Hot, tired and grumpy!

It's another hot day in southwest Texas. The cool front fizzled that was supposed to get here.
We had to go to Del Rio to take the motor home back in for some MORE tests on the refrigerator. The people at Norcold finally agreed that yes, we need a new cooling unit. A new one was ordered and will be in Del Rio in 1 week. So...one more week of living out of an ice chest (we hope). After frazzled nerves, we finally got back to the park and set up the motor home again. We're trying to get cooled out and bought a bag of ice at the HQ building so we could have a cold coke.
Oh, we also got our flu shots today (the influenza A shots). We've never had a problem with them. We're glad to get that out of the way. Of course, we are firmly convinced that we had the H1N1 variety this summer, but we'll still try to get the shots (if we're eligible) when they come out in November.
I drove the car in and Gary drove the MH in to Del Rio. On the way home, my mind went back to the first time I saw this country, about 12 years ago, and how I fell in love with it. I had to calm down a little and remember to be appreciative of the sights again. This area of southwest Texas has many paintings on the canyon walls which are mysterious and defy explanation. The early people who lived here eked out a difficult existence, and it's hard to imagine how they were even able to survive. There are some who think the Huichol tribe in Mexico are the descendants of the people who painted on these walls.
Tomorrow is another day off for us, so maybe we'll have some productive pictures for you!

Oops! Wasn't fall after all!

Cool weather's gone, rain's gone, back to the heat! It's supposed to get up to 94 degrees here today. Guess I was premature in saying I'm glad it's fall. A/c's working well, though.

This morning, we went down the trail to the Rio Grande to empty trash cans. That's always a pleasant part of our week, because really, I am going there to take pictures. I'm always looking for photo ops. We love going down the trail because when we stop the mule engine, all we hear is the wind and a few birds. We usually just sit for a few minutes and soak up the silence and the beauty of the country.

The first two pictures are some fossil imprints in the rocks on the rocky cliff above the Rio Grande (or Amistad Lake). At one time, this entire area was a shallow, warm water sea, and fossils abound.

We scared up a large buck and I tried to get my camera ready to take pictures of him, but by the time I could get him in focus he was already far away. We had taken a little road that splits off the trail and goes on down toward the river. Border Patrol uses this road to ostensibly see or capture illegals crossing in that area. Just as we were leaving, Gary spotted a ring of rocks by the road. As you can see, someone had tried to protect this beautiful, small white cactus. I tried to find the name on the internet but had no luck. I didn't touch it to see if it was soft! Doubt if it was.

The view of the lake, or river, that you see is looking east from the confluence of Seminole Canyon and the Rio Grande (or Amistad) where the river takes a large swing to the south. The land you see at the right of the picture is Mexico. The spiny green plants in the foreground are ocotillo (oh-ko-TEE-yo). We keep waiting for them to bloom so we can show you some pictures.

We're still having refrigerator woes. The temperature continues to climb and fall erratically (well, mostly climb). We are hoping that Bob Tiffin, the owner of the company that manufactured our motor home, will be able to get something done for us. It will be a whole month next Wednesday that we have been struggling with the Norcold company to get our refrigerator fixed. Well so much for "made in America"! Norcold fridges are made in Ohio. They've got lousy customer service. I'm glad we have the refrigerator up in the maintenance barn (about 2 miles away) to keep our frozen food, otherwise we'd have lost it all again.

But that's minor...we have our health and eyes to see and ears to hear, and a beautiful land to enjoy. What more can you want?

Fall has Fallen!

What a nice surprise. It turned cool yesterday and was 59 degrees outside this morning when we woke up. It started lightly raining about 2:30 am this morning and rained on and off until about 2 pm. Love the sound of rain on this roof.

Just got word that my Zune is over at the Comstock post office. I won it playing Club Bing games, such as Chicktionary and the crossword puzzle game on the site. It cost 38,500 points. I usually get 18-20 points for each game I play. I can't play chicktionary or Lexicon any more because I've played all the games. Anyway, we will pick up the Zune tomorrow. I'm excited to get it because I don't have an Ipod. I don't even know if there will be software to install the Zune or any accessories with it.

We went down into the canyon a few days ago and I took a couple of pictures. The water hole is at the confluence of Seminole and Presa Canyon. We saw a hole and I had to wonder what stays in it. Didn't reach in, though. This morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table and saw a Hooded Oriole outside. I wasn't able to get a very good picture of him but you can see how pretty his colors are. Had to take the pic through the screen.

We're having refrig. troubles again. Temperature is going up in the freezer and icebox. RatsRatsRats!

We have to go down and pick up the occupancy sheets for tonight...this is our last day off and it's back to work tomorrow!

Last day of summer(?)

Well, not to complain, but it's 5:30 pm and still 96 degrees! Whew, I wish someone would tell that cold front to hurry up.
We got some WONDERFUL rain last night! Probably between 1/4 and 1/2 inch. We had vivid lightning and the power kept flickering on and off. There were lots of little pools of water when we went down to the HQ building this morning. I'll bet the wild birds and animals loved that.
We did some serious trimming down by the HQ building today. There's an agave plant by HQ that has wicked, sharp points, and it gave birth to many little agave plants underneath its sharp points. I dug many of them out with a sharpshooter shovel. The head ranger really wants to get rid of the agave plants in the park because they're not native to this area. So I didn't feel too bad about digging the babies out. The rain we got last night softened the ground a little bit. Gary came and relieved me. We did some weedeating and used the nippers to cut back some blackbrush acacia (long thorns) that was beginning to grow up again. It doesn't need much water to grow, apparently. We cut mostly weeds which had sprung up. We cleaned the restrooms at the HQ building, then did our trimming, and came up to the campground to clean the sites that were vacated today. We cleaned our restrooms here in the campground, too, all in preparation for our day off tomorrow. Then back to the RV for showers, because a) we were stinky and sweaty, and b), the agave (century) plant gives off some kind of substance which causes an itchy rash. After a cool shower, we sank into the couches under the a/c. We are tired, but it's a good tired!
I see from my computer that there is some rain following the same pattern from yesterday, so we can always hope for a little more rain tonight.
Tomorrow...to Del Rio for grocery shopping and lunch.
I'm thankful that we are able to volunteer in this place that's so beautiful to us. We love the canyons, the scenic vistas, the roughness of the terrain and the vegetation, and the solitude and quiet.

Resurrection Plants and other pictures

Today was a hot day but fun. We took the mule down to the Rio Grande, or Amistad Lake (where it's backed up). The water backs up into Seminole Canyon at that point.

As promised to some of you folks, we took pictures of a curious plant called the Resurrection Plant, which grows in abundance in this particular area of the park. This plant dries up and withers in dry weather and transforms itself into a lush green plant when it gets some rain. In the third picture, you can see the green plant; the fourth picture shows the plant in its dried-up state. The fifth picture is another Resurrection Plant after some rain; the same plant is shown in the next picture. The tiny pink flower you see is at the tip of a very small cactus, which is about 1" tall. I also took a picture looking up Seminole Canyon to give you an idea of where we saw these plants. The rock ledge we were on is about 150 feet above the water's edge.

The first two pictures are the fishhook cactus, after the blooms died off. The blooms left "fruit". If you look at the pictures from Sept. 12, you will see the blooms. I wonder if you can eat the "fruit" after the spines are burned off.

On the way back, we saw the nest of a cactus wren. They build their nests in the most evil of cactus plants, which protects their nests from predators. Who wants to reach into those long, sharp painful spines? The cactus wren is a small bird, speckled, with a slightly curved beak. We saw one today hopping about on the bush which is right outside our dining room window.

I mentioned that we have seen evidence of digging of large holes here in the campground. While we were making our rounds yesterday, one of the campers stopped us and told us that about 8-10 skunks had awakened them about 1 am the morning before. They (the camper) had food in coolers in a zipped-up cabana thing, like a tent with net sides. The skunks were squeaking and making all kinds of noises trying to get to the food. Aha! Mystery solved. Skunks do dig. She wisely decided not to disturb them, as her family was sleeping in a tent. The skunks finally left. I think maybe Pepe LePew and his bunch are wandering around the campground due to the extreme drought we've had here, possibly searching for food or water.

BTW, there's plenty of water in Amistad (Rio Grande), but it has come from upstream. We're still very dry here.

That's all for now!

Sept 18, 2009

Nothing much new to report. It's been a fairly nice day today, weatherwise, with 6 or 7 campers coming in. We were asked by the head ranger to put the sprinkler out at site 20 for a while, and when I went to turn it off, scared up a large covey of quail. I think they were enjoying the water. We have to keep the water running through the lines because they put the proper amount of bleach in the water tank up by the wellhead, which is about a mile away from the campground, so we have to run it through the lines. We have a good well but it is hard water.

We noticed several wide and deep holes dug in the campground today. I tried to cover them. I don't think it's armadillos but probably either a skunk or a badger digging them. One particularly deep hole went under the concrete frame around a hose bib, so I really tried to cover that one up. Sure wish we could see the animal that's digging such a hole.

Today is Gary's birthday. Wow, he's the best-looking 63 year old man I have ever seen! He received many greetings on facebook and on the internet. The good folks down at the HQ building brought him a cake and some breakfast tacos this morning...we'd already had breakfast and were stuffed by the time we left there! They also sang Happy Birthday, or Feliz Compleanos. What a nice group of people to work with. We really enjoy them all.

We got some good news from DelTex RV in Del Rio today. They'd been in contact with Norcold yesterday (after being put on hold for hours), and Norcold has agreed to send us a replacement icemaker. I'm SO looking forward to that. I don't think I've ever put ice trays into the freezer w/o spilling. The replacement is supposed to be here Tuesday or Wednesday.

We're so thankful for all our blessings and for being here in this beautiful place. Hopefully we will have more pictures soon.