site vacated by an early departing camper.  A number are now open, and we choose a suitable one, fill out the envelope with the $8 fee, and Claire occupies the site while I bike back for the RV.  I tip off the remaining camper in overflow that there are open sites, they move IMMEDIATELY to pick one out.  The place was full of birds; this turkey buzzard must have sensed my frustration of the night before as he circled low overhead.  :-)  

We decide to bike early, passing thru the busy visitor's center without talking to anyone, and proceed toward Boquillas Canyon and the nearby Rio Grande overlook.  This turns out to be a delightful day, with short hikes and bike rides between trail heads, SPECTACULAR scenery, with over 100 pictures and a total of 13.5 miles.

 It seems no wind is the key to a good day here.  :-)    We bought Boquillas embroidery from a little charmer who crossed the river to sell to park visitors.  :-)  Her parents helped a little... :-)

We had been warned about the javilina, or collared peccary that lived in the park devouring anything left out, including pets.  This crew showed up at dark when I was walking Pookie (he was curious to explore closer and I picked him up fast).  They have no fear of humans nor flash photography.  

They are social animals and seem to enjoy each other's company.

Sunday March 17 we planned to go to Mexico, leaving hiking the hot springs trail for tomorrow; two visitor's center volunteers suggested doing hot springs trail first, as high winds (20-30) are predicted for tomorrow, with accompaning dust.  :-(    We took their suggestion, hiking the 2.8 miles each way after biking to the trailhead. On the way to the trailhead we came upon this renowned creature of the Southwest.

You guessed it; ROADRUNNER in person!   This trail is an EXPERIENCE; it takes you over the mountain that the car tunnel goes through, with so many photo opportunities we can show only a few. Flowers are unusual, beautiful, and scattered.

 The views of the Rio Grande and the canyons it etched are indescribable; pictures really cannot capture it.

 Claire's sharp eyes spotted this fossil on the trail.

The hot springs at the end are a VERY welcome reward.  

We wore bathing suits under our hiking clothes just for this (thanks to a suggestion from the campground hosts). The warm waters really soothed the overworked feet, legs and back.  :-))  This is the remains of a 1920's era spa built on the river and reputededly frequented by some DuPonts, among others.  Mexican kids are selling trinkets here too; this unusual blonde girl with freckles, albinoish white skin and DARK eyes was one of them.

A Mexican blonde, fancy that!  It was a real toss up whether to stay in the water here overnight, or leave in time to get back before dark, but in the end reason prevailed.  We had over half our water left, so decided after a GREAT 45 minute hot mineral  soak to return walking instead of trying to bum a ride; we got back EXHAUSTED, too tired for anything but left over beans & salad in tortilla shells; it sure tasted DELICIOUS though!!

Monday March 18  the forecast high winds did not materialize!!  :-)  We decided to stay another day and do Mexico.  We started around 10 AM, but I did not reach the blacktop from the campsite before I realized something was VERY wrong;  my rear bike tire was flat.  A quick inspection revealed a BIG thorn in the tire. I could not pull it out from the outside, but pulling the tire from the rim revealed an inch long substantial thorn had perforated the tire and tube. :-(  We had a repair kit in our tools on the RV, but no on the bike hand pump.  This would have been a REAL inconvenience if it had shown up 10 miles from home.  We must buy a hand pump, and carry the patch kit with us too, as soon as we get back to civilization and a store. We got back on the road again around noon, soon reaching the Boquillas crossing, and locked the bikes to a pipe structure.  We chatted with some returning folks, found some had paid $2 to cross, some $3.  All had returned with some trinkets.  At the river's edge we could see trucks, a bunch of horses, a separate bunch of burros or donkeys (I still have trouble telling these apart), and a group of Mexican men on the other side.

 The boatmen hollared from the Mexican side asking if we wanted to cross. Claire replied "How much?"  When they replied $2, she said "Yes".   The man rowed the steel flat bottomed boat across with one oar and rowed us back across the 50 foot wide river. The rower said "Pay him" pointing to another.  The money man said "He gets the tip" pointing to the boatman who had rowed us across.  I told the money man to give my $1 change to the boatman and everybody seemed happy.  We intended to walk the half mile to the village, and the boatman was happy to point out the road.  We passed tables lining the street, filled with minerals, cheap trinkets, and VERY light walking sticks that looked like wood but must have been made of foam filled plastic.

Minerals and agricultural products from Mexico are forbidden imports, so we declined those, temptingly beautiful though they are.  We found the bright blue painted restaurant, and a waiter who spoke pretty good english; he brought us two Corona's ($1.50 ea) and a small bowl of lime slices. We knew what to do with the lime, although we only squeezed the juice into the bottle instead of dropping the whole slice in as we would at home.  We ordered tacos too; $1.50 for three small chicken filled ones.  Claire pronounced that the chicken was canned; she oughta know!  We both took comfort in that too, as some of the chickens running around town did not look particularly healthy.  :-) We walked around, taking lots of pictures; this young lady, Wendy, even recognized her name when I said it with my USA accent.  :-)

These people are so friendly, but to live in such poverty I cannot imagine.....   We were approached by many kids selling the same trinkets we had bought our fill of.  We waved most off, but one pair of little girls too young to bargain received a quarter each from Claire, with no trinkets taken.  They ran excitedly home.

Note the photoelectric cells on the roof and large satellite dish in the yard; some things you just GOTTA have in this region devoid of ANY radio (AM or FM) or TV!   Two minutes later we were approached by a large group of older kids pushing their wares in our faces and asking for $$.  Word of a soft touch spreads fast here!  We said "No, No and NO!!"  They went away..... We walked back to the crossing with another couple, and crossed with them.  The boatman said "Free return; you paid to come over.  You can leave a tip if you want to."

 I handed him $1 as we left the boat.  As we set out for home with our trinkets Claire fell from her bike, and arose with a bleeding shin.  Her bike chain was also off the sprocket; that fixed easily, but the bleeding shin required immediate tissue wipes, and later washing and an ice pack for the swelling.  She recovered fast, and later in the evening we walked the nature trail in Rio Grande village.  It had nice views of the river; we looked down on three Mexican horsemen as they rode across the river.  

It appeared they would cross again further up the winding river; a trip to the USA seemed to be the shortest ride home for them, and they would take the shortest way, boundry or no boundry.  We returned to move the pictures from the full camera to the computer, and plan tomorrow's trip to McDonald observatory near Davis State park. It turns out to be over 150 miles, and about 4.5 hours drive.  We still have things unseen in Big Bend, but of the things we can see from the RV, it seems we have seen the best; the dust has held off as a special favor to us too.  :-))   A beautiful sunset shining on the pink ridges above Rio Grande Village campground seems to be a great way to say "Bye Bye" to Big Bend Park.

  After dark, Claire talked with a woman who had been bitten by someone's pet javelina; I'm glad I had all the close javelina pictures I wanted by then; they really can get nasty.   :-)

Tuesday March 19 we awakened during the night to an unfamiliar sound; RAINDROPS on the roof.  We closed up the vents and returned to sleep.  I awoke, fully depleted the engine battery running the computer (GOTTA stop doing that!), then took Purry for a morning walk.  The fresh humid air from the rain smelled delightful.  Last evening I was approached by a campground neighbor who asked how we managed to run on only an hour of generator a day; his batteries were always discharging.  I had investigated briefly then, and felt very little heat coming from his charger, and just a bit of heat on one of his battery terminals while he was charging.  A quick turn on the battery terminal caused bubbling to start in the battery.  He reported this morning that his problem seemed solved, and we had a nice talk about the geology of the area. He was a retired oil field geologist.  :-)  We were approached by a man looking for a site, and told him we would be leaving by 10AM.  He parked his car on our site to save it.  We decided to leave a bit early, and proceeded to the store parking lot where we showered, then dumped and filled water before starting the 150 mile drive to Fort Davis State Park.  We looked for a lunch restaurant to save a big evening meal, as we intended to go to star viewing at Davis Observatory in the evening.  We were out of luck several places, either too late for lunch or they were closed.  We arrived at Davis State Park mid afternoon, and were VERY surprised when we exited the RV; it was CHILLY.  The GPS said 5100 feet elevation, so that must be the reason.  The full hookup sites were full, but the water only sites suited fine.  We backed in, and looked at the scenery; soon a herd of mule deer with a big multi pointed stag bringing up the rear moved across the road and up the mountain.  Claire noticed one stayed close, hidden in the grass.  Later she said it was the stag, as he moved back toward us.  I snapped photo after photo as he approached, passed close by, and went behind us.  He was not disturbed by my opening the RV door, then stepping out.  I decided to see how close I could approach, and saw he was eating corn put out by folks in another campsite.  I got within 5 feet before he became agitated and backed away from the corn; at that point he was going to do battle with me for the corn;

I snapped the picture and beat a hasty retreat. It was too chilly out here without a jacket anyway.... and I never noticed before that all those points seem to point FORWARDS.   :-)  We had an early dinner/ late lunch of macaroni & cheese, then drove the 13 miles to McDonald Observatory.  

The hills were steep and the road wound around a lot, up and down;  I was glad for low gear going down a number of them; it saved the breaks, maybe even our necks. :-)    The star party was interesting; Claire returned after buying the tickets and said she wanted thermal underwear and winter jacket.  I followed suit without question.  The telescope viewing was interesting but crowded; we got just a short look after standing in line in the cold, but the constellation finding demonstration was very good.  The leader had a powerful light that served him as a pointer in the sky to the stars he was talking about.  I never could see much in the flat star charts, but having the real live sky to look at as the leader explained it brought the constellations alive.  The drive back at night was interesting too;  fortunately the road was very well marked with reflectors.  We drove slow anyway.  :-)

Wednesday March 20 the heat ran often during the night.  The outside thermometer read  43, but it was windy. We got out early and went to a bird talk at 8:30AM. Davis Mountain State Park has a very nice interpretitive center with large viewing window near the feeders.

It is all staffed by volunteers.  We had to decline the carpool trip to see more birds, as we had no time if we were to shower as planned before going to Carlsbad. The route the computer chose for us was much more level than trip back past McDonald observatory would have been. :-)  We entered Mountain Time at the New Mexico state line.  We decided not to reset our clocks as we would only stay in New Mexico one day.  The cellphone still asked for a credit card, although we had a strong digital signal. :-(   I called Verizon customer service on a Walmart payphone, and after two bounces got Jeff at the roaming center.  He determined the phone number was not being recognized in this market, said he could fix it, perhaps in a couple days. He wanted a land line number to reach us; HA HA HA.  I suggested that he fix it  and call us on the cellphone, as it was our primary means of communication. GRRRRRRR!!  I tried to use BigZoo to make some calls, but the payphone would not accept their 888 number. :-((   I shopped a bit before retiring early.

Thursday March 21 we went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  The entrance is high above the surrounding terrain.

Our National Parks Pass actually worked; it was good for the full ($6 ea) admission for both of us. Now we are only $23 in the hole on it.  We walked the 1.5 miles down into Cavern, then the 1.3 miles in the big room; we felt no need to pay for a kings palace tour.  We were fully exercised, mentally saturated, and had a full camera.

The facilities at the bottom of the cave are over 700 feet below the mountaintop entrance. This was a delightful place to visit, different from anything I have ever seen; Claire had visited here when on a work trip to White Sands years ago. It was early in the season, but a Ranger indicated he had seen ONE bat come out at dusk (6:30) last night.  We decided to eat on the mountaintop, then watch for bats, and drive the 26 miles back to Carlsbad for the night after dark. We were tripped up by our clocks, and went to the cave an hour early.  DUH!!   It was CHILLY, but we did see some cave swallows.  We also observed this guy carefully following the directions on the road sign....

We decided to move the RV near the cave entrance; we were VERY much alone, but could wait for dusk in the warm RV, and see any large bat formations (Yeah, sure...) exit the cave mouth.  

Before dusk we walked to the ampitheater.  As dusk approached, we saw a flicker of motion, then the unmistakable bat flight motion over the cave entrance; it circled a few times, then disappeared.  A few minutes later another appeared, then two more.  We waited 10 minutes more, until it was too dark to be sure what we were seeing, then departed for the dark drive down the mountain. A check of the map indicated this is as far west as we will get this trip; the road down the mountain is the start of the return trip!  It was easy to fall asleep this night.

Friday March 22 32.8 F at 6:30 AM; Brrrr, glad for the furnace, which runs frequently. Shopped, then fueled.  For the first time ever I overfilled my estimate I put on the Walmart gift card, and as pump did not work I was left to pay full price or put more $ on the gift card; I walked to Walmart & put an extra $5 on the card to clear out. Geeze, a double failure; GRRRR.  On the way out we passed the Nevada nuclear waste deep storage area, but declined to visit, as it was 12 miles each way off our course; hmmmm, maybe there were other reasons we declined their offer of a tour too.  A glowing RV just would not seem that cool to me.......  :-)  We parked for lunch in Hobbs NM in the Elks Club parking lot, otherwise unoccupied. This is an oil town, typical of many in the southwest.

 We found the Big Springs TX Chamber of Commerce as we drove into Big Springs, and received directions to the "Rodeo Barn" which I guess is also known as the Howard County Fairgrounds, where the advertised rattlesnake roundup is to occur.  More info on this event revealed it is a buying of snakes from the hunters, a demonstration of snake handling and safe snake country techniques,  also combined with an arts and crafts show and a visiting carnival; indeed, fun for all ages!  :-)  Photo opportunities we hope.....  The @#$%%^&! cellphone still does not work, but now it does not ask for a credit card, it just says the call did not go through; is this progress?  Hmmmmm.....

 PLANS; We will move east on I-20 into northern Louisiana,  Mississippi (maybe Natchez), Alabama (maybe Huntsville) then up into Tennessee and on north to home by April 10.  The route will be determined by the weather; we don't go in snow, so will route around it or stop.  Hopefully it will be warm in Massachusetts there by then.  :-)