Expect the Unexpected

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! – Monty Python

The human brain is wired to crave novelty, thereby assuring the endless appeal of travel.

Sunrise over the desert at Big Bend National Park, South Texas

Quiet as the desert itself, we sat on a low branch in the deep dusk, hoping to see javalinas. We’d driven to a small oasis at the end of a rough road and positioned ourselves near a seep where we’d seen tracks and trails and smelled the musky scent.  Dusk turned to dark. Patiently peering into the brush, we at last heard snuffling, and there in the gloom was a snorting piggy shadow!

The near-sighted javelina must also have a poor sense of smell, though its nose is quite long.  Unwittingly one approached Craig from behind, who remained still as long as he could bear while wondering if the beast would really walk right into him. Brave man! The potential for painful damage from those large tusky canines is real. When the javelina was just 2 feet away, Craig alerted the beast with a slight move.  Brush exploded in all directions as we all three shot straight up in fright. 

An entirely gratifying evening.

The Purple Prickley Pear, common
in the Chihuahuan desert

Armadillo spied at Laguna Atascosa,
National Wildlife Refuge,Texas

However well-prepared we may feel for an experience, surprises come from everywhere,  from the mundane to the profound, the disappointing to delightful. 

This coyote makes a living at Laguna Acostosa also, maybe on armadillos?

Birthplace and home of Elvis
 for 3 years.  They were po.

On our way to Faulkner’s home in Oxford Mississippi, 

we detoured to Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi.   The Natchez Trace Parkway (National Park Service) beckoned, a historical path with no stops, lights or towns, a 450-mile two-lane blacktop that exists for its own beauty and historical value.  This alone was a worthy discovery.  Bonus: our first sight was twisted and shredded stumps, a blasted landscape explained by a small sign:  “A tornado set down here in April, 2011.”  Most of the surrounding area was untouched.  The Presley home?  Very very tiny.

Tornado casualty April 2011

Spared

Above:  Side-by-side on the 

Natchez Trace Parkway

We made a pilgrimage to the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. The modest, elegant architectural masterpiece is a non-denominational spiritual space and the exclusive domain of eight monumental, minimalist canvases of the artist Mark Rothko.  A World Heritage Site, it attracts spiritual and political world leaders, along with everyday souls, who seek personal and world peace.

Houston is surprisingly progressive, especially in the arts. Having visited the Rothko Chapel, and finding ourselves in a lovely old residential neighborhood known as the museum district, we wandered towards the modern sculpture in a nearby park.  Our stroll led us to one of the most beautiful art museums imaginable, the Menil Collection, the legacy of philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil.  Images of that sublime afternoon spent in those wonderful rooms will remain with us both.  

Unexpected treasure.

We read in the evenings, generally about the history and natural history of where we are (this segment, “the South”), often news to us. Random sampling:

• William Seward was a brilliant man and passionate abolitionist, with a radical fervor that cost him the Presidential nomination in favor of the moderate Abraham Lincoln. 
• (How could we beneficiaries of Seward's Folly have known so little? And schooled in Alaska public schools? Maybe we just weren't paying attention).
• Robert E Lee was Lincoln’s first choice for commander of the northern armies.  Lee did not like slavery, but was loyal to his home state, successionist Virginia, and so declined the offer.
• Slavery was more horrifying than we can fathom: When I Was a Slave, first hand accounts by emancipated slaves, taken down in the1930’s (Dover, $2.50). 
• Mesquite roots go as far as 200 feet down to the water table.
• Desert deer eat prickley pears, fruits and pads (which we witnessed).
• Javalinas climb bushes with their little cloven feet (which we did not witness). They eat prickley pears too.

Following the Texas/Mexico border for hundreds of miles was disturbing, with frequent border patrol checks, dogs, barbed wire and bare earth zones. Big Bend National Park’s annual international fiesta, suspended since 2002, once drew hundreds of locals and visitors from both sides of the Rio Grande.  The border is no longer porous, with painful consequences for families and friends on both sides. Visitors used to enjoy the little village across the river for the cantina and souvenirs. Little beaded roadrunners and money jars now sit alone on rocks near National Park trails. Ominous signs threaten potential buyers with fines, and the usually invisible Mexicans with worse.  Signs remind tourists that crossing the shallow Rio carries the risk of heavy fines and imprisonment. 

A Mexican singer belts out folk songs from across 

the river, hoping Park visitors will add to the tip jar at his

compatriot’s feet on the U.S. side (tiny red spot to the left)

 Birding offers bounteous pleasant surprises.  A tiny sampling of the wonderful  birds we've seen:

Roadrunner, or "paisano" (countryman) locally.  A very large, bold and friendly bird, always on the lookout for bugs
 and snakes to munch.

Green Jay, coastal south Texas

Long-billed Curlew

Crested Caracara near Harlingen, Texas. This huge raptor is the national bird of Mexico.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker, south Texas

Long-billed Thrasher, south Texas

Greentail Towhee, Big Bend and Guadalupe NP

Big Bend National park surpassed expectations.  We spent nearly two weeks in this astounding enormous, layered desert land with profound vistas.  Composed of eroded volcanic domes ranging in elevation from 2800 to 7800 feet, it is irresistible to hikers, birders and desert rats in general. Some Big Bend landscapes below:

Sunset near Castalon, looking towards the Big Bend's  Chisos Mountains 

From the top of the Lost Mine Trail, Chisos Mts, looking towards Mexico

  The Rio Grande at the Big Bend.  Mexico to the right, US to the left

The Mule Ears

From the top of the Lost Mine trail, painted formations

Balanced Rock on the Grapevine, Big Bend

Lounging at an isolated primitive camp. 

 Also more magnificent and awe-inspiring than expected: 

NPS photo by Peter Jones

• Carlsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico, considered the most beautiful cave in the world. Mindbending.
•  Bosque del Apache, NWR in New Mexico, winter home of thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes. Every day at sunrise they all take to the air in a storm. Astonishing.  One can imagine a time when birds were like that everywhere.

• 
  

  
  

• 

Sandhill cranes at Bosque del Apache, NM

Kasha Katuwe "Tents" NM

• Kasha Katuwe National Monument, just south of Sante Fe.  Weird formations, hoodoos, a slot canyon: a small treasure happened on by accident and our desire to “check it out.”
• Maybe not awe-inspiring but surely surprising: contenders for the world’s best tamales come from a gas station in Antonito, Colorado, a wide spot on the road.  The tiny “factory” is behind the little convenience store.

We are taking a break from the road, with a couple of weeks to connect with lots of family and friends in Colorado - Yay! what a great place to connect. And it's no surprise that we relish the chance to stretch out!!!

The crystal ball sees us moving west, then north. Til next time, dear reader.

Dancing crane

From South Carolina to New Orleans: Life in a Tiny Van

The Blue Smoky Mountains in South Carolina seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway. The National Parkway, built by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 30's, exists for its own sake.  It is 469 miles of scenic road in the Appalachians with no signs, no services, nothing but winding beauty and strategic overlooks. The white dots in the foreground trees are ice bits, from a storm the day before.

Some hairy moments from Life in a Tiny Van:

• It’s deep dusk, dry, and the campground off the road is apparently several miles straight down.  Barely the width of our van, the dirt road shows, on the map, a series of extreme hairpin turns.  Out of options on the lovely undeveloped Blue Ridge Highway, we head down and hope the road is clear and the brakes hold because there is no return.

• Blackness surrounds the shoulderless two-lane blacktop. Pouring rain, no street lights, no signs, no place to pull over and no entry to the locked campground…. 6:15 p.m. feels like midnight.  The dark Atlantic is on either side of us. 

Vesta NOT on the loose.  Guess who leads whom? 

• We fueled at a busy corner; I reach into the van for the gas cap and Vesta flies out the door, pleased to have made another escape but frightened by the noise and cars. She races for cover in the shrubs - not the first escape.

Big Cypress in  the Everglades

• Five days without a shower in hot weather in a swamp: trekked hours in water up to our thighs. We ferret out an RV camp, find it jammed with full time residents’ rigs, junked trailers, semi cabs, and rusty pickups. A dumpster-diver collects aluminum cans next to us as we eat our lunch. Where could the showers be...?

• We squeeze by each other in the narrow aisle, try to remember what we traded places for. A can plops on the floor (“contents of the overhead bins may have shifted”) as we gather supper ingredients. Much re-arranging of stuff is required each evening.  Rules:  Return that which you took out to the place from which it came, or it may disappear permanently. Worse, it will be taking up volume unassigned to it, shrinking the small space in which we live.  We think the hostage syndrome may be in effect, because we feel at home in IRV.  

Look hard: range, fridge, sink, counter and pantry are in view.  

All who have traveled have stories of being lost, losing things, losing heart, or wishing to lose his or her traveling companions for a little while. Yet sometimes a steep and narrow road leads to a sublime little camp one has to oneself. Sometimes the road leads to new coping strategies or new friends, beyond the thrill of new sights and experiences. the disconcerting moments are few, and the ecstatic moments are plentiful.  See photographic evidence below.

Since the last writing, we’ve traveled far, including: The Great Smokies National Park in Tennessee/North Carolina; The Blue Ridge Parkway;  Congaree National Park in South Carolina (tiny home of enormous old growth national champion trees); Timucuan National Preserve and Historic Site in northeast Florida, (site of an 18^th century plantation dating from Spanish rule, with grim details of early slavery);  Big Cypress National Preserve (part of the Everglades); The Everglades National Park; the Florida Keys; a bird-heavy National Wildlife Refuge on Sannibel Island, FL; parts of Alabama and Mississippi (a NPS Civil Rights memorial on the Selma/Montgomery trail; Faulkner's home, Elvis' birthplace), and now New Orleans.  Not to mention lots of fascinating country along the the back roads we prefer to travel. Our Alaskan/Floridan friends Gary and Mary Ann Reeves showed us some  civilized parts of the east Florida coast as well as much kindness and generosity.

Purple Gallinule in Everglades.  This bird is as entertaining as it is beautiful, running around on the lilly pads and dog paddling with it's lumpy feet.

World champion Loblolly Pine and Water Tupelo trees in Congaree NP, South Carolina.

Following are some favorite photos (we hope you like birds too), from the incredible Florida wild places.  Gail took the limpkin at Blue Cypress Lake. It's a rarely seen and secretive bird, we are told. The rest are Craig's:

Tri-color Heron

Green Heron

Limpkin

Little Blue Heron. We finally did learn our herons and egrets, which can be confusing.  For example, this Little Blue was white as a juvenile.  A great white egret is sometimes considered a white morph of a great blue heron.  Etc. They were very patient with us.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Roseate Spoonbills

Snowy Egret (check out the yellow feet)

Wood Stork (endangered)

The wood stork snaps its mandibles shut in 25 millionths of a second, the fastest known reflex in a vertebrate animal.



Ahinga, cousin to a cormorant. It stabs its fish prey and tosses it into the air, then gulps it.

White Ibis, so plentiful we called them "Ib-eye"

A "gut" in Congaree (a sometimes wet gully)

A red-shouldered hawk, the pale Florida morph. Many and tame, as were all of the birds in the Glades, as well as in amazing concentrations.

Reflection: Wilderness in the Lower 48 consists of small wild areas surrounded by agriculture or habitation.  Conversely, in Alaska small habitations or agriculture are surrounded by wilderness.  Protected wilderness is surrounded by even more wilderness.  In the south, animals have a hard time making it in their little wild islands, and often perish moving from island to island. Road kill is a little visible evidence. 

The Everglades have no elevation higher than 8 feet. Much of it is water and mangroves, the rest is savannah-like plains with a water base:

The Shark River in the Everglades:  60 miles wide, a foot or two deep , about 200 miles long,  covered in sawgrass. Here we stood on a "hammock," a relative mountain at a few feet,  and pretty dry.  Panthers like them.  The Florida Panther is making a comeback!

An inch elevation change (yes, one inch) in the Glades determines which plants and animals inhabit an area.

This Strangler Fig killed its host, a large baldcypress.
What began as an epiphyte became a parasite,
choking off light and nutrients.  

Overlooking Key West from balcony rooms with Craig’s bro David and Joanne, we  enjoyed a good stretch out of IRV.  They flew down from Denver for a few days of sun in the Everglades and the Keys.  We kayaked in the Everglade’s Florida Bay.  At Key West we visited Hemmingway’s house, drank in his old bar, and enjoyed the colorful rumpus on Duval Street (excellent food). Hated to leave! Franchises notably absent, lots of little fish houses, marine outlets and beachwear for sale.  Diverse folks. We also learned about chiggers which we hosted in the Glades (they do not lay eggs in you, they do itch insanely).  Alaskans are put to the test bug-wise there! (January is dryer and less buggy, btw).

Alligator (we also saw a croc while kayaking in Florida Bay, Everglades). One alligtor bellowed at us three times (what a voice!!) while we canoed in a mangrove swamp. He was advising us to move away, we did not argue.

Kingfishers enjoy all the fish in the swamp along with the waders.

Manatee (or manatee nostrils, to be exact)

Now we must choose between refining and adding to the blog or walking around in New Orleans' French Quarter.  Opportunities are rare for blogging/wi-fi  as we usually spend our nights in state and national campgrounds,  thus the long time in between installments. So there is definitely pull to keep going here......but there's really no choice, is there, dear readers?.......til the next time!