Heading back to Colorado at the end of October/beginning of November was new for us, and we’re not sure it’s an experience we wish to repeat. Temperatures were in the 80s the day before we left. We drove through a cold front our first day on the road and awoke to temperatures just below freezing in the Davis Mountains the following morning.

We noticed that the cottonwood leaves had turned bright yellow along the road into the Davis Mountains. The freeze that night did them in so autumn lasted about 5 minutes for us. At Santa Rosa Lake in New Mexico temperatures dropped into the upper 20s, and we saw our first snow as we crossed into Colorado later that morning. We both like winter and snow but prefer a more gentle transition.

You may have noticed we didn’t post often these past three months. Unfortunately we managed very few hikes and only a couple together. First, our days off didn’t always coincide, and second, I spent almost 7 weeks in Maryland. My mom spent an unexpected week in the hospital and needed a fair amount of physical and occupational therapy plus help from her daughters to regain her strength and remain independent.

But back to Big Bend…

No shortage of bears or fire ants in The Basin this year, and Alan had to deal with both in the campground. One bear in particular wasn’t concerned at all when someone shouted at him. He didn’t like anything tossed at his rear end, but he always came back the next day. Law enforcement and the camphosts named him Bart (after Bart Simpson) since he was always looking for trouble, had no respect for authority and had a very short attention span. The fire ants required more extreme measures so both camphosts and maintenance spent hours every day trying to keep them under control. Everyone is hoping for a very cold winter, but even that is not likely to eliminate them.

Many of my interactions with visitors were fairly routine as I sold passes, wrote permits, discussed where to go and what to see, and answered questions. I can’t tell you how many times I repeated the following phrases:

• put this pass on the driver’s side of the windshield
• hike in the morning, drive in the afternoon
• carry a gallon of water per person per day
• everything smelly goes in the bear box
• please don’t soak in the hot springs when the water temperature is 105° and the air temperature is 110°

A couple of times a week someone would come in with a photo of a bird, flower or animal and ask for identification. Although I’m much more comfortable describing a hike than identifying a bird, I always tried, usually relying on guidebooks to help me out.

One day a visitor asked me to identify his photo of a snake. While he scrolled through his photos, I said I hoped it was pink. His eyes got big. “Yes, it was pink! What was it?” “A coachwhip,” I replied nonchalantly. Then I admitted that I had seen one several weeks earlier and had to ask someone to identify it for me and that it was likely the only snake I could identify without a guidebook.

We won’t ask you to identify any of the items in our photos, but if you are arachnophobic you may want to skip this first set.

Apparently the spiders thought the weather in Big Bend was perfect.

We didn’t see nearly as many flowers as we did in the spring, but we found a few.

Alan asked a roadrunner to pose.

A hike in the desert is best done early in the day, especially when one is climbing in and around rocks.

We were lucky enough to see rain, thunderstorms, flash waterfalls and flowing creeks.

 

This is likely the last trip in 2019 for Velocity, but we’re already discussing options for 2020. Arches and Canyonlands are good winter destinations. Capitol Reef in Utah and several places in Arizona are calling to us. So many places, so little time.