Here we go again - Another New Year

The twin peaks near Alpine shrouded in freezing fog

Our little house and the results of freezing fog

My goodness, the years keep a coming!  And that’s a good thing.  Just wish those years weren’t coming so quickly.  I’m a big believer in the theory of relativity these days.  Time just isn’t consistent anymore – it seems to be speeding up like crazy…  Well, enough of my yammering, I’ll catch you up on our life in West Texas for the past few months before we welcome in the New Year.

The last few months of 2018 were very busy ones for David and me.  After returning to Texas in August from our travels, my mom and dad both celebrated their 85^th birthdays.  Mom’s birthday was in late August and dad’s in November.  We threw birthday parties for both of them with lots of friends and family.  Mom’s birthday fell on a Sunday, so she got two parties, one at church at one at home later that day.  Dad’s was a few days before Thanksgiving, so his party went on for almost a week.  It was so nice to celebrate the 85 years of their lives with the both of them!

Two pretty good looking 85 year-olds!

Between the two birthdays, David and I took a trip to Big Bend at the end of September for the 40^th Anniversary of the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act of 1978.  We took Silver and camped in Rio Grande Village.  It was still mighty warm in Big Bend at the end of September.  Even so, we managed a few hikes and went to talks about the Rio Grande River and the ongoing research being conducted by Sul Ross State University.  At the end of each day we were glad we had electricity and could cool off in the RV.

A wild and scenic Rio Grande River near Rio Grande Village

In 1979, just a year after the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act was enacted and to celebrate the Rio Grande’s inclusion, David and I, plus David’s brother and three other friends took a canoe trip down the Rio Grande.  We put in at Rio Grande Village near the head of Boquillas Canyon and paddled all the way to Langtry, TX, some 185 miles by river.  We still talk about that float trip. 

The Sierra del Carmens from Rio Grande Village

These mountains are part of the same formation as the walls of Boquillas Canyon

Dr. Kevin Urbanscyzk with the Rio Grande Research Center at Sul Ross 

State University gave a talk and demo on how the Center helps

 to document invasive species that threaten the river.

It was quite the adventure, following a 14-foot rise on the Rio Grande.  After torrential rains, we were the first people issued permits on the river that very hot July of 1979.  Once we entered the steep and narrow mouth of Boquillas Canyon, we were in solid canyon walls of up to 1500 feet for nearly 2 days with another 3 to 4 days inside the long, uninterrupted lower canyons ahead of us.  So it was paddle out or climb out the canyon walls -- no cell phones in 1979 and no help available if we were to have a problem.  

A hike on the Window Trail in the Chisos Mountain Basin

A rainy late summer in the Big Bend made for a lot of water on the Window Trail

I won’t go into the whole story, but we did have a few problems – from very fast running water and almost wrapping the canoe around a rock in the first hours of the trip, drowning most of the cameras in that little accident, to 115 degree days, severe sunburn, the Rio Grande running the consistency and color of chocolate milk and having to drink that water, to rescuing a very young filly from being stuck in the mud, putting her in the canoe and paddling down river  so we could actually get her back up on the bank and out of the mud, fighting 50-plus mph winds and 4-5 ft. waves going up stream on the river and last but not least (certainly not to David) a most severe case of poison ivy!  But we were young – it was a blast…  Wild & Scenic Rivers Rock!

Beautiful late afternoon sky from our campsite in Rio Grande Village

We also managed to take classes at Sul Ross during the fall semester.  Both of us took Archaeology of the Southwest which was a really informative class of places we had previously visited in our travels and of the Big Bend area.  We will have to go back and visit the Four Corners area so we can appreciate the history of that place with more knowledge this time.  Also, I never knew there were so many Late Archaic and Paleoindian sites in the Big Bend.  We hope to be able to go on some local archaeological digs before too much longer. 

Looking out "The Window"  

Always a treat!

The dessert is a marvelous place to explore

I also took a watercolor class.  It was quite a challenge for me and very time consuming.  There is a good reason I’m a photographer. I’ve a long, long way to go just yet, but I did really enjoy the class and think I will continue to play around with watercolor. 

We had visitors, friends from when I worked at the Botanical Gardens in San Antonio, with us for a few days in late November.  Terril and Lubos were volunteers at the Garden and we all became good friends.  They have since moved to Portugal and we hadn’t seen them in almost 3 years.  It was great catching up and there may be a trip to Portugal in our future.  

Christmas Dinner

Our Christmas was spent with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law and her mother.  Most family had come earlier for the birthday celebrations, so Christmas was a small affair.  But maybe one of our best – easy and relaxing, enjoying each other and thankful for our blessings and the gift of Christmas.

Kitties love Christmas!

After Christmas, our good friend, Chad was out for a few days.  We had some crazy weather with freezing fog which we had never had experienced before.  The freezing fog was just about the prettiest thing I’ve seen in a while.  We had no rain or snow, just very cold weather and a fog that rolled in.  The trees and cactus didn’t ice up but had these amazing fairy crystals all over them.  Truly beautiful!

Amazing crystals of ice on the trees

Well, that takes us into 2019!  Here we go again.  No resolutions this year, just to live and take it all in as it comes – even the yucky stuff.  Really, no choice there but here’s hoping for more good stuff than bad for us all.  (And maybe for the government to open back up?)  Would that be too much to ask?

Hopefully the spider was long gone