National Park Diary: Bobcats, Snakes & Birds Galore!

Nine days ago (November 1) I moved to Cottonwood Campground on the west side of Big Bend National Park. I had some excitement in my little world when I went to move my slide in. It would only move about 10" in then stop! The motorhome cannot be moved when the slide is out. Anyway, I had to enlist the help of two camper guys to come over and push while I operated the slide motor from inside. It went in reluctantly, then when I was safely parked in the RV area at Cottonwood and pressed the button the slide made a big bang, bang, bang noise and would not move out! Yikes! For some reason after it sat for a few moments and I had almost entirely resolved to live in a much smaller space, I pressed the slide button and it miraculously slid out. Whew - minor disaster averted!

There are 4 RV families that live here: Bob, Ted and Heather, me, and Tony. Bob and Ted staff the visitor center (Castolon) working opposite days from one another. Heather is a homemaker. And Tony and I work camphosting on opposite days. Everyone has pets, too. Bob has his doggie, Nudge. Tony has his doggie, Scooter. Ted and Heather have their big dog, Doug. And I have Tighe and Zuni.

We are lucky to have water way out here in the desert, but boy, is it yukky! As an example of how much iron and other minerals there are here, today I dropped a magnet from one of our bulletin boards and when I picked up the magnet I had to fight to get all the sand off it!!! The sand was sticking to the magnet!

Anyway, we all filter the non-potable water that we use in our RVs for dishwashing, showering, etc. to make it tolerable and to NOT ruin the inside piping with mineral deposits. We get our drinking water from one of two reverse osmosis (RO) faucets - one RO at the campground and one at the paid staff housing area. And we still have to filter our drinking water to get out the bad taste. A couple of times I have accidentally swallowed some of the non-potable water and immediately regretted that mistake! I've heard that one volunteer could not work here because they got sick from bad water. So far we are all alive - ha!

So far the sewer works and the electrical service seems to be more reliable than in the Chisos Basin. Up there we sometimes had 3-4 power dips per day and here we've only had one dipsy-doodle day. I've heard tales of rodents coming into our motorhomes when the weather gets cold, so I've taken preemptive measures. Yes, don't reach into any hidden places on my RV or one of my peanut butter baited mouse traps will snap your fingers! I've also stuffed some steel wool into any tiny crevice that a mouse could squish itself through. (No, I am not relying on Tighe and Zuni to kill the mice. My last cats merely slept peacefully through the pack rat incursion in the Great Basin!)

Bob calls this side of the park his "Little Retirement Home" and I have to admit it is wondrously stress-free! Only 24 campsites, no reservations to worry about, and only one group site with reservations. I am told that we will fill up over the holidays and spring break, but this is nothing like the non-stop action in the Chisos Basin and Rio Grande campgrounds. Even though I am somewhat envious when I hear my backcountry friends on the radio calling in their adventures to dispatch, I love being "home" with the kitties most of the time. On my off days I can always ride along with my friends Terry and Dave who are the current backcountry volunteers.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and many of the "retired" volunteers are coming to the park to visit!! This is so exciting because I will get to meet legendary former volunteers as well as visit with the folks who coached me when I first started volunteering! Yay!! Jane, our volunteer coordinator, changed the date of our VIP (Volunteer in Park) pot-luck dinner to November 17th so that all the annuitants can join us, too! Can't wait!

So Stephanie and Steve will know I still think of them, I want them to know that we now have campers nicknamed Crazy Dog, Yah-Man from Jamaica, and Dog Canyon KIAs (Know It Alls) among others. Your tradition lives on! Can you get away to join us here at Big Bend???

I am settling into the routine of slower camplife here and doing some hiking on my days off. I love to entertain so the other night all of us volunteers along with returning mountain backcountry volunteers, Tina & Steve, and our law enforcement (LE) supervisors, Blake, his wife Yvette, and new permanent LE Brian all had dinner at "our" place. Vegetarian lasagna, Italian sausages with peppers and onions, salad, ice cream and apricot bars - yum! Best of all we just got to hang out and visit until the gnats drove us all home. :-(

Now for photos from the last few days here! Here goes:

Cottonwood Campground at Big Bend National Park - 24 sites, low stress!

Camp resident, Golden Fronted Woodpecker

One of our family of 5 or so Great Horned Owls. I was laughing today because they were honking instead of hooting!

Just showing off my camera's close-up. A flower from Tuff Canyon

Tuff is volcanic ash which forms thick, compressed layers exposed in several parts of the park. In this photo you can see where boulders used to be embedded in the tuff. The flowers and millipede are all from Tuff Canyon. That day was overcast and cool and I hiked Tuff Canyon, Mule Ears (and checked out both springs), Burro Mesa Pour Off and Burro Springs Overlook. Lucky us - both my cameras batteries died!

On Sunday, November 8th we had a group of high school seniors from San Antonio volunteering in the park. There was actually a much larger group but they split into groups to do other projects. Here is "our" group who helped us rehabilitate the Cottonwood amphitheater. Jane Brown, our volunteer coordinator is pictured fourth from the right of the back row. They scraped, sanded and repainted the wooden benches as well as the projection platform in the background. (It all looks fantastic now - this photo was before the rehab!) Next step is to begin to hold "ranger programs" with us volunteers as presenters! Whoo !hoo!

Today was the best day ever! Late in the day I decided to go hang a posting at the Santa Elena Canyon, 7 miles away from the campground. Imagine my surprise when I drove up on a mama bobcat with 3 not-so-little kittens taking a little stroll along the roadway! I call this "Herding Cats" because they were all over the place instead of just gathering up and posing for a family portrait. Ha!

Since I could not choose favorite photos, you get them all including a video near the end.

Cute little paw!

As I was driving back to the campground, elated from seeing the bobcats, but only going 25 mph the car straddled and ran over this Western Diamondback rattlesnake who was amazingly camouflaged on the roadway. So glad I didn't hit him! As I followed him into the mesquite he got a little perturbed and coiled, striking at the mesquite in his way. Way cool to see him lash out at the poor bush.