If you can't be first, be satisfied with being second

Spent an odd evening in a dead RV park in a dying small town, Sierra Blanca, in west Texas. 

Not much to see there, but did find a historical marker at the intersection describing the meeting of two railways, one from the east and one from the west, that created the 2nd Transcontinental Railroad. 

We've visited Promontory Summit, Utah where the last spike, a golden one, was driven in to complete the 1st Transcontinental Railroad.  All of this was done with much fanfare.   We think that Sierra Blanca missed out on a lot of special attention and should have had their own "Silver Spike Ceremony" when the two lines met. 

The most activity we saw when we were there was the meeting of the FedEx Ground Delivery trucks.  4 double semis met behind the gas station next door and switched trailers.  Guess this was a transcontinental trip but with no trains involved.  The drivers from Los Angeles got to head back west and the drivers from New York headed east

HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE

Dean has boasted to many folks this year that we had no rain during the times that we were driving – after the deluge we ran through just getting out of Bremerton in the first place – and that the RV and CR-V still looked pretty clean..

So, after more than three months on the road, we got caught this week in an unusual combination of events. On the morning we planned to leave Choke Canyon State Park enroute to John Garner State Park, fog had rolled in, and everything was drippy wet. The fog cleared off by the time we left, and the driving was not troublesome. The roads still had some damp spots, but they were never wet.

As we motored up the way, we passed a sign that neither of us had ever seen alongside any road.

What the heck was that all about??? We soon found ourselves surrounded by vegetable farms and concluded that the trucks hauling the produce to market probably tracked mud on the road as they left the field .But the crops had long ago been harvested; in fact, the fields were being tilled for the next crop. The roads looked fine.

Surprise! There must have been enough residual dirt/dust on the road that the fog moisture did in fact make it into mud. When we arrived at the park, we found the lower sides of the RV were “painted” a beautiful reddish grey, and the little CR-V looked like a potato just pulled from the ground. It couldn’t even be driven until we wiped some of the coating from the windshield and windows. Yuk!!   

We were so busy finding and wetting rags to clean off the hitch so we could disconnect and then cleaning off the CR-V windows so we could drive that we didn't get the actual picture.  But it looked a lot like this.

As luck would have it, the park had no restrictions about washing vehicles, so both of them got enough of a bath to be presentable as we headed farther north and west.
Our RV was pretty dirty too on par with our experience on the Alaskan dirt roads. 

What a mess!

Choke Canyon Wildlife

Choke Canyon is another of our special Texas State Parks.  We wondered how the wildlife and birding would be affected by the Texas drought.  We saw no sign of the drought in this area and saw lots of birds and deer.  The rangers said the reservoir was down 12 feet but we've seen it down much farther than that in the past.

Some of the birds at our feeders were the Cardinal, the Green Jay and the (new for us) Audubon's Oriole.

What was missing were all the javelinas   We were wondering if the increase in gas line drilling in the area using (hydro)fracking might be tickling their toes (hooves?) and caused them to wander off elsewhere.  Think about it.  We've heard of possible tie-ins with fracking and earthquakes in Ohio.  Who knows what other things might be impacted.

Tornado or not?

Jeez, we really like to stay away from whirly winds!  We stayed put today because severe thunderstorms were forecast and we really didn't need to drive through lots of rain.  The excitement started early north of here.  Some places in the Houston area had rain at the rate of 4" an hour.  People commuting got caught on the freeways and couldn't get off until the water receded.  There was hail and several tornadoes did touch down.  After seeing the disaster from an EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri,  these little EF0 and EF1 tornados don't (hardly) worry us!....

We finally did get the winds and lots of rain for about an hour and a half.  Puddles everywhere but we were in no danger of being caught in a flash flood.  The rivers here in the park WERE absorbing lots of run-off and running good.  We were able to keep getting TV reception but we dared not stay hooked to power so we sat there giving our onboard generator a good work out. 

Imagine our unease when we heard the NOAA radio report a tornado in our park!!

We didn't see it.  The rangers didn't either.  But there it is on the report!

BTW, the extreme drought in this part of Texas was alleviated today and now the rainfall totals for the year (all 9 days) is above average.

Nasty, bitey things

Ah, we like Brazos Bend State Park. There are so many trails, lots of animals to watch for, birds to identify, and 55 geocaches! Of course, that all comes with a price!
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People come to see the alligators so there are lots of warnings and rules for proper alligator watching etiquette.  At the fishing lake, the fisherman is warned to give up his catch to any gator that is interested.  The gators don't share.

 All Geocaches come with the warnings:

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DO NOT STICK YOUR HANDS INTO A HOLE WITHOUT FIRST LOOKING TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS HOME.  USE A STICK INSTEAD.  THINGS LIKE SPIDERS, TICKS, THORNS, POISON PLANTS, ANTS, SKEETERS, ARMY DRILLERS, AND POSSIBLE WILD ANIMALS SUCH AS FERAL HOGS, SNAKES, DEER, AND GATORS EXIST IN THIS PARK.  DO NOT APPROACH THEM OR THEIR YOUNG.
LEAVES OF THREE / LET THEM BE - POISON OAK, POISON IVY, AND SUMAC.

And coded signs: symbols for TICKS, SNAKES, POISON PLANTS & THORNS.  Oh, joy.

Lucky for us visiting in the winter is when the nasty, bitey things are absent or very logy.  No mosquitoes, no red ants, the snakes are sleeping MOST the time,

 and the gators lose their appetites at temperatures below 80. 

Home of the American Alligator

Back to one of our top places to camp.  We love seeing the alligators, traveling the trails, and identifying birds.

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As we've found in other places this winter, the winter bird migration is late and the northern birds haven't made it here.  But we were able to add two new birds to our Life List.  The pink-legged black-bellied whistling-duck and the red shouldered hawk.  We also saw pink roseate spoonbills, ibis, egrets, and herons.  As well as, the synchronized duck butt swimmers.

We found about a dozen of the 55 geocaches in the park.  Dean is getting better and better with his "geosense" and finds the caches right off.

At the campsite we were entertained by herds of deer, wading squirrels, cardinals and tufted titmice.

But the most fun is hiking the 2 mile path around Elm Lake (dubbed by us: Alligator Pond).  Our first day out we counted 49 gators sunning themselves. 

The next couple times around it seemed like just as many.  There are probably 100's of gators in the pond. 

Since our last visit, feral pigs have come to live in the park.  They have dug up the banks all around the lake and they have waded onto the offshore islands and eaten all the bushes.  We imagine that has affected the birds in this pond but expect they have moved to one of the other lakes.