Today we’re up
early and out the door, heading east to the park before breakfast but long
after sunrise. As it is February, perhaps
I should say relatively early. We stop
to buy gas, our entire lives now revolving around satisfying Pearl’s seemingly
unquenchable thirst and our lingering fear of empty gas tanks.
Checking the park map in the gas station, we note the nearest picnic table
location with some chagrin. We buy some
tea and settle in for a long haul.
Driving into the
park, we stamp our passports at the Panther Junction Visitor Center. Outside the center, the park has planted a
garden of flowers that grow in the desert.
We see creosote bush, acacia, prickly pear, agave, and various cacti. As we walk through the garden, I see numerous
six foot tall completely dead spiny, spiky sticks. Why has the Park Service left such frightful
looking things amidst this pretty garden?
Have they resorted to passive-aggressive crowd control methods to keep
the tourists at bay? Ah no, we’ve found
the magical Ocotillo plant that grows leaves and big red blossoms within 48
hours of rainfall. Without rain, we see
only the scary stick.
Returning to
Pearl, we stop at the first picnic spot we find. The gods of camping smile upon us, although I
can’t camp anymore. In this very arid
park, we’ve found a table sitting in a lovely copse of medium sized willow trees. The tree leaves dapple the sunlight, shading
us, important here even in February.
Bloodroot
carefully retrieves our stove and from Pearl’s hat. At $160, the cost of our new Primus Firehole far
exceeds the price of any camping stove we’ve ever owned or even contemplated
owning. I recall buying tents and
sleeping bags for less. Remember those
old Coleman stoves we all had? And all
of the craziness we’d employ creating windscreens for them? “OK, Keith, stand over there. Bloodroot – you to the right of him. Hold your tent bags. Up! To the left now! Block the wind!” With recessed burners deep inside the box, our
high tech stove lights and heats in full wind.
Camping-the new
high tech. But shouldn’t young people have to use the old Coleman stoves? Just to toughen them up a bit? Just think, early one morning, we magically replace
all smart phones with Coleman stoves. I
can hear Bloodroot already, ”Hey, what’s the story with the Wi-Fi on this big
green screen?” Would mass starvation ensue?
Would we create an apocalypse? Or maybe just the plot line for an installment
of The Hunger Games where the old
people are the good guys?
Keith and
Bloodroot prepare a great breakfast of bacon and eggs. As a mother, I proudly reflect that Bloodroot
wouldn’t starve even if a Coleman camping stove replaced his i-phone, although
he may subsist on nothing but bacon for the remainder of his life. I’m not sure that bacon and eggs have ever
tasted so good!
During breakfast,
we hear a creaking noise. We wander off
to explore. Not far from our copse we discover
an old windmill, one of those ancient rusty contraptions forever associated in
my mind with the depression and dust bowl.
Nearly a hundred years old, the windmill still pumps a bit of water out
onto the land, greening the area surrounding the picnic table. The water spurts out rhythmically as the pump
gears clack and turn.
Dugout Wells,
green and shaded, sits amongst the remains of 1920s farms. Exuberant farmers once irrigated the Rio
Grande’s floodplain growing cotton until the depression took all.
After our
refreshing breakfast, we pack up and head down to the river where the boys plan
to hike the Boquillas Canyon trail. We
meet two park employees with a backhoe digging something or another. Keith immediately notices the woman’s fine,
powerful and costly Zeiss binoculars. An
unfailingly polite bear, I’ve never previously seen Keith stare at a woman’s
chest. I see the gears turning in his
head as he considers leaving me for her.
“I’m taking a bird census,” she states, interrupting his ruminations.
We discuss birds
found in Big Bend National Park. She directs
us to a path near a boat ramp where Sven and I can drive right next to the
water. We follow her directions and look
out over the river flowing by, wide and lazy, enjoying the spring sunshine with
us.
Down by the river,
Keith and Bloodroot begin a sword fight with bamboo-like rushes. Bloodroot towers over Keith but always loses
these competitions despite his far greater reach. Keith chases Bloodroot bonking him on the
head repeatedly. Bloodroot lacked a
father growing up and never learned these games, nor does he ever tire of them.
The boys take off
on the Boquillas Canyon hike. Their
trail climbs up and over a hill then descends following the river for a wee
bit. Enterprising Mexicans ride horses
across the border and set out twisted wire scorpions on rocks hoping to entice the
tourists. The Mexican merchants leave notes
in English beside the mini-sculptures assuring us that sale proceeds fund
schooling for their kids across the border.
Whether true or not, what a tug on the heartstrings! The US Park service has given us detailed
lectures about NOT buying anything from these entrepreneurs.
We pile back into
Pearl and discover the most amazing thing - the Boquillas Border crossing. The crossing opened in 2013, unmentioned in
our pre-2013 guidebooks. We failed to
bring our US passports with us. Keith
doesn’t believe in the post-2001 seriousness of US borders and drives up to the
crossing imploring Bloodroot to ask if we can pretty please cross. Bloodroot complies, although certain that
this will be the stupidest question asked the border patrol all day. Bloodroot returns with the expected answer,
“No US passport; No crossing.” From now
on, should we plan to venture within 100 miles of any US border, we’ll put the
damn things in the glove compartment.
We drive away,
playing Wall of Voodoo’s Mexican Radio
full blast, singing along to celebrate at least looking into Mexico.
Eschewing the far
eastern side of the park, we return to the park’s center and climb into the
Chisos Mountains, the highest in the park.
Up, up, up Pearl ascends, taking the switchbacks with ease. “See, I’m strong,” she purrs. We park at the visitor center.
The Chisos
Mountains, named for an extinct Indian tribe, are tall enough to attract
moisture. Daily autumn rains bring the moisture
which sustains the basin all year. The
park exhibits speak of the area gradually drying over the past ten thousand
years, leaving the high mountains cooler, wetter islands. The bigger trees gradually died out, losing
the battle to the more arid climate.
But a park
volunteer tells us otherwise. In the
late 1800s, miners and mining companies completely denuded the park taking
every tree and scrap of wood they could find for mine supports. No longer forested, desiccation began. The forest has never returned. Chisos now has scrub trees and much more
green than the desert floor below, but no forest.
The boys head out
on the Basin Loop Trail while I investigate the park’s sole handicap accessible
trail, the Window View Trail. Sven and I
motor out to a bench overlooking the area.
Mountains surround me as I gaze out over the Chisos Basin, the left hand
side much greener than the right. The
mountains funnel water into a stream pouring out through a window dropping to
the desert far below. I peer out through
the distant opening listening to birdsong while the wind blows around me. Birds fly everywhere. I write.
The boys return from
their short hike. “Not much of a trail,
Beaver,” Keith says. “We saw a couple of
valleys. I think this is a prequel to
tomorrow’s Lost Mine Trail hike.” “We ran into some deer and woodpeckers,”
Bloodroot chimes in, far less disillusioned.
Pearl glides down
the mountain toward the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive again. Keith abruptly stops her, jumping out to
chase and photograph some bird he sees.
I love him so much! Bloodroot
takes the wheel, guiding Pearl through the desert. He parks alongside the road while we all nap
for half an hour. Waking, we watch the
sun set over the mountain range behind us throwing shadows that creep up the
range before us. Darkness descends; the
moon rises. We leave the park.
Back in Terlingua,
far too tired to cook, we decide to dine at the bar next to and a part of our
hotel. We assuage our guilt by noting
that we did eat both breakfast and lunch in the park.
The bar/restaurant
occupies two floors, the upstairs consisting of both a restaurant and a
promising outdoor deck. Lacking a ramp
or an elevator, we can’t go upstairs. We
sit downstairs with the cigarette smoke.
Locals flagrantly ignore a sign proclaiming “Smoking on Deck Only”.
Downstairs we sit
at one of about ten dark tables. To our
left we find an extensive bar. In front
of us we see a cleared area with a microphone, microphone stand, speakers and
chair for a singer. Offering cigarettes
at a mere $8 per pack, a cigarette machine stands in the bar’s back
corner. Have we fallen into a time warp?
We explain cigarette machines, an embarrassing blast from our past, to
Bloodroot. Very large, very drunken
Texans occupy the table next to us, including two assholes smoking. Frankly, not wishing to be pummeled by their
fists, I’m content to let them smoke.
Eventually the drunken smokers leave.
Unfortunately, their stench remains behind.
We’ve entered the
real Texas, where folks don’t want the government or anyone telling them what
to do, including commonsense things like not smoking. I order a hamburger and home cut fries,
recalling my erstwhile friend Alma’s advice, “Buy what the restaurant excels
at. A salad will suck in a bar.” Alma knows her restaurants well, being the
sole person in her 50s I’ve encountered completely incapable of cooking. And she’s right. I enjoy my hamburger while dipping my fries
in mayonnaise. What else could I want?
A local man,
guitar in hand, takes the chair and microphone and begins to play. It’s awful.
The audience begins shouting. The
man stops, adjusts the soundboard and begins again. He’s really good. We hear original songs about alien
abductions, opera and moving to the zip code 79852, explaining why you’d move
here. “I found myself in the middle of nowhere…”
After the
performance the bar clears. Perhaps
people do have day jobs here. We buy a
CD from the singer Alex, learning that his wife sings opera. No one appears to be from here, but they all
moved here, drawn by the idea of living in the middle of nowhere, away from the
city, away from mortgages, away from rules, away from lights to a place where
you can be yourself, look at the myriad stars and just live.
I’ve found the
Texas I’d so feared. The West Texas of
the movies. The Texas of certain police
harassment due to our Colorado license plates.
What did we find? Kind, loving
people. People feeding Bloodroot because
he appears too thin to them. People
interrupting their work day to measure a door to be sure the wheelchair would
fit. Everything I thought was wrong. Time to examine my own prejudices!
No comments:
Post a Comment