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!
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| Ross Maxwsell Scenic Drive |
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