First Workweek Under My Belt

It is Friday noon and guess what?? It is raining!!! Steadily since early this morning! I was hoping to go out hiking with Matt (from law enforcement) and others, but only a crazy person would hike today. Besides Matt's work intervened so at least one of us is doing something productive today.

Actually Steve and Daisy have been working too. They went out and jump-started our alternate vehicle (nicknamed "Mud Dog") but it won't keep running so it is on a trickle charge today. Daisy says it will need professional help from the maintenance department.

Work has been fun - practicing driving the 4WD vehicle, checking on campsites, cleaning up camper messes (charcoal from fires, illegally disposed of toilet paper, bits of junk, etc.), making contact with visitors, looking for and raking out tire tracks in the desert, hiking, and more. Mike and Nancy had kind of showed me the ropes last year at the end of the season, but Steve and Daisy have oriented me and introduced me to more of the details of the job.

Zuni is loafing today while I cook, clean and blog. Yesterday we put in a long day driving the Glenn Springs Road and hiking Pine Canyon. It was chilly - in the low 60's most of the day - and very overcast. I took a whole bunch of pictures but most of them were blah because of the overcast. Here are a few:

Approaching Pine Canyon trailhead.

Beautiful Havard agaves along the trail.

Canyon trees beginning autumn color.

The dead trunk of a Texas Madrone

Many tarantulas out and about for mating season. Notice the lovely color differences between them! It does not show in the photos but some of them have a turquoise jewel spot on their back.

Another flower, different color though, from the one below with the cucumber-shaped fruit. Daisy says these are Devil's Claw. When the seed pod (cucumber) is ripe it splits down the middle and the "claw" grabs onto animals and people's clothing to spread the seeds. She says most of the time books feature a white or pinkish flower, but everything is more lovely in Big Bend!

I believe this is a Mexican Jay. A couple of them were in Pine Canyon, but they are difficult to distinguish from scrub jays who tend to be more raucous.

Flowers everywhere around the backcountry camps.