|
|
|
|
Home
Week 1 Week 2
Week 3 Week 4
Week 5 Week 6
Day 8: Saturday 3/24/01 Goose Island State Park, TX. We like sleeping upstairs – the bunk is like concrete, but the screens at the front and on both sides allow us to see out and catch the breezes. At dawn, we are eye level with tree branches. Goose Island State Park is beautiful, but our particular site is open and noisey. First thing this A.M., we move to a new site. Nicely wooded and isolated.
This is a house cleaning day. The bus is taking on the look of the WWII U-boat Bob is reading about.
Woody and Bob, awed by the mess. Some good birding at the local feeding station, including Spotted towhee, Hermit thrush, White-eyed vireo, and Hooded warbler. There are Rufous, Black-chinned, and Caliope hummers to be seen, but we don’t. Tomorrow we will sit and stare at the feeding station until we do. Bug dope is essential, since the mosquitoes think I’m pretty special. Hot today. Low 80s. Around 9:00 P.M. a cold front moved in. Dropped into the 50s and had to break out all the neatly stored blankets again to sleep.
Day 9: Sunday 3/25/01 Goose Island State Park, TX. Cool this morning (52° F). MUST buy a foam pad for the upper bunk. We went to the feeder station first thing. Many hummingbirds and cardinals, a few vireos and warblers. Saw the Rufous hummer, Northern Parula, and Hooded warbler. About 10:30, went into town (Freeport) to find a B&B that is said to have a Caliope hummingbird. Found the B&B but no indication of an office, or where to go to view birds, so moved on to Aransas Wildlife Refuge, winter home of the endangered Whooping Crane. Hiked the Heron Flat trail and later viewed the marshes from the observation tower. Saw Whoopers from a great distance. Saw javelina (a pig of sorts) as we drove out. Many beautiful wildflowers and flowering trees.
Back at Goose Island campground Woody the road dog develops an attitude -- won't walk on the leash. Locks her legs and glares -- can be tugged forward, but leaves skid marks. She gets put in the bus with Bob, and I walk alone.
Woody the road dog in
mid-yawn, Only reached 72° F today. Gray this morning and evening, sunny at midday while in Aransas. Bought a foam pad for the upper bunk.
Day 10: Monday 3/26/01 Goose Island State Park, TX. Temperature 55° F outside and 58° F inside at 6:00 A.M. Partly cloudy this morning. Birdwatched at the feeding station. Took a run out to the pier to get pictures of Huisache -- a beautiful and fragrant tree common to this area. No breakfast, but packed and left the park by 9:00 A.M. Stopped at a bakery in Freeport for donuts. Heading for Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX – one of our favorite places.
The pier at Goose Island State Park, TX
Our route from Goose Island State Park (at Lamar TX) is: 35 S to Estes, then 188 NW to Sinton, then 77 S to Kingsville. At Kingsville, 141 W to Highway 281 S. 281 S to Falfurrias (where we bought groceries) and then McAllen/Mission. Bentsen Rio Grande State Park is "in" Mission.
Woody at the wheel. Arrived at BRGSP at 2:00. Set up the bus, then birded for awhile. Set out oranges at our site and had 3 Chachalacas immediately. Also white-winged and white-tipped doves. Saw some of the area specialties, including Green jay (as bright green, yellow and blue as a parrot), Golden-fronted woodpecker, Couch’s kingbird. Many birds here are Mexican/Central American, and can be seen nowhere else in the U.S.
Gray and trying to rain all afternoon. A good day to read and rest.
Day 11: Tuesday 3/27/01 Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX. Unusually cool here - upper 50s this A.M. and rainy -- but the park is peaceful and alive with birds. We had a momentary scare this morning when our pyrex coffee pot cracked in mid perk. Bob came through though:
What to do when the
coffee pot breaks.
Spent 2 hours at Kinkos this morning uploading web pages and trying to check email (having severe problems with this, requiring large doses of icecream for pain relief). Then to Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge for plant and bird watching. Santa Anna NWR is about 2,000 acres located on the Rio Grande between Brownsville and McAllen. This tiny scrap of land reveals what the native vegetation was like here before the River was dammed for farming and agriculture. It is blooming with spring flowers, including masses of prickly pear cactus with huge yellow, orange, or white flowers.
A guided tram ride through the refuge explained a little about the ecology and history of the park and the Rio Grande Valley. It is sad to learn that the damming of the Rio Grande permanently altered the ecosystem, preventing regular flooding of the land and resulting in encroaching deserts and severely reduced wetlands and woodlands. The Falcon Dam was a joint Mexico/U.S. project, completed in the 1950s to aid in agriculture production. Population continues to increase rapidly in the Rio Grande Valley (up by 43% in the last 10 years). There is a joint Mexican/American movement to build yet another dam on the Rio Grande River in the Brownsville Area. This part of Texas is wonderful to visit but there are just too many people and too little water.
Day 12: Wednesday 3/28/01 Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX. We are now card-carrying members of the Speer Memorial Public Library in Mission, TX. We hoped to access a phone line there for uploading web pages and checking email – no dice. We were able, however, to access the Internet on their computers -- much more economical than charging the connection to our calling card. Laundry. Groceries. No pictures. . . OK, one picture -- our personal campsite lizard.
Our Bentsen Rio Grande SP campsite lizard
Day 13: Thursday 3/29/01 Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX. Returned to Santa Anna NRW at 9:00 A.M. for a guided plant walk along a beautiful path through big trees dripping with spanish moss. Passed by a resaca (aka a slough or ox-bow pond, left by a change in the River course). Saw black necked stilt, cormorants, peeps galore, gadwals, fulvous whistling duck, cinnamon teal, little blue heron, buff-bellied hummingbird, Harris Hawk. Not a huge list (considering there are something like 360 bird species recorded at the refuge), but pretty good for us.
Left Santa Anna about noon and headed to Sabal Palm Sanctuary, about an hour's drive to the east (near Brownsville). The National Audubon Society established the sanctuary to protect a remnant of the unique sabal palm ecosystem, a habitat common to the Rio Grande Valley just a few decades ago. Outside the tiny visitor's center is a shady watering/feeding station. Saw yellow throated warbler, buff bellied hummer.
Back at Bentsen, heard, but did not see, clay-colored robin. We were woken twice during the night by border patrol helicopters. We've learned to expect border patrol vehicles everywhere here.
Day 14: Friday 3/30/01 Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX. Left BRGSP for Big Bend National Monument at 7:00 A.M. Thought the trip would take about 8 hours, and we'd arrive in time to get a campsite before the park filled. We (Bob) underestimated the mileage and road conditions -- it took 11 hours. No sites available when we arrived, so wound up in overflow camping at Rio Grande Village campground. Not bad, though. It was a beautiful drive across south central Texas to get here. The route from Mission/McAllen followed Hwy 83 along the border, northwest to Del Rio and I-90; then I-90 to Marathon, and 385 south to Big Bend National Park. The desert is in full bloom and the roadsides are like gardens. Not only the roadsides, but vast stretches of the desert are carpeted in flowers, making the earth seem yellow or blue. The prickly pear cactus is spectacular. The long view across the desert to distant hills seems barren and arid, but the incredible variety of blooming plants in the close view is just the opposite.
Most spectacular was the drive through Big Bend National Park to the campground – the mountains, deserts, and blooming roadsides were glowing in evening sunlight. Unfortunately, we were too dead tired to shoot a picture. We are looking forward to a few days here.
Overflow campsite, near
Rio Grande Village
Home
Week 1 Week 2
Week 3 Week 4
Week 5 Week 6
This page was last updated on 05/02/01
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
