Church, Sam Nail & Ward Spring

Attended church at the Chisos Basin Amphitheater this morning, had a burger & got groceries in Study Butte, then had a couple of beautiful little hikes at the  old Sam Nail ranch and Ward Spring in the park.

All that's left of a little shed.

The windmill still working.

The not so working windmill.

Just a few moments with the breeze, autumn leaves and a squeaky windmill . . .

Chisos view from Sam Nail ranch.

Dikes are molten material that oozed up through geologic faults. Harder than the surrounding terrain, they remain standing as if marching across the land while surrounding earth wears away over time.

Up, up I go.

The Dikes

Autumn at Ward Spring

Ah, like all those with curly hair I bet it wishes it had straight instead. LOL

Water bug at Ward Spring

Yucca in bloom roadside neat Castolon. No other that I've seen, so maybe this one is forging new territory or a new time of year to bloom. :-)

The sweet mares. Three more in next pen. All will go to auction tomorrow.

Starry, Balmy Night

Just a short entry tonight. My long entry just got wiped out when I leaned on my touchpad. Grrrrrr!!! So I learned how to disable the stupid touchpad on my laptop. Ha!

The last two mornings the temperature has been 25 so I am surprised that tonight it is about 60 with a gentle breeze and a bright Milky Way. All this week each day has been magnificently beautiful & sunny with temps in the 70s.

Today six birders and I almost saw a javelina kill a camper's pet dog when it got loose and chased after the javelina. One of their other 4 dogs began barking too, but did not get loose, and I think that is what saved the doggie. It is pretty amazing to see such a ferocious, swift attack and I am certain that if the javelina had not been distracted the dog would have been dead within a few seconds.

Every day I can hear the gentle sounds of life across the border - an occasional car motor, the whinnying of horses and the lowing of cattle. At night I love to see the yellow street lights glowing on the other side of the river and smell the wood smoke from the fires used to heat the homes. (Santa Elena has electricity from the US installed before the Sierra Club found out! Boquillas, the Mexican town across the river on the east side of the park was not as fortunate.) In its heyday there were approximately 200 people living there and rangers say there are perhaps only 50 people now.

The Rio Grande winds around so much that it is literally a few yards from the campground, but less than a half mile away the abandoned road to the old crossing to Santa Elena is nearly a mile long. I explored it the day before yesterday.

The former road is now choked with mesquite and Russian Thistle (in invasive plant species). There is a second gate that I did not photograph that is nearly completely buried by the sand dunes. The border crossings have been closed since shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. Floods in 2008 buried the floodplain , changing the topography significantly and wiping out about half the Cottonwood Campground, Rio Grande Campground on the east side of the park as well as several backcountry campsites along the river.

I think I am spelling this correctly: Cerro Castolon, the mountain landmark in this area with the old military installation  in the foreground as seen from the old road. This area is now our visitor center, camp & gift store, law enforcement offices, etc. The campground and our RV area are in a very low area a little more than a half mile away from here.

Zuni and Tighe - the peaceful duo caught napping when I got home from my hike.