Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Last thoughts on Big Bend National Park



Sunday, November 15, we decided it was time to leave the park. Yesterday we had looked at the last scenic spot on this road, Santa Elena Canyon. We were at the Rio Grande again and the river runs at the base of a very tall, rugged mountain range in Mexico. It comes down a very narrow canyon, the Santa Elena Canyon, which has become a favorite with adventurers floating on the river. We parked at an overlook and watched for awhile. There was no one boating but the view was beautiful.




Anyway, today was spent retracing our path out to the main park road and the west entrance to the park. We ended up on TX 118 which took us back to Alpine where we had a maintenance day at the campground.


I have talked about the geography of the park, but not much about the wildlife. Don saw a family of javelinas in one of the campgrounds. Mickey flushed out some rabbits in another. We saw an owl high up in a tree at dusk on our last night. There were lots of roadrunners and they are much bigger than I thought they would be. We saw many other birds and a few deer.



Even though the park is in the desert, there were many different plants. The vegetation is very dependent on the elevation. We saw lots of tiny wildflowers – blue, pink, and yellow - because of the recent rain. In many places the sides of the road were covered with yellow flowers (several different kinds, I think). I was never able to figure out the difference between the sotol plant, the giant dagger yucca, and the lechuguilla (perhaps my gardener daughter-in-law can help me). There were many kinds of cactus – ocotillo and prickly pear were the most predominant. A lot of the prickly pear looked like they had been run over and we found out the fruit was a favorite of the javelinas!
Ross Maxwsell Scenic Drive

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