Big Bend's mountains are magnificent, especially the Santa
Elena Canyon which is a work-in-progress of the Rio Grande.
The Rio Grande has cut
1500 ft down through the mesa. There's a
trail cut into the mouth of the canyon which goes as far as it can (about 3/4
mile), until water is up to the rock. We
saw some very big cat tracks in there.....probably mountain lions as there are
about two dozen of them in the park.
Rock formation called the Mule Ears.
This picture is a good example of the volcanic formations. The light colored places are tuff, volcanic ash which has been welded by heat and pressure. Twelve million years of volcanic eruptions
produced a lot of interesting sights.
Something really funny happened today. We stopped at an overlook that had a
restroom. When I went in something
familiar in the trash can caught my eye. It was an Ingles bag! (For those who don't live near Asheville, Ingles is our local grocery chain.) We drive 1600 miles from home and find an
Ingles bag in the trash in the middle of the most remote national park in the
lower 48 states. Would never have
believed it.
Chisos Mountains with Vernon Bailey Peak, the Window and Emory Peak.
An odd peak off Ross Maxwell Scenic Highway in the park.
Tomorrow we're moving to Fort Davis......the highest town
in TX at 5050 ft.
On Friday we have tickets to three events at the McDonald
Observatory, one of the most important research observatories in the
world. It's located here because the
area has the darkest skies in the country.
You can get tickets to look through the 107" telescope but I
thought that was overkill since we've never looked through anything bigger than
the telescope Jason had decades ago. I
think the biggest ones we can look through during Friday's events are 24"
which is huge compared to what we've seen.
The weather is supposed to be clear.....hope it stays that way.
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