Guadalupe Peak, the Highest Point in Texas

If you have been reading this journal for very long, you will know that I am a “high pointer”.  One of the things on my life list is to go to the highest point in most of the states.  I say most because I have no intention of climbing Mt. McKinley in Alaska or any of the technical climbs in the lower 48.  However, for those drive-ups and walk-ups where I can keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, I hope to be able to do.

First break on the way up

Today was number 22 for me—Guadalupe Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  Guadalupe Peak is ranked number 14th of the 50 high points at 8,749 feet.  

American Airlines 50th Anniversary monument on the summit

I am a little vague about what this National Park is preserving.  There doesn’t seem to be anything really special here, just more of the same from here to Big Bend.  The area was made a National Park in 1966.  I think that was during Lyndon Johnson’s administration.  Maybe that’s why it is in the National Park Service.

Taking my own summit photo

It is really nice that Guadalupe Peak is within the National Park.  It is so much easier than trying to get permission to hike on private land.  The trial was in fantastic shape.  It is also a horse trail.  Sometimes that is not so good, but out here in this dry climate, it was fine.  In fact, we could not tell that it had been used by horses.  The only way we knew was from the signage.  The trail was graded for horse travel, so it wasn’t too steep and it was plenty wide.

View from the top

We got an early start on this 8.4 mile round trip hike.  I was very pleased to reach the summit (a 3,000 foot climb) in 4 hours since we have hiked so little lately and certainly not anything with any elevation gain.  We moved along at a slow, steady pace and took a break every hour.  Of course, there are no trees here so we were moving up the side of the mountain with a drop off on one side all the way to the valley below.  Gene is afraid of heights and about a quarter mile from the summit, he got to a switch back that he couldn’t get around.  It was pretty scary.  I went on to the top without him.  I didn’t linger, however, because the wind was remarkable.  In fact, I didn’t go the last 3 feet or so because I was afraid of being blown off.  After a couple photos, I was on my way down.

About halfway down and my feet
are hurting.

Tomorrow, if we can drag our sore muscles out of bed, we’ll try hiking down into Carlsbad Cavern.

Capitol of Texas at Austin

Well, we finally made it to Austin.  It was a dreary day, but not as cold as the past 2 days and no rain.

Seal of Texas on the Rotunda Floor

Texas seems to have had a hard time settling down with a capital city.  There were 14 cities serving as capitals before statehood under Spanish and Mexican rule and as the Republic of Texas.  Austin was finally selected as the permanent capital in 1839 by the Congress of the Republic.  The current capitol is the 4th in a series of buildings in Austin to house the seat of government for the Republic and the State of Texas.

Senate Chamber

The capitol is constructed of Texas red granite on the outside and Texas limestone on the inside.  The builders agreed to take land as payment for the building project instead of cash.  The land, 3 million acres on the Texas panhandle, became the XIT Ranch.  Texans were real proud of their capitol, boasting that it was taller than the National Capitol in Washington, DC.

There is no doubt this building belongs to Texas.  There is nothing that doesn’t bear the mark of Texas, either the outline of the state, the “lone star”, the state seal, or the name, “TEXAS”.

We toured the capitol with a guide, starting in the rotunda then continuing to the second floor Senate and House of Representative chambers.  Without the guide, we toured the third and fourth floors.  The grounds were the greenest we have seen since we arrived in Texas.  They will be gorgeous when the trees are fully leafed and the flowers are in bloom.

Every door hinge looked like this.

After our tour of the capitol and grounds, we got the “dillo” for a ride around the downtown business district.  The “dillo” is a trolley which passes each stop approximately every 11 minutes.  The stops are a block apart for a distance of about 15 blocks.  There are two routes—one running north/south and one running east/west.  For 50 cents each we got passes good for 2 hours.  We could hop on and off at any stop as many times as we wanted during that 2 hours.  We got on the north/south trolley and rode down to the intersecting stop for the east/west trolley.  By riding to the end of this route we were just a block from REI.  How convenient is that?

We really enjoyed our visit to the capital.  However, there is a lot to Austin that we didn’t have time to see.  We didn’t get to the historic district at all and there were several churches and the Austin Museum of Art that we would like to spend some time exploring.  I guess those things will have to wait until our next trip to Texas.

We are planning to leave here on Tuesday.  The next two days will be spent in preparations for that move.  Since starting this trip in January, we have been visiting and exploring cities and towns around south Texas.  We have walked through a lot of historic districts and examined a lot of architecture.  Our focus is going to change now.  For the next three weeks or so we will be exploring the natural beauty of Texas in Big Bend National Park and Guadeloupe Mountains National Park.  We’re ready for a change; we’re both excited.  It’s gonna be fun.

Hill Country State Natural Area

It got cold overnight.  We woke up this morning to temperatures in the mid 30s.  Quite a change from the 96 of Friday.  Because it was so cool, we didn’t rush out of the house for our adventure today.  We took our time to sip coffee, enjoy breakfast, and read a bit before heading out the door.

Our destination was about 25 miles north of Hondo at the Hill Country State Natural Area.  We got there about 11, went in the park office to pay our fee, and were on the trail by 11:30.

This is apparently a very popular park with the horse people.  There were several horse trailers in the parking lot.  There were campsites large enough to accommodate those trailers with picnic tables and fire rings.  There were no hook-ups, however, and no running water at all.  There was one Johnny-on-the-spot and a pit toilet. Several sites were occupied with RVs set up for dry camping.

View from the trail

Backcountry campsite

We did a 4-mile loop hike.  Because these are horse trails, they are very wide and because it hasn’t rained here in a long time (we’ve heard the last real rain was in October) the trails are very dusty.  The area reminded us somewhat of the cedar glades in Tennessee.  There was very little topsoil covering rock, grass, cactus (mostly prickly pear), and cedar trees.  These were not the Eastern Red Cedars of Tennessee, however.  The land is not so flat here, but rather rolling.  There were no steep areas to climb but the ranger cautioned us about the rocks along one area of the trail, but obviously he has never been hiking in Pennsylvania or New Hampshire where there really are rocks.  We had to look on the map to know when we passed this “strenuous” area.

Looking toward Comanche Bluff

View from Comanche Bluff

It was very good to be on the trail again.  Of all the wonderful things to see and do in this great land of ours, hiking is my favorite.

We had our picnic after the hike while watching the horsemen care for their animals then a pleasant drive home through Texas farm country.  We’ve had our showers and are just waiting for ice cream social at the clubhouse.

We are planning to move our home to a campground a little closer to Fredericksburg and Austin on Tuesday.  It will actually be a little closer to San Antonio for the rest of the things we want to do there.  Anyway, tomorrow will be a day to get ready to move.

The Alamo

We made our way into San Antonio this morning and with very little traffic and no difficulty what so ever we found our way to the camera repair shop.  It was easy to get back on the interstate and get back downtown for our visit to the Alamo.  We got off at the appropriate exit and followed the signs to the Alamo.  We had to head around the block again for parking and it just so happened that we pulled into a Central Parking lot within sight of the Alamo on the right hand side of the street.  Later in the day, when we went back to the truck to get our picnic lunch we noticed that there was a Central Parking lot directly across the street from where we had parked which was charging $10/day.  Our parking lot was only $5 for the day.  How lucky was that!

I know you haven’t forgotten that it was just a mere 173 years ago on this very day that the Texians and Mexicans were fighting for control of the area of San Antonio de Bexar and the Alamo Mission.  Things didn’t go so well for the Texians and they were defeated by the Mexican army led personally by Santa Anna himself.  However, the battle of the Alamo (perhaps the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution) was a contributing factor in the final outcome of the Revolution in which Santa Anna was captured and forced to relinquish control of what became the Republic of Texas.

Gift Shop

The Alamo was originally named Mision San Antonio de Valero, a Roman Catholic mission erected by the Spanish for the conversion and education of local Native Americans. Soldiers of various armies (including the Confederate Army during the Civil War) occupied the compound from the early 1800s.  It is now run by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas who obtained ownership in 1905.

Today, the Alamo is considered hallowed ground and is the Shrine of Texas Liberty.

The long barrack

After touring the Alamo and having our picnic in a small park across the street, we walked along a portion of the River Walk.  We are planning to return on Friday to complete that walk and I will have a complete report afterwards.

Our feet were finally sufficiently tired to demand heading to the truck.  Getting back on the interstate heading toward Hondo was not as easy as the inbound trip had been.  We needed to go south on I-37, but there was no entrance ramp from where we were.  We decided to go north and connect with I-35 south which would bring us around to US 90 in a relatively short time.  We got onto I-35 but got confused when I-10 split off.  We ended up going west on I-10 when we should have stayed on I-35 south.  We managed to find our way onto I-410, along with the rest of the afternoon rush hour commuters, and eventually looped around to US 90.  You might think that this would have been a great way to get an overview of the city, but Gene had his eyes on the car in front and I had my eyes on the map.

Wrong turn not withstanding, we had a great day.  We will stick pretty close to home tomorrow and head back to San Antonio again on Friday.

Seeing The Rio Grande Valley

One of the things on our list to do while we are in this area was to drive along the southern-most road, the one that parallels the Rio Grande River.  Today we got that done.

Our Lady of Visitation Church

We traveled east to west along Military Highway (Route 281) from Los Indios to Pharr where we turned back east along Business Route 83 to Donna, then Route 83 home to Harlingen.  It was definitely an overview of the Valley which is what we wanted.  Not surprisingly, this is farmland.  The fields have been tilled and planted.  Many had crops above ground from tiny fresh shoots to what seemed to me to be ready for harvest.  The primary crops in this area are sugar cane and cabbage.  We passed only one orange grove along today’s route.

Sugar Cane

Border fence

The Military Highway originated as an Indian trail which ran along the Rio Grande.  These trails were later used by Spanish explorers during the 18th century.  Later, ranchers built a real road from the trails to connect their ranches.  Eventually the road was used to link frontier forts, stagecoach and mail lines running from Brownsville to Lerado, and as a military telegraph route between Forts Brown and McIntosh.  The road is paved and in good condition.  There are historic markers all along to inform the traveler of various historical events along this route.

Along the trail at Santa Ana

Our first stop was at Our Lady of Visitation Catholic Church which was built in the early 1880s.  It was boarded up no longer in use, but there was some evidence that restoration may be forthcoming.

Our second stop was at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge a few miles south of Alamo. The interior roads were closed to private vehicles and we were not much up for the hour and a half tram ride.  Instead, we browsed through the gift shop and then walked along one of several trails.  We saw several ducks on one of the ponds.  I would have made a picture but when I looked down and saw 4 mosquitoes lunching on my leg we decided to move along.  By the way, we discovered quite by accident the other day when we went to Laguna National Wildlife Refuge that our National Park pass would get us in the gate at a National Wildlife Refuge for free.  Free is always good.

Don-Wes Flea Market

Our last stop was at the corner of Business 83 and Victoria Road in Donna, TX.  Several folks had mentioned the flea market there on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.  We don’t normally shop flea markets, but there had been so much talk of this one we just had to take a look.  We found pretty much everything there, from new to very, very old.   We only found 2 items we felt we couldn’t live without.  Gene got some short bungee cords to secure his water hoses and the funnel cake.  It was difficult to choose between the funnel cake and ice cream.  The booths were next to each other and we stood in the thruway swiveling our heads from one to the other.  Then we noticed the sign that offered funnel cake with ice cream.  Now that’s more like it.

Having used up most of our energy, we headed for home confident we had a real feel for the Rio Grande Valley.

Our First Rodeo

Cowboys, horses, bulls, dust, and the ever-present wind.  Oh, but what a show it was.  

Women's Drill Team

We had a fabulous afternoon at the 20th Annual Los Fresnos PRCA (Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association) Rodeo.  We got there about an hour early and walked around the carnival adjacent to the rodeo arena.  The music from the various rides, the screams of the children, the aroma of corn dogs, popcorn, and pizza, the smell from the livestock barn, and the rush of about 3,000 people all melded together to create the perfect Texas rodeo atmosphere.  We found our seats and settled in for our first ever rodeo.

The day was somewhat overcast which was good.  We weren’t uncomfortably hot and the sun wasn’t blazing in our eyes.  It actually sprinkled most of the second half of the rodeo—just enough for me to put my camera away but not enough to actually get wet.  The wind was fierce, however.  The wind was blowing so hard it blew a man’s beer right out of his cup.  I finally stuffed my hat in Gene’s backpack.

They got started with announcements, a prayer, and the National Anthem.  The first event was the bull riding.  The clowns were great, especially Rudy, who was like the co-announcer.  My favorite events were the bronco riders, both bareback and saddle.  The steer wrestling was okay and I didn’t like any of the roping events, especially the tie-down roping.  I felt sorry for the poor little calves.  Gene’s favorite part was the women’s barrel racing.  Even the children got involved chasing the calves trying to get the ribbon off their tails.  What fun.

We had a great time, but I got in the truck feeling like I had most of the Texas topsoil stuck to my face.  Well, there was a lot of it stuck to the truck.  With the few sprinkles to make the dust stick, it looks like we’ve been 4-wheeling.

Tomorrow, we both have a few chores to do and we will probably stay inside out of the wind for a change.

South Padre Island

After staying close to home yesterday, we were anxious to get back to our exploring today.  It was another gorgeous day with temperatures in the 70s with a pretty strong wind to blow your hat away.  We decided it would be a fine day to go to South Padre Island.  It was a short, easy drive of about 35 miles from our home base in Harlingen.  Along the way, we found where the rodeo will be which we are planning to see on Sunday and we located the road which leads to the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site also on our agenda for Sunday.

South end of South Padre Island

After crossing Laguna Madre by way of the Queen Isabella Causeway onto South Padre Island from Port Isabel, we turned right to head to the southern most point of this barrier island.  This section of the island is a county park—Isla Blanca Park—and is very popular with beach goers.  Of course, on this “winter” day the beach was not overrun with sunbathers (although we did see a couple out on their towels soaking up the rays).  There is a fairly large area for RV camping just across the road from the beach.  If it weren’t for such a strong wind to rip the awnings right off my home, I think I could stand parking here for a month.  I took my shoes off to test the water and was surprised at how warm it was.  Of course, I only got my feet wet.  We saw a surfer taking advantage of the waves pushed up by the wind and several kite flyers.

North of the Isla Blanca Park the hotels, condos, restaurants, and shops dominated the landscape typical of any beach resort community.  We drove as far north as possible on paved road and the farther north we went, the less developed the area became until we finally reached just dunes and beach.

Back on the mainland, we stopped at the Port Isabel lighthouse.  This light was commissioned in the mid 1850s and is now a local landmark.  We found a fish market and picked up a couple pounds of fresh shrimp. I have divided the shrimp into 3 portions, 2 of which are in the freezer and the other is chilling in the refrigerator just waiting to the slathered in cocktail sauce. Umm, lip-smacking good!

Apparently rare for this part of Texas, we had a few dark clouds today and even a few rain drops.  The wind is remarkable.  I’m not sure I have ever experienced anything like this.  They said it would be windy in Texas.

Port Isabel Lighthouse

Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park

Today was quite a learning experience.  We went to the 8:30 coffee and donut thing at the clubhouse this morning. This is Tropic Winds version of the 4 o’clock social hour at the Escapee parks we have been in.  It is just a time to meet new people and learn what is going on in the park.  After that we grabbed the camera and our picnic lunch and we were off to the other end of the Valley.

Along the trail

Texas Olive tree in bloom

I’m not exactly sure what I thought the Rio Grande Valley was, but what I saw was definitely not what I expected.  Our destination was Camping World in Mission; all the way on the west end of the Valley.  It is about 40 miles from Harlingen.  We took US 83 which is a 4-lane, limited access, divided highway.  There are several small towns between Harlingen and Mission.  I thought we would see wide open spaces between these towns as we progressed from one to the next.  That certainly was not the case.  It was like one gigantic city 40 miles in length.  There was no distinction from one town to the next except for the town name which appeared on the water towers.  Incredible!! And we haven’t seen so much traffic since we got off I-10; maybe not since Montgomery.

Largest prickly pear cactus I've ever seen

We found our way to Camping World and managed to find a sack full of treasures to bring home.  Gene finally got one of his Christmas presents—2009 Trailer Life Campground Directory.  He has been asking for it at every Camping World we’ve been near since Nashville.

Javelina

From there we drove south a few miles to Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park.  South Texas is famous for its birds and this park is a favorite among birders.  Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley is the headquarters for the World Birding Center.  Private cars are not allowed inside the park.  We rode the tram to the far side of the 2-mile loop road and got off at a trail which took us down to the Rio Grande River.  We had just missed the next tram by the time we got back to the trailhead, so we decided to walk along the road. Since there are very few cars (just park service, border patrol, and tram) it is a great place to walk or bicycle and today there were several folks out getting a bit of exercise.  We saw two things we had never seen before—green jays and javelinas.  Texas olive trees are in bloom.  We’d never seen one of those either.

Looking across the Rio Grande to Mexico

By the time we got back to the car, it was after 4—rush hour on the highway.  Boy, I don’t miss that.