The Events of Saturday, February 19, 2011

                Zoom! Zoom! ZOOM! That is really the only way to describe the trucks and pick-ups that woke me up this morning! ZOOM! Zoom! ZOOM! The loud sounds are the big eighteen wheelers passing along the highway, twenty feet from our head. ZOOM! Okay, time to get up. These cars could not have let anyone else sleep, if they awoke one of the deepest sleepers in the RV. After a slow breakfast due to our tiredness, driving for a couple of hours was enough to lull anyone back to sleep. Down the road we came to the town where our mechanic from last night worked. We visited his shop so he could fix the mechanism that held up the spare so next time we had a flat, we would be able to access the spare. Hopefully, we will not have to do this for the remainder of our trip, but it is always good to be prepared! This mechanic is quite a character of contradictions. On his head was a cowboy hat, his hair in a long ponytail and he wore a Bluetooth on his ear. Jeans, a knife in his belt and cowboy boots completed this unique outfit. While we were waiting for him to finish we had our quiet times, blogged, listened to music, and read.  Suddenly, we heard a bagpipe playing. Looking around we spied the player, in front of a church and surmised, by the number of people in black, that he was warming up for a funeral procession. Noting that we needed gas and groceries we decided to try to find them in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere. However, we didn’t buy much of either, because one gallon of milk was nearly six dollars and a gallon of gas was $3.65. These activities took most of the morning, but finally we were on our way.

                Sleepily watching the desert scenery go by, suddenly I heard the cry, “We’re in Big Bend National Park. Everybody look out!” I started looking more closely at the scenery and noticed that in addition to the desert vegetation we had already passed, there were rugged rock formations, such as rocky hills, plateaus and cliffs. Now we were surrounded with the sparseness of Texas, splendid in its own way. We stopped at the first visitor center to plan our visit with the rangers’ assistance. He suggested some hikes and told us where we could drive and camp with our RV. We were a little disappointed to find that there was a large section in the middle of the park that we would not be able to access given the length of Harvey. In addition to watching the orientation movie, we bought some postcards. Outside we were shocked by the bright sun and the surprisingly, 100° weather. We started towards the south end of the park where we had reserved a campsite for tonight. We stopped at a few overlooks and admired the desert scenery and the Rio Grande. Having been warned against Mexican venders illegally selling trinkets to the tourists, we avoided the fancy scorpion statues and expensive walking sticks and just admired the view.
                Having done enough for one day, we finished our drive to the campground, settled, cranked up the AC, and started to make dinner. I found it appropriate that we had tacos only a couple miles from the Mexican border. After dinner, we took a walk to watch the sunset, but, unfortunately, it was blocked by a hill. We walked instead down to the Rio Grande and threw rocks into Mexico. Then we went back to the RV, Daddy showered, and then we had some delicious brownies. Playing a hilarious game of Scattergories and then heading off to bed was the perfect ending to a long day.