What a day it was yesterday. I started the day by leaving Marathon, and driving back to Big Bend. I knew that at some point during this trip, I'd kill an animal on a road somewhere -- but it was surprising when it happened. There was a quail in the middle of the road. It tried to fly away to the left, and so I swerved to the right. But then, in the air, it swerved to the right, too -- right into my car. It flew off the front fender and landed on the highway. I was pretty horrified in general, but then I had thoughts of my ER patients who get hit, and I got a little overwhelmed by the trauma of it all.
When I reached Big Bend, I drove the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to the Santa Elena Canyon. The road is 30 miles long, and it took about 6 hours for me to drive the entire thing, with stops for views, pictures, and hikes along the way.
I did lots of little walks, but the first "hike" I did for the day was in the Burro Mesa Pouroff. A pouroff is literally a cut in the rock, where all of the rain drains in the area. To get there, you walk through the wash (literally, where the water runs after it pours down the pouroff) for about a mile. It's easy, except that it's a walk in sand; your shoes have nothing to grip. But when you get there, you realize there is NO WAY to see it without doing the hike. And it is HUGE. Really cool.
I did a couple of partial hikes, too: at the Homer Wilson Ranch, which has this tiny little ranch house (no longer used) in the middle of desert and with mountains all around; and at Mule's Ears, which I might have completed except that I really wanted to hike at Santa Elena, and was worried I might not have the time or energy to do it if I finished the hike at Mule's Ears.
But the final 8 miles of the drive are along the Rio Grande River, with some mountains right across the river. The mountains are the Santa Elena Mountains, and part of Mexico. The river along the drive is not very wide, and looks like it's shallow, although who knows if that's true, or not. But I can certainly imagine that people just wade across from Mexico; it looks totally do-able.
Anyway, I drove the length of the road, and ended up at the Santa Elena canyon, the mouth of which is in the picture above. The mountains to the right are the USA; the mountains to the left are Mexico. The hike goes along the mountains on the right (USA), and ends up in the slot canyon known as the Santa Elena Canyon. It is a totally amazing 2 mile hike round trip. The walls of the canyon are 1500 feet high! I saw lots of canoes on the river, too; next time I come here, a canoe trip down the river looks like it would be fun....
Last night, I checked into my hotel at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, which is in the park. My room (called "Emory Peak", for those of you who work with me at Emory) was cute, my dinner was well-deserved and delicious, and then I got to see the most amazing sunset through the "window", a large V-shaped opening between two mountains. I sat outside my room until it was very dark out! And right above me was the Big Dipper, which was cool. But I loved how inky black it was, and how, as my eyes adjusted to the blackness, I could see millions of stars. I could have stayed there forever.
One of the most amazing things out here is that, at first, the desert just looks like, well, desert. But inside this park are some amazing plants -- and the cacti are all in bloom right now! I saw ocatillo, which look like algae in a sea of desert, but stand gangly and green, with little red flowers at the ends; sotol, which has spiny leaves and puts up a woody stalk 10 feet tall each spring; lechuguilla, which is related to agave and puts up a stalk only once in its life, then dies; agave, which puts up a huge stalk that looks like a giant asparagus, then blooms these gorgeous yellow flowers (and then dies); strawberry pitaya, which is a cactus with the cutest magenta flowers; claret-cup cactus, which looks kind of like the pitaya, except its flowers are bright scarlet; prickly pears, which bloom with yellow flowers; and then, the giant diagger yucca, which is a tree out of of the top of which bloom 70 pound (!) stalks with huge white flowers. It's gorgeous, really. I can see why the people who work here love it so much.
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