Winter Doldrums

        Every winter the Nut Shell on the Granbury square where I sometimes work, goes through a period of panic.   Business slows to a creep.  Just a trickle of the perpetual stream of tourists show up in January and early February.  The owners go through more mood swings than usual, and their brutality to their employees increases to almost unbearable levels. Blaming it on us, of course. (There are only two of us with any long-time records.   The turnover is high.  Only the tough and dumb can take it.   If you have any self respect, a "healthy self-image", or are not willing to be a "suck-ass snitch", as we call fellow employees we do not like, the job is not for you, for very long.  Only Bhuddists and Hindus and saintly Christians need apply.)  I usually crash and burn about this time and am asked to leave, and this year I planned an ambitious trip to India, and asked off for six weeks, which they were glad to accommodate.  But annoying little spells of sickness made me think twice, so I opted for a car-camp, back-pack ramble through my favorite geography,  the Desert South-West of this great nation!  

        But even as that drew near, I hedged.   Put it off to go to the Opera, until I just had to leave because my friends I was to visit had time tables.  So, after an interesting performance of "Marriage of Figaro" by the Dallas Opera, on February 10th, it was time to go.  Shit or get off the pot.  I had packed up pretty much everything, and had the option of heading for New Orleans, some friends were already there for Mardi Gras....  But I would have to head out after the performance, and Kathleen was with me and we stopped off in Fort Worth to have dinner with Sixto at the Costa Azul. (friends I will introduce later)....... In other words, no New Orleans.

        So, the next day, I stalled and stalled.  Dragged my old ass as long as possible.   No energy, or spunk.   Read and re-read e-mail.  Sent messages to my California and New Mexico friends who I would see.  Finally I decided my route, packed food in my cooler, loaded camp stove, back pack and tent, and about a dozen geology and biology books, maps etc.  North Face sleeping bag, and a bag of dirty laundry and headed south.  Through Stephenville and Dublin over to Deleon or De Leon,  which they seem to pronounce "duh-lee-on".   It is a small burg untouched since the 30's, it seems.   But there is a great mural I have heard about, and wanted to see.
 
        So I almost get run over trying to get the picture in impossible light.   There is very little traffic, but I am standing in the middle of the street to get the shot.  

        I am feeling better.  I consult my maps and decide to head to Enchanted Rock State Park for the evening.  That Hill Country wonder is very crowded in the spring and summer.   The sport of rock climbing has taken off like crazy among the young, and this granite outcrop is tailor-made for such activities.  I like camping on granite anyway.   The crystalline structure of the rock seems to give me good dreams, and improves my spirit.  So I head down through San Saba to Llano, into the uplift area, in which lava magma bubbled up so many millions of years ago.  After unimaginable time and conditions, this long since cooled bubble is exposed within its fault lines.  In Llano, I buy gas, a loaf of bread and some ice.  A small market, bigger than a Mom and Pop, but not up to Kroger's.

        This trip, I will not get to the Grand and glorious Canyon of my dreams, but I do not know this yet.   My trip has not come together in my head at this point.  I pull into the camping area parking lot at Enchanted Rock..   There are only two other campers in one section, and I find an isolated area in another, where the camp site is a hundred yards from the parking area.  It is dark and only seven PM.  I am sufficiently exhausted, probably from lack of excise all winter since my Thanksgiving trip, and  wrap myself in my North Face and go to sleep.  Planning to pay the fees and all in the morning.  I sleep in the car.  Except, about midnight, I wake up, wide awake.   Before I can think about it, I head out of there, and head through Fredricksburg, dead as a door nail this time of night.   Get some coffee and head down the highway to Interstate 10 West.  Junction.   Sonora.  Ozona.  Fort Stockton.   I go left on 385 to Marathon and Big Bend.  By now it is about 5:30 AM and I am cruising above the speed limit somewhere between the Park entrance and Panther Junction,  when all of a sudden, there is this big THUMP!  I panic thinking that I have blown a gasket or something.  Then I think that I must have hit something I did not see.  Jack rabbits and deer all over the place.  Turning around, I found a sack of skin and bones, still warm and get it off the road.  No head.   Must have decapitated it and thrown it off the pavement.   Anyway, I waste no time and head on down the road.  Pullinginto the parking lot beside the Panther Junction Visitors Center, below the north face of the Chisos.   Dawn is just breaking over the Dead Horse and gap-toothed Sierra del Carmen mountains to the East..   I am still experimenting with my new Nikon, but, after a dud or two, do get a good silhouette in of the dawn with yucca and cacti...


Use the bathroom, make some coffee with my little backpack stove, and head on out to Study Butte and Terlingua.  Stop to see the cemetery, a place of serene fascination for me.  Terlingua was a town settled by the miners working the Cinnabar mine at Mariscol, now part of Big Bend National Park.   The ruins of the mine and refinery are still there, a fascinating place to visit off the rough old River Road that spans the park along the Rio Grand.  The mine was closed during the 40's when mercury was no longer commercially viable, and its effect on the environment was just being understood.  After its closing,  the workers moved on, and Terlingua was left to blanch in the Chihuahua Desert sun.  But it remained a place for desert rats trying to find God or just hanging out, hatching murder plots like (uni-bomber) Ted Kazinsky, (his brother lived there till fairly recently!)  and slowly a revival of sorts came about.   Still usually called ghost town, it is the headquarters for the river rats that take folk through the dramatic canyons on rubber rafts.  A gift shop, restaurant, and Far Flung Adventures HQ.  But the old cemetery done in the Mexican Catholic style, with the usual pagan touches, are still there.

        Today, Terlingua is best known for its annual Chile Cook-off.  Wild celebration and serious cooking take place at that time.  It is my hope to get there before I die.  The great party celebrations, of which this is surely one, New Orleans and Rio Mardi Gras, and the Burning Man event in Nevada are still on my list!  Maybe.  Someday.

        Driving the Texas Highway 170, up and down hill with great rock formations, and views of the Rio Grande valley is a wonderful experience.   Now that Big Bend Ranch has been given for a Texas State Park,  another dimension for exploration in this great area has arrived.   I stopped at the park visitor's center for maps and info.  The range of activities there increases every year.  I got up to date on the happenings, and returning to my car, found the missing rabbit head from last night's collision:   There is was hanging on my bumper.   Oh, the horror.   Rabbit skin glue.   Pretty good to stick it on so tight.  To this day a little bit of fur is still there!!!!!

 

   Below is hitchhiker John, who is fleeing the East for a while and heading to the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico.  We have a great talk, and I drop him off in Praesidio, where the border crossing is.  

(He wrote me back  after I sent him this picture recently:  

"......Copper Canyon is really spectacular country.  The trip down to Batopilas is a wonder!  I hiked solo from Batopilas to Urique, one of the toughest hikes
I've ever done with a full pack.

The first night out I encountered an all-night windstorm, the strongest I've ever tented in.  I had pitched my tent in a very exposed location, and a
very dusty one.  Gusts towards dawn nearly blew me away, but my good old tent kept its cool.  We were both just covered with fine dust that I am still getting out of my clothing and equipment.

I thought the hike down the 2nd day into the Rio Urique valley would be easy.  It came to a tough 7 hour day, the last 4 hours of which were nearly straight down, and the entire day was on trails covered with loose rocks
just waiting to twist an ankle or cause me to fall.

I was happy to hear from locals that the many fords of the Rio Urique [as shown on the 23-year old topographic map that was available] had been replaced with new trails and a swinging bridge.  Then I got to the bridge
and saw that 25% of the planks were broken out or missing. Some of the gaps were as much as 1 yard wide. I hesitated until I saw a couple of Indian women come by and trip across it with no problems, so I followed suit and
saw that many other boards looked close to being rotten enough to break out.

I ended up having to ford the Urique river anyhow at a place where the "trail" traverses a sheer rock face on a ledge 12 inches wide with a 1 yard gap in it, 15 feet above a deep pool.

The bird life in the Urique valley is a wonder.  I saw hummingbirds, orioles, a big green parrot, and others.  Everything was just beginning to bloom.  The malaria control men were out spraying and getting rid of
stagnant water areas.  A real interesting hike. ...")

Big Bend to New Mexico to Arizona to California

    The road goes on.  Presidio seems to have grown since I was there with Garry Ray in 1996, a wonderful chaotic mis-adventure to Old Mexico. (We went to Copper Canyon, and down to Batopilas, described in John's letter above. We did not get to Urique though.)  Back then, there seemed to be just a cafe and the border crossing.  The insurance office was in a small house off a dirt street.   Now the town has banks in glass and concrete, some organization that links it to the rest of homogenized modern civilization.  John wanted out at the bank.  I high-tailed it out of there then, toward Marfa, stopping briefly at a small community that caught my eye.   An old church, bright in the morning sun, and a sign indicating an historic .cemetery  Turning into a town once prosperous from mining interests, old Shafter is now just roped off ruins, but memorials to former days remain.   Down an unpaved road, through a creek with willows and huge cottonwoods, the area remains a mystery.   Trying to figure out if there is a picture there or not.   Decided there was not.  So, SShafterwas left to others to enjoy.  OR, NEXT TIME.  I always note and file these roadside attractions for later investigation.   I would hate to run out of things of interest to investigate.  As Robert Earl said, "...The road goes on forever and the party never ends!"

        The court house for Presidio County stands in the middle of town.  A gleaming angel of justice atop the Mansard Cupola blesses the town.   Down the street the train  station that sculptor Donald Judd purchased for his Chinati Foundation have these long open spaces with Chamberlains wrecked cars pieces strewn about the floors.   Tantalizingly seen for years through the windows.   It is never opened.  The Foundation proper is located outside the city, in an abandoned army base.  Ironically, the last time I was in New York, Judd was having a show in a Soho gallery, of rusting metal boxes, so familiar, but with a rich patina of a brownish oxide.   The boxes were left out in the Marfa sun, sprayed with water, and left to nature to do its job.  The prince of minimal scored again with the help of the desert Texas sun.  The Station in Marfa is another one of those places I have driven by  often, just looking, and left, planning to get the real info and orientation, for later investigation.  

     Each time I return, I just wander around these spaces, looking through windows and guessing.   There is the Paisano Hotel still on the main drag.  When George Stevens shot his Texas epic, "Giant" in and around Marfa in the early fifties, the cast stayed at the this hotel.  Famous pictures with James Dean, in scholarly reading glasses, perusing his scrip in the lobby.  Also in this pretty Oasis, were Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Agnes Morehead, a young Dennis Hopper, and other Holywood luminaries.   The house in the film, Reatta, was just a mock-up façade, the interior shots done elsewhere on sound stages, even!  But that façade still stands, we are told, on a nearby ranch.  I do not know where it is, but my waitress in a local eatery once told me the ranch owners name, and she said I could call for a visit.  Maybe some time.   Also Altman's film of the play "Come Back the the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean".  was located here.  Check out more info on this web page:  One devoted fan got the real skinny.  


    But the road goes on forever and the party......  Driving toward Van Horn to get back on I-10.  Soon after that strange white burg,  commercial America drying out in the desert sun under those forbidding mountains,  I am overcome with weariness, having been up since midnight, it is now two or three in the afternoon.   We have already gone into Mountain Time.  I pull in at the first available rest area, and am asleep before I know it.   I have no trouble sleeping in place in the reclining bucket seat of my Honda Civic.   But when I awoke later, I could not start my car.   I had left the lights on!  Lights of course for desert driving.  And the warning did not sound since I did not open the door.   This has happened before and will happen again on the last days of my trip.   A car pulls up with a young couple, the boy looks oriental with bright bleached hair.   I ask him for help with my jumper cable.  He, and his dad, in a van that pulls up about then,  get me going again.  I am much obliged and ashamed of being stupid again!  

    The interstate before El Paso goes close to the border, good views of the Rio Grand Valley,  with a lot a small towns on both sides ot the river.   There was a lot of smoke coming from the many factories, contributing to the desert air pollution, that constant haze that seems to cover the entire southwest.   We are ruining our air.   It is ruined.   It will take a smoke free year at least to clean up.  Dream on!  Our government, and Mexico's do not care.   We are sacrificing our precious air and water for the sake of a buck.   "FUCK NATURE.  IF WE RUIN IT, WE CAN BUILD A MORE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT, FREE FROM PESKY THINGS LIKE MOSQUITOES AND RATS.  WE CAN CREATE A NEW ATMOSPHERE, WITH MORE OXYGEN AND NO POLLUTANTS.  WE CAN LIVE IN PLEASURE BIO-DOMES."   THIS IS OUR MESSAGE TO HUMANITY AT LARGE AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT.  "GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU SIERRA CLUB TREE HUGGERS.   THE WORLD BELONGS US, NOW.  YOU FUCKING ENVIRONMENTALIST ARE JUST A BUNCH OF TERRORISTS!   WE WILL GET YOU OUT OF THE WAY."  That is the message.  They just say it differently.  

    Oh. Sorry about that.   I just got carried away.  I forget.   I hate politics.   El Paso was busy going home or somewhere as I drove through.   That town seems to double in size ever few years.   And Juarez across the river is really huge.  And there is much going back and forth.  Mainly forth.    I missed the turn for New Mexico Highway 9 which skirts the border, but I did not find out until I stopped at the New Mexico Welcome House in the first rest area.  The nice lady at the desk said I would have to go back into Texas and take such and such exit.  Or go on to Deming, about 50 miles and get a road down that way.  I decide to do it that way.  But driving through Deming, New Mexico, I see a sign for a Motel for 25 bucks.  It is getting dark, and I decide to take a chance.   besides I could use a bath, and would like to recharge   the battery of my digital camera.....

            After driving up and down Motel Drive, checking prices on the signs, I find that the first one I saw, $25 a night, was the cheepest.   It looked no worse than the rest, older and not as fancy as some.   In side the small lobby, I cought the rich smell of Indian food cooking.   The spices were unmistakable.  And sure enough, a dark skinned lady came to the counter, and got me registered.   I told her how good her food smelled, but she did not offer me any, even after I told her she should have a restaurant there!!!.

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More later.....


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And more. Later.

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