Roses 1.0 Van Life

Drove home from Little Rock, no stops, except for gas and a quick bite, about 8 hrs. 2,200 miles to Oxnard, Ca to get the van, 4,400 miles back. Lots to do now that we’re back.

The farm we stayed at in Tx, Bee Happy Farm, was loaded with chickens, cows, horses and a dog. Our dog Sammy was a nervous wreck, constantly pulling on his leash or trying to get out of the van, so we left early after buying some grass fed beef from the environmentally conscious farmer. We decided to see Hot Springs National Park, our 8th NP this trip. It was about a 3.5 hr drive. It’s not like any NP we’ve see before. Here is the visitor center….

Here is the main drive through the park….

This is called Bath House Row. There are hotels with baths fed by the hot spring all along this side of the street. A creek fed by the springs used to run roughly down the street. Now all the water goes to the baths or to fountains. Here’s one of the springs left available for visitors to experience…

Water wells up from deep below and emerges from cracks in the rocks along the side of the “mountain”. It’s a tall hill really, an ozark mountain. It reaches 140 degrees but is in the 120’s here. I couldn’t hold my hand in it for more than 5 seconds. At one time this was a place to come to restore health. There are signs everywhere such as Babe Ruth visited here, or Stan Musial came here to recover after an injury. Seems like celebrities stopped coming in the ’50’s. You can still drink the water. People were lining up with multiple 5 gallon jugs to fill. The water seeps in, travels very deep, then is forced out from several springs. The journey takes 4,000 years! There is forested hill on both sides of the strip with hiking trails and a scenic drive. Here’s the view from one…..

We ate lunch at Stubby’s BBQ in Hot Springs, a roadfood.com legendary rated spot. And tonight we ate at Doe’s, another legendary rated place. Doe’s is a steak place, it was incredible.

Sleeping at Cracker Barrel tonight. Peggy not ready to go home but I am. No firm plan for tomorrow. Could make it home if we drive hard, or could take 2 days.

Peggy wanted to see the best of the Texas Bluebonnets and a town just south of Limpasas is known for them. Here’s a picture at Turkey Bend state recreation area near that town, Marble Falls…

She found a good spot. We ate sandwiches here then hit the road to Breshear where there is a HarvestHosts.com site, Bee Happy Farms. Traffic was terrible around Waco to Dallas, took way too long, but we arrived. No interesting restraurants, skipped two near Marble Falls. Won’t be any new birds today.

Tomorrow Little Rock area. Will probably pick another Harvest Host spot, more enjoyable than Cracker Barrel or Walmart.

Drove more than I like today. We are staying at Pillar Bluff Winery tonight. The owner met us when we pulled in and gave us a wine tasting session. We aren’t oenophiles but we did like one so bought a bottle of Cabernet Blanc, and then he left. We are alone on his vineyard now. Walked the property twice. Ate sandwiches we bought earlier at Schlotsky’s. I just finished reading, Peggy’s already asleep. It’s a nice place, quiet, secluded. His grape vines were killed by the winter’s of 2018 and 2019. He didn’t have any vines left for 2021 to kill. He plans to close up shop soon. He sells the last of the bottles from his grapes and he makes wine from grapes purchased from vineyards nearby.

Peggy wants to see Marble Falls tomorrow. It’s supposed to be an attractive place. There’s a roadfood.com spot there where we’ll probably have lunch, then we’ll make some progress toward home later in the day.

Two life species here, Scissor Tailed Flycatcher and Bewick’s Wren

This day we went west toward Cottonwood and Santa Elena canyon. Cottonwood area is very similar to Rio Grande village on the east side of the park, a strip of green with willow and cottonwood trees. We hiked Sam Nail ranch trail and Homer Wilson ranch trail, as well as the area around Cottonwood CG.

Santa Elena Canyon is near the western end of the park. The Rio Grande flows through this narrow gap.

The shear vertical cliff on the left is in Mexico, on the right in USA. The river is in the gap, it immediately turns left, east. See the gradual upward slope at the base of the right-side cliff, here is a view from there…

Four hikes and a lot of driving. From the Persimmon gap entrance to Santa Elena canyon is 60 miles, 120 round trip.

The night before we stayed at Stillwater RV park again. We tried our ask the CG host if there were any spots gambit, and yes there were two yesterday, day 1, in Rio Grande CG. But you can’t pay by putting money in an envelope, and then sliding that into a post, the usual way campgrounds do it. No, here you must pay by going onto recreation.gov The CG host had cancelled the two spots when campers left early, one of them he cancelled the day before but neither of the spaces became available on recreation.gov. This night we’re at Fort Stockton Resort and RV park, a gravel parking lot on the edge of Fort Stockton, with decent shower and good internet. Ate at Dickey’s, a Texas BBQ chain. San Antonio tomorrow, or farther.

New birds today: Black Throated Sparrow, Golden Fronted Woodpecker, Red Naped Sapsucker, Road Runner.

Big Bend is a sprawling park; two entrances but most enter through Persimmon gap gate. As you enter you see country just like the west Texas range land, desert, you’ve been driving through for miles, and miles. There may be slightly more brush and slightly more greenery due to the lack of grazing in the park. There are three interesting areas of the park, Rio Grande village, Chisos Basin and Cottonwood. We went to the first two on day one.

It’s roughly 40 miles from the entrance to Rio Grande village. The landscape is Creosote shrubs, Yucca and Prickley pear cactus, then suddenly you come over a slight hill and look down on a green strip of land dominated by cottonwood trees, willows and cattails. The Rio Grande creates a 1/4 mile strip of green on either side. Here are some pictures…..

They say the marshy area in the immediate foreground is a beaver pond. The elevated walkway is part of the nature trail from the campground. The Rio Grande is just a stream, ankle deep in places. Apparently almost all the water in it comes from the Mexico side of its drainage. We suck as much water out of it as drains into it from the US side. The picture above is from a small hill looking upstream, west. Of course that’s Mexico on the left.

This picture is from the same hill looking south. There is a small Mexican town just a 1/2 mile downstream and many Mexican families could be seen, out for a stroll along the river. The drive from the entrance to this trailhead was over 40 miles.

The best area in the park is Chisos Basin. Smack in the middle of the park, it is an island of green in a sea of barren-ness. As you drive you climb about 2,000 feet then descend a little into the basin, a bowl shaped alpine landscape with very different flora from either the desert or the riparian zone. Here is a picture of “the window”, a gap in the shear rock walls that surround the basin. This is of course where water runs out toward the Rio Grande…..

The high rocky mountains you see on both sides of the window are surrounding, 360 degrees, except for this gap. It was noticeably cooler, and greener than any place other than the strip of green along the river. Eastern species such as white tailed deer live here, but nowhere else nearby for 100’s of miles.

Not many new birds, a little disappointing, Gray Hawk, tons of Vermillion Flycatchers (not new for me but have only seen one, a lost bird in Florida), Pyrholuxia.

One thing John Steinbeck* knew, traveling with a dog is an ice breaker. You meet and converse with more people when you have a dog with you. As I sat on the front porch of Stillwater’s general store a leather faced cowboy rode up on a Harley, got off and admired Sammy. After a brief conversation he said “My dog’s a hog dog”….”a catahulee”. Turns out there is such a dog, a catahoula. The only dog breed to originate in Louisiana, possibly bred by the choctaw indians. They are indeed used to work hogs, and cattle.

• * Travels with Charlie, read it one summer in high school

The drive Monday 3/29 from Las Cruces to Stillwater RV park was through bleak west Texas scrub country, at first on I 10, then on an almost perfectly straight ribbon of asphalt called Texas state road 90. The park was full so we chose to stay at Stillwater RV park and general store. The office/store is the converted living room of a house. Hallie Stillwater’s Hall of Fame Museum is next door, free admission but you have to get them to unlock it. The landscape was monotonous the entire drive, just west Texas desert; flat rock and gravel strewn land with occasional butte or mesa, at times high enough to qualify as a mountain. The park campgrounds are full and Stillwater RV is the closest to the entrance, plus its only $20. Here we are at our luxurious campsite…..

It’s basically a place scraped level in the desert. The store, the owner’s home really, and restroom is about 3 city blocks away. No cell phone or internet. The best part was the intense quiet, and the beautiful night sky.

New life birds here were Scaled Quail, Say’s Phoebe and Crissal’s Thrasher.

• * A line from a movie that kept going though my mind as I drove 6 hours across that God awful Gene Autry country. Hat tip to anyone who knows the movie. I can’t remember it.

After Mesa Verde we decided to spend the night at a Cracker Barrel in Gallup NM. About 7 other RV’ers did the same. This was Sat 3/27. On Sunday we drove from Gallup to Las Cruces with a stop in Albuquerque’s Costco to replenish gas and propane. We ate lunch at a road food.com place, Garcia’s Kitchen. Had NM’s signature dish, Chile rellenos, then on to Hacienda RV park in Las Cruces (clean, showers great). The southern 2/3’s of NM are bleak. The highlight was seeing the many orchards along the Rio Grande. The latter is sucked almost dry by towns, agriculture and invasive water loving plants. It’s barely a stream here.

Yesterday in Moab we met an Ausiecol*. At the dog park today, 3/27 we encountered an Ausielab, and a Cowboy Corgi. The latter was really cute. The owner explained the breeder purposefully back crossed a blue healer with a welsh Corgi in order to get a corgi with longer legs. “So their belly won’t get dirty”, she explained. Both breeds are cattle dogs so the ability to herd cattle isn’t diminished.

• Ausiecol – Australian shepherd and Border Collie