ON THE ROAD AGAIN....

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again

-Willie Nelson

Day 4:  Got a good night’s sleep at where else? Walmart! in Sealy, Texas.  Today was a day of learning on the RV curve.  #1: Learned we could fill our water tank at any gas station with a spigot and a hose.  #2: Learned that if we went to a state park with a campground and paid our day use fee, we could dump our tanks AND take nice hot showers in their roomy shower facilities.  

TEXAS BLUEBONNETS

GUADELUPE RIVER STATE PARK

Itinerary for today: West toward San Antonio, then Route 46 northwest looping around the city.  Along the way we decided to stop for a while at a park to get in some walking and birding.  Guadalupe River State Park was exceptionally beautiful.  This year’s rains have made all of Texas very green, grassy and blanketed with a profusion of colorful wildflowers.  There are bluebonnets (lupine), orange paintbrush, all sorts of purple, yellow and white cone flowers, red and yellow blanket flowers and multitudes of others which must remain nameless due to our botanical illiteracy.  The emerald green Guadalupe River runs through the park (of course), cutting a sheer wall 50 feet tall through the soft limestone that dominates the geology of this area.  Live oaks dripping with Spanish moss and sharp-spined mesquites make up most of the trees, but along the river, giant bald cypress trees, some with trunks six feet in diameter, line the banks, having somehow survived many floods that would have gone right over their topmost branches.  Birding was excellent as well, despite it being a sunny mid-day.  Bright red summer tanagers singing, black-crested titmouse, and golden-cheeked warbler (an endangered specialty of the area).  Here’s what I like best about this mid-continent area for birding - canyon wren of the west singing on one side and northern parula warbler of the east singing on the other.  Many species just make it to the edge of their ranges here, with some overlap.  

We ended up in Kerrville, TX, early enough that we could do a quick laundry before heading out for some Texas BBQ! 

We resupplied and set up the Albatross for the night.  Gale cleaned out hundreds of dead little mosquito bodies and wiped the blood (ours) off all surfaces upon which the slaughter had occurred.  

The quest for the elusive black-capped vireo photo is tomorrow!  I may not have admitted the story to you, but two years ago, we went to Lost Maples State Park in Texas and one of the priorities was for me to photograph a BCVI.  I did AND THEN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED ALL MY SHOTS!  So tomorrow is my chance for redemption.  Wish me luck!

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BLACK-CAPPED VIREO

Day 5:  After a delightful night in another Walmart parking lot (we got the deluxe spot), we arose an hour before the sun to drive to Kerr Wildlife Management Area (WMA), THE spot for black-capped vireos.  It was a cold and windy morning (as opposed to a dark and stormy night), the exact opposite of what vireos like before becoming active for the day.  Vireos are like butterflies - they like it hot, sunny and calm, so they can sing all day.  First BCVI we found was in an oak/juniper thicket so dense we couldn’t find the bird, despite it singing loudly over and over again not 20 feet away!  As the day warmed, we tried several other spots, but to no avail.  My mood was darkening.  We decided to wander further back from the road to see if we could hear one singing somewhere.  After a half hour stumbling around, we found a singing male.  Chasing it around from shrubbery to shrubbery, tree to tree, defying any attempts at even a glimpse, let alone a photo.  Every time we did get a peek at it, it was a pop-up and disappear experience.  The, FINALLY, it sat still for a nano-moment in a semi-open oak and I fired off a barrage before it once more disappeared.  VICTORY!!!!

WESTERN DIAMONDBACK RATTLESNAKE

SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER

DEVIL'S SINKHOLE

We carried on west and paid a visit to The Devil’s Sinkhole, a massive 150 foot deep cylindrical hole with about a 60 foot diameter.  Forty years ago, when I was last here, this was the only place to see cave swallows, but now they nest under numerous bridges in west Texas.  There is also a colony of about 10,000 Mexican free-tailed bats that make the cave their home every summer.  Driving out of the park, a western diamondback rattlesnake was sunning itself in the middle of the road, flicking its tongue but not rattling its five segments.

No traveling south, we camped for the night at Kickapoo Caverns State Park, a lovely spot filled with vermilion flycatchers and more Bell’s vireos than you can count.  

Gale made an incredible dinner of chicken breasts crusted with cumin and pepper, covered with salsa verde, over a bed of rice and complemented by a fresh salad, mine with a delicious avocado.

Problem discovered: I can’t find my card reader to upload photos from my cameras to my computer and thence to this noteworthy journal.  

Day 6: We got up to find the whole place socked in with fog and mist.  Not deterred, after our usual breakfast of our usual fare of bran flakes and either raisins or dried cranberries, we went for a walk along the park road and off on a side trail.  There were many beautiful flowers and bloom laden prickly pear cacti. We found a singing Scott’s oriole, much to our delight.  For the entire drive south from Rocksprings to Brackettville, a distance of 58 miles, we saw no less than two other cars the entire way.  That’s a real back road!  We cruised west to Del Rio to resupply.  i bought a new card reader - it doesn’t work - incompatible with my computer.  Screwed.

PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS

Continued west and crossed gigantic Lake Amistad on the US/Mexico border.  There were three places I wanted to visit - two were now inaccessible and the third was dead.  Onward to Seminole Canyon State Park, where it is VERY hot and windy - the desert scirocco!

CACTUS WREN

Interesting place, with the oldest pictographs in North America drawn on several canyon walls where early people camped up to 8000 years ago.  Hopefully, it will be cooler in the morning and we can go for a hike and some birding before it heats up.

Sat out by our picnic table, being entertained by a cactus wren and an ash-throated flycatcher, each of which wanted to sit on my head!

FOUND MY CARD READER - I’M BACK IN BUSINESS AGAIN!

Day 7:  Last night, from nowhere, the wind got gusty and it felt like we were in a rocking boat.  Then it dies off and the monsoon started.  Totally pouring.  It would have been better if we had thought to close the exhaust fan hood and thereby prevent the wet floor in the morning, but we’re still learning.

BLACK-TAILED JACKRABBIT

SEMINOLE CANYON STATE PARK

OCOTILLO BLOSSOMS

We got a semi-early start and walked the several mile Canyon Rim Trail, which tracked the very edge of the canyon (“Sam, don’t get any closer to the edge!”) and gave us spectacular views of the winding bathtub shaped gorge.  Birds were good, too, blue grosbeak, pyrrhuloxia, scaled quail, turkey, verdin, black-throated sparrow, lark bunting and most amazing, so many singing, skylarking Cassin’s sparrows that we couldn’t believe their density.  We also saw a western ribbon snake slide across the path, too quick for a pic.  A black-tailed jackrabbit was far more entertaining.  The ocotillo, or coachwhip, were mostly in flower and I’m sure all the rain will only increase the desert bloom.

Back on the westering route 90, more and more into wide open Chihuahuan Desert, we pushed on, stopping only at an overlook at the Pecos River.  We were now in Judge Roy Bean’s jurisdiction.  

GAGE HOTEL, MARATHON, TEXAS

By late afternoon, we reached our destination for the night, the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas.  Once a cattle baron’s retreat, where millions of head of cattle were sold to be shipped out on the nearby railroad, the Gage is now an upscale luxurious lodge in the middle of nowhere.  After a refreshing swim in the large pool, we dined elegantly on (is this an oxymoron?) chicken-fried steak in the hotel’s fancy restaurant.

Tomorrow we depart for Big Bend National Park for 4-5 days, where we will once again be out of range for reporting.