The sun is shining and the wind is shaking our rig.  The sky is gray and the sage, acacias, and many herbs are in bloom providing a blue, green, and yellow mosaic of color across the plateau flat and the canyon walls.  Spring is here.

We’re in the desert now but felt raindrops on our morning hike.  A trickle of water connects the pools along the hard rock canyon floor.  A few miles downstream the canyon and that of the Rio Grande to which it is tributary are flooded by the Amistad Dam.  We don’t often think of the Rio Grande as a flooded canyon, but it is here.

This place is remote but we have a bit of Internet if no telephone service.  We have to drive ten miles for that.  The campground filled the night before last as a group of thirty-some bicyclists on their way from San Diego to Saint Augustine pitched camp here.  By Noon yesterday they were gone, hearty souls.  Our campground now has five tents and RV’s but the ranger says she expects six more this evening.  Many campers here stop for a night on their way from the Lower Valley to Big Bend National Park.  High desert and a seemingly relentless wind discourage many.  We enjoy the hiking and the birds.  Spring arrivals are surprising us every day now.  Soon the rush of migrants will expand. 
 

We have visited three "rock shelter" caves with pictograph panorams on the walls.  They are supposedly a few thousand years old and are spellbinding.  Check out the Rock Art Foundation website to see the images. The folks who lived in those caves got plenty of exercise.  The stairs up to the caves from the canyon floor are tough enough to climb.  They had no stairs.

This is a land of sheep and goat herders and a few cattle ranchers.  The closest town is Comstock.  The Border Patrol is the largest employer.  We have to stop and talk to them whenever we return from Del Rio, the county seat, some 40 miles from here.  We go tomorrow to bird and stock up on groceries.  Our next stop is at the tiny town of Marathon where we will stay only long enough to gather my sister from the airport before heading south into Big Bend National Park.  I doubt there will much telephone or Internet there.

Our birds include Rock and Cactus Wren, Canyon Towhee, and Roadrunner.  Tells you where we are.  We’re travel hardened and becoming travel weary.  Our winter/spring voyage is drawing to a close.  Still, we have a few more exciting places to visit.