#64a - Tuesday, 23 May 2017 - Rodeo, New Mexico

Yesterday I filmed a little video showing the outside of my home for the next thirty nights. The whole idea was to embed it into this blog. Unfortunately, due to slow wifi and some technical difficulties, I can't share that quite yet. It is hopefully uploading to YouTube right now and I will be able to share tomorrow. So here's a photograph of my campsite. I think this is the nicest in the park as it is still in the corner off away from everything and is adjacent to the duck pond. It also has the best patio. In the pic below you will see a wooden table (pallet on legs) for grilling on the left, a nice fire pit in the foreground and a picnic table, all of which are right outside my doors and partially covered by my awning. You'll also note Jesse's play stand outdoors and the hummingbird feeder hung in the tree at far right.

This morning I did some laundry and am having a relax day. Last night I drove 100 miles (2 hours) to the Antelope Wells border crossing and waited there for the sun to set. I had tried to time my drive so there wouldn't be much of a wait, but I left camp about 30 minutes too early. Each time I drive from my camp at Rusty's east to Animas (16 miles) for fuel or groceries I have been seeing horned lizards at the highway edge if it is somewhere around 8-10 a.m. They are more active when the sun isn't completely blazing and retreat from the midday and afternoon heat in burrows. Last night, as I drove toward the Mexico border and Antelope Wells I thought I saw one again. There are a few species in this area, but the largest and broadest is the Greater Short-horned Lizard, which is only five or six inches long but has a back almost as broad and flat as my hand. I hit the breaks, swung an off-road U-turn and slowly creeped back north in my truck. Sure enough this bucket list species was basking on the pavement at dusk. I jumped out of the truck and approached, stupidly not bothering to grab my camera. I wanted to catch first and photo second, positioning the lizard on a natural background and not photographing it on pavement. First mistake. I would love to have that photo now. As I reached down toward it, the horned lizard (aka horny toad) surprised me with its speed. What ensued fortunately wasn't captured on film. It was a comedy of errors as the lizard darted back and forth and headed toward the roadside. Big, clumsy me was no match for even this super stocky and robust lizard's moves. It paused and darted, again and again, each time evading me and taking advantage of my height and girth. I simply wasn't agile enough or quick enough to bend over. Along the road's shoulder I picked up ground and went in for the grab. Just as my hand touched its extraordinarily broad and flattened back it scurried further out of reach and darted down one of the many holes that led to its tunnel. Foiled. I sat on the side of the road and cursed myself for not taking an image while it was calmly on the pavement.

This all occurred about ten miles north of the border. I was getting very hungry and also cursed my ill-preparedness at not having a sandwich or snack in the vehicle. I had a little siesta before leaving the RV two hours earlier and hadn't eaten since breakfast. I had no idea what Antelope Wells was and expected at least a small village where perhaps I could purchase a snack. Foiled again. It may look like a village on the map, but it turns out that Antelope Wells is nothing but a border crossing. I was in the middle of nowhere with no food for two hours in each direction.

Antelope Wells. No food in sight.

I took a few social media snapshots of the crossing, which had been closed since 4 pm and then sat watching the sun set over the Animas Mountains. I am not patient and didn't wait for dark. I began to creep slowly north on Highway 81. My normal "snake road cruising" speed is 25-30 mph, but I tried to go 10 so I wouldn't get too far before nightfall. A few nights earlier I had found four Painted Desert Glossy Snakes between mile markers 16-20. I was hoping that this stretch would yield other species. 

Near mile marker 6 – just a handful of miles north of Mexico – I spotted a snake coiled in the road. It was still light enough that I could see its stockiness and reddish color. I knew immediately that it was a rattlesnake. The Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes in this area are very red as that is the color of the desert here. It was simply beautiful with its tightly wound coils an adobe red. I put my truck in park and quickly jumped out. I had learned my lesson with the horned lizard and grabbed my macro camera set-up. When I am road cruising I have my two camera bodies set up - one with a 100mm macro lens and ring flash, the other with a 70-200mm lens and an external flash with a softbox diffuser. Thankfully, I captured the beautiful image you see here. But before I did I had to open the passenger door to grab my snake hook. As I went around the side of the truck I was surprised by another rattlesnake, almost identical in appearance to the one in the road, but perhaps four feet long instead of three. I grabbed my other camera and tried to position the snake for a photo, leaving the road snake coiled as it was. Western Diamondbacks are noted for their irascibility and are quick to throw themselves into a defensive positive with their heads held high and their necks in an S-shape. This one did not disappoint and struck at me repeatedly as it rattled loudly and slithered in reverse. Each time my snake hook touched it the snake used serpentine motion to keep facing me and striking while it moved quickly away from the roadside shoulder. I decided to let it be and return to the snake in the road. With good images captured it was time to move it off the road if for its own safety and nothing else. It gave me the same performance as its friend had, agitated and refusing to balance on the snake hook as it thrust its body away from the road. I ended up with two beautiful red diamondbacks rattling and striking and moving quickly into the roadside brush. It was interesting how two snakes that were about fifteen feet apart at the start of this encounter and eventually were about 25 feet away from each other ended up in almost exactly the same place. They both retreated to some bushes surrounding a soaptree yucca and their rattling was deafening. By now it was too dark to see and I went back to my truck to put on my headlamp and sip some water. I spent a little time with a flashlight looking for the snakes hoping to get another photo or two, but decided I had stressed them out enough. I got back in my truck and started slowly north. About a mile along I realized that I had neglected to record GPS coordinates so I turned back and looked for that soaptree yucca. I could hear the rattling from the road so it was easy to find the spot again. I use an app called Gaia GPS that allows you to create photographic waypoints so I took a picture of the yucca and used my iPhone to record the sound of the rattling bush.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox), Hidalgo Co., New Mexico

I'd say that the rest of the drive was uneventful, because I didn't find anymore live snakes. I did find one more Western Diamondback, also in this reddish color, but sadly it was on the slightly busier Hwy. 9 after I made it back 50 miles north to Hachita where I took it west. However, road cruising is never uneventful as you have to contend with hundreds of jackrabbits and hundreds of cottontails that seem to think launching into the roadway is a good idea when they see two tons of bright lights humming their way. I return to camp totally exhausted from my efforts to swerve and brake and accelerate as needed to minimize the number of hares and rabbits I trample. I would estimate that in the course of last evening's drive down to Antelope Wells at dusk and then road cruising at dark and driving 100 miles back to Rodeo I saw several hundred black-tailed jackrabbits and almost the same number of cottontails (both species, common and desert). In addition, the road at night is filled with racing rodents like kangaroo rats that are like psychotic gerbils as their plump little bodies and thick long tails streak from one side of the road to the next, crossing the two lanes of pavement in the blink of an eye.

I mentioned that today I am just relaxing. By that I mean I am not in my truck, not hiking and not photographing. I am just hanging out in my RV. I did a load of laundry this morning and checked out the clubhouse here to see if I could watch hockey there tonight. I also have been doing some Internet stuff. Yesterday I joined a website called iNaturalist.org. It allows you to upload images for identification if you don't know what you've found, but in my case allows me to ID for others or upload my images just to share. Even if I didn't interact with others it is a great place to store the same low-resolution watermarked images I post on Instagram and record the GPS coordinates and other info about each observation. I've only played with it for two days, but I am really excited about fully utilizing its potential and becoming part of the community. It's also a great way to find other peoples observations from the areas I visit and get locality information for species I am seeking. Sharing exact locations by precise GPS coordinates does have a certain risk as it can be used by collectors (read: poachers), but the trend today in scientific papers is to share this precise locality data and I don't imagine that someone is going to eradicate a species of scorpion or snake just based on my information, or that my not sharing info is going to prevent people from doing as they choose. It's all out there now and I choose to embrace the positive aspects.

Another Internet thing I am finally getting around to is building a new personal website. For many years exoticfauna.com was my primary home. Today it has been reduced to a single page and I started mjacobi.com before I left on this road trip. The latter was intended to be more about living on the road and doing some freelance design work and such, but I now wish to have one website that really focuses on my naturalist and wildlife photography adventures. Some of you may know that my SmugMug site is my true photo gallery and it even offers you the chance to buy prints of my images, but I don't really think it sees much traffic and I haven't been uploading new images there. 90% of the photos there are images of tarantula species taken in captivity. So the new site will contain my images of animals in nature and allow a better platform for everyone to view them than social media does. I will keep you updated on the completion of this site. I will just plug away at it here and there and probably spend a good deal of time finishing it when I am spending a couple weeks in Chicagoland in early July.

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Note: If you haven't seen the first RV video I made, which gives you a tour of my Wheelhouse and was filmed in Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park back in March, click here to view. Hopefully tomorrow I will blog again with a link to the video I shot here.

Whirled peas, M

#63 - Monday, 22 May 2017 - Rodeo, New Mexico

Settled in Rodeo, New Mexico …?

When I decided racing back to Texas to rejoin the Millsaps College Scorpion Searchers was not in my best interest, and that I would stay longer between the Chiricahua and Peloncilla Mountains, it gave me the opportunity to minimize RV towing and maximize exploration of the beautiful Chiricahua Mountains and the reptiles and arachnids of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. I have expressed my love-hate for birding, but this also is the best birding area in the U.S. for bucket list Mexican species that cross the border nowhere else. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the trails in the Chiricahuas or the spots in its foothills where people allow you onto their land to enjoy the birds at their feeders. My decision to extend my stay at Rusty’s RV Ranch for another week transformed into another month when I spoke with Rusty. Today is my checkout from my first week of stay and I will move to another site (this one is reserved by someone incoming) and, for the first time, become a temporarily sedentary gypsy/pikey/nomad. My stay here will now surpass five weeks and I’ll depart around June 20.

I’ve mentioned the need to return to Chicago to renew my driver’s license. I might be able to do so online, but I want to take a little break and visit family too. I need new eyeglasses and need to put 90% of the clothes I have in my RV into storage and grab a few stored items that I wish I had with me. For example, if I would have had my tent and sleeping bag it would have made it possible to spend a little more time in the field with Brent and his students. It would allow me to hit a few spots where my RV cannot go. So, my present plan is to leave my RV here at Rusty’s at the end of my stay and head back to Chicagoland. I’ll take a bit of a scenic route and perhaps take a week to drive what I could do in a couple days. After a visit to Chicagoland, where Jesse and I will stay with Joel and no doubt gorge on sushi a couple times, I will take an even more scenic route back to New Mexico with my sleeping bag and tent allowing me to camp in some national and state parks en route.

Here in Rodeo I look forward to continued road cruising at night for snakes, hiking in the Chiricahuas and maybe taking a few longer day trips to other areas in southern Arizona and New Mexico. I've now driven down to the Mexican border at Douglas, Arizona and that same road would allow me to visit the old mining town of Bisbee. Douglas is the closest city of size and has a Wal-Mart that I'll visit a few times over the next month to stock up on supplies. I'll probably do that in the evening so the drive back is after dark and may allow me to happen upon interesting snakes on the road. Yesterday I ran out of propane for the first time and drove to Valley Mercantile in Animas to find them closed on Sunday. Instead of back-tracking and heading down to the Wal-Mart again, I drove up to the interstate (I-10) and headed east to Lordsburg, New Mexico. It's actually a bit closer than Douglas and has a decent grocery store. I was able to find propane at a truck stop so Jesse and I would have heat last night (temps are currently in the low 90s by day and the low 50s at night). Today after I move to another campsite I'll get my two primary 20# cylinders filled in Animas. So here is an updated map that shows the added frequented stops of Douglas, Arizona (Agua Prieta, Mexico lies on the other side of the border) and Lordsburg, New Mexico. Note how State Hwy. 80 runs diagonally southwest from Rodeo. From my site it takes less than ten minutes before I cross the Arizona state line. 

     –   All the best, M

#55 - Wednesday, 3 May 2017 - Alpine, Texas

Here's a mission for ya, before I begin ... why not copy and paste your browser's URL into an email send a link for this blog to two or three friends who might find it interesting. I happy to type for myself diary-style, but the more readers the more time I will invest here. Thanks! 

With the BTS Journal done and dusted, edited and designed, I had a few bonus days here in Alpine, but other than my drive down to Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management area I have ventured too far.

Yesterday was my first dedicated maintenance day. It was deep clean, hyper organize and fix day. I got my oil changed, which in these parts isn’t as easy as finding the nearest Jiffy Lube, and also got it washed. I then cleaned the glass and gave it a bit of a polish. There’s a True Value just a couple miles down the road where I picked up RV wash supplies. Tomorrow after I am hooked up and pulling out I am going to be using the RV Park’s very nice RV wash area to give the Wheelhouse a scrub. Unfortunately, I needed to repair a hole in my RV awning that occurred during gusty winds one night in Big Bend N.P. Lesson learned; always retract awning before bed. I was so proud of how I had shoehorned by RV into a secluded and shaded spot where I could only extend the awning 25%. That 1/4 of an awning was enough when middle of night power winds got it flapping and the shady desert willow drove a stake through it’s heart. I bought a roll of black and a roll of white vinyl tape and a double thickness of 4” of each repaired the whitish underside and dark top.  I changed my guitar strings, I filled all of my water jugs and did all sorts of little fine-tunes to my gypsy life.

Today I continued my organizing and stocked up the fridge and pantry. I returned to the True Value to buy a hummingbird feeder as I had seen a little hummer whizzing around my door this morning. My neighbor when I first arrived here at Lost Alaskan RV Park had a seed feeder and I’ve seen many others. Many of these people in huge motor coaches build an entire patio set when they arrive. I figured a naturalist/wildlife photographer needs a hummingbird feeder to attract photo subjects. It took all of five minutes before I had my first visitor.

I was stoked to find one of my top three beers in the grocery store here. I don’t know how I missed it on my first visit. Imperial is the pride of Costa Rica and a delicious, easy drinking lager. I already had a case of Lone Star and miscellaneous craft beers in the fridge, but had to add a twelve of Imperial. I’ll have guest starting Monday. I’ve got loads of electrolyte drinks, teas and other stuff and somewhere beneath the varied and plentiful drinks and condiments I think there is something to actually toss on the grill tonight. I even have stuff for a salad!

Tomorrow morning I will break camp, scrub the Wheelhouse and head out of Alpine. Hopefully driving through El Paso won’t suck too much because I am not sure I feel like shunpiking around it. If I hit the road early enough I may do a scenic detour. See map below: 

I blogged previously about a man named Mick that I met in Seminole Canyon. One of the things he shared with me, which he explained he had learned from some Canadian RV trekkers, was the 3x3 rule, or something like that. It is setting the goal of never driving more than 300 miles each day, always arriving at next destination by 3 pm, and always staying in each spot at least three days. I'm down with that mantra. Tomorrow, though, I will travel a bit more than 300 miles and arrive somewhere I am only staying two days. But I have no doubt I'll make it by 3.

In an upcoming blog I will give an overview of my road traveled thus far. But until then here is the macro view of Road Trip 2017 through Sunday's arrival in the Catalina Mountains east of Tucson.

– All the best, M

#54 - Tuesday, 2 May 2017 - Alpine, Texas

The issue of the Journal of the BTS that led to holing up in Alpine and working is done and dusted. It is at the printer and with this morning’s coffee I am finishing the Interactive PDF version that online-only subscribers receive in lieu of the print Journal. Yesterday I was able to start exploring the area and took a scenic drive through the Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area about 40 miles south of here on Hwy. 118. It is a restoration stronghold for the Desert Bighorn Sheep, but I wasn’t lucky enough to see one. I was lucky enough to get the timing right though, as yesterday’s first day of May was the opening of the driving tour season in the park. A permit is required for hiking, hunting and primitive camping access.

Alpine has surprised me and I wish I would have been able to enjoy it more. Catching some live weekend music at the Railroad Blues would likely be a fun experience. So far the only thing I dislike about Alpine is all of the maddening one-way streets and four-way stops. But I do have two more days here before I head west through El Paso and into New Mexico for two nights in Deming, just north of the boot heel of the "Land of Enchantment". Below is my itinerary for this leg of my road trip.

APRIL
=====

21-26    Big Bend National Park, Texas
27->    Lost Alaskan RV Park, Alpine, Texas

MAY
=====

<-3    Lost Alaskan RV Park, Alpine, Texas
4-5    Roadrunner RV Park, Deming, New Mexico
6    Tombstone RV Park, Tombstone, New Mexico
7-9    Rose Canyon, Coronado National Forest, Tucson, Arizona
10-11    Pichaco Peak State Park, Eloy, Arizona
12-    ?


On Sunday, May 7, I will arrive in the Coronado National Forest where I have a primitive campsite (no hookups) for two nights in the Willow Edge Loop of Rose Canyon Campground. The next afternoon Dr. Brent Hendrixson and his three students will meet me there and we will begin three-four nights of scorpion research collecting. On the 10th, we all will break camp and move to Pichaco Peak State Park near Eloy where I’ll be staying for two nights with electricity. Brent and his crew will be moving on to camp at Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction closer to Phoenix on Thursday, May 11, but I’ll stay camped at Pichaco for my second night and probably just truck up to join them for the evening’s scorpion hunt and then say my goodbyes and head back to my site at Pichaco. They are moving at a quick pace farther to the west to work three sites in southern California next. I can’t travel at that speed and don’t want to pass through areas so quickly. In fact, on the 12th I will visit Tucson’s Saguaro National Park and find someplace nearby to stay in the area for a couple more days, and then will backtrack to New Mexico and likely stay at the park in Deming again. I have a friend in Albuquerque who works at the Rattlesnake Museum (I plan to visit) and hopefully she will be able to join me for some snake hunting in the boot heel. Rather than tow my rig all the way north to ABQ, if the park in Deming that I’ll see this Thursday is adequate, I’ll probably just stay there for the week and make all trips to ABQ and other farther north New Mexico destinations by truck alone. Next on the agenda will be returning to Texas to visit Guadalupe Mountains National Park and New Mexico’s adjacent Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

When I hit the road I had no plans to return to the Midwest anytime soon, but my driver’s license is expiring on my August 5 birthday so I am forced to return to Chicagoland for a visit. That works out perfect as I have far too many clothes on the road with me. I will find someplace to store my RV starting July 1 and between then and now will pack up everything unneeded and haul it back to storage. I know I will be restless there and not want to stay long, plus I have new adventures to get ready for come late July and early August.

I had been hoping since this adventure started that sooner rather than later my mate Mark would be able to take a trip over from England and join me. Being here for my birthday sounds like perfect timing and he is currently shopping air fare for a two-week trip with my August 5 birthday in the middle. So, after my quick return to Chicagoland in early July, I will be coming up with a plan for his visit, which will likely begin by me picking up at Phoenix airport. I’ve also extended open invites to other friends to join me at any points along the road, and I am hoping that Chad is going to be able to meet us in the southwest and that maybe, just maybe, Apple will as well.

     &emdash;   All the best, M

#53 - Friday, 28 April 2017 - Alpine, Texas

ALPINE, TEXAS

SCENE FROM ALPINE … The old cowboy at the gas station counter asks for a tin of smokeless tobacco. He has that sixty year old body and 100 year old skin look of a man who doesn’t spend much time indoors on the couch. He was about 6’4”, but probably didn’t weigh more than 175 and he seemed twisted and bow-legged. His wavy salt & pepper hair was windblown below the white Laredo cowboy hat. Wrangler jeans, big belt buckle. Weathered cowboy boots, faded bandanna. I walked up with my tacos and drink and noticed the young man serving him. It was a striking contrast. The chaw-dipping, tall drink of ranch water was handed his can of Skoal by a pretty boy with pink finger nail polish. The boy wore impossibly long false eyelashes and spoke with a flamboyant swish quite dissimilar to the cowboy’s Far West Texas drawl. I looked around the store and saw a half-dozen other cowboys in white wide-brimmed hats, belt buckles and boots, but no other glamorous gender-fluid clerks. But the young girl who said hi to the effeminate clerk looked like she was from Manhattan. Welcome to Alpine.

Alpine sits at about 4500 feet and is surrounded by 6000 foot plus peaks of desert scrub and rock. It is a far west Texas town of 7000 people and the county seat of Brewster, which also includes Big Bend National Park 100 miles south. It is definitely cowboy country, but the town is full of food trucks, art galleries, book stores, coffee shops, artsy craft shops, and other trendy establishments. The grocery store I visited yesterday had a huge selection of craft and imported beers and many of my fellow customers looked like they’d just stepped out of a jamband festival or alternative performance art cafe instead of a cattle ranch. Two businesses in town I want to visit are Big Bend Brewing Company and Transpecos Guitars.

I had always thought I might spend a night in the Alpine area and it was most likely occur between Big Bend National Park and Guadalupe Mountain and Carlsbad Caverns National Parks north of here. But I never planned on spending a week here with air conditioning and cable TV. Yesterday afternoon I arrived at Lost Alaskan RV Park at the north edge of town and booked a week anyway. My primary stressor during my 2017 travel has been my work as Editor of the Journal of the British Tarantula Society. The next issue needs to be printed like yesterday. I’ve plugged away at it as I could at various locations, but the only way I can fulfill my commitment is to hunker down and sequester myself and get the job done. So Guadalupe and Carlsbad may have to wait until some time after my scorpion chasing in southern Arizona beginning on May 6. I confess that after a week without electricity in Big Bend National Park, where the thermometer hit 106ºF and days get warmer every hour until dark, and then see temps in the 90s two hours after dark and I slept in my own sweat each night, it isn’t bad to have full hookup, wifi and cable TV. It’s just want I need to finish editing and designing the new Journal, and a week’s stay in civilization affords me the ability to receive mail and packages, restock provisions, do some maintenance, and get my truck’s oil changed.

I thought seclusion in civilization (how’s that for an oxymoron?) would enable me to set aside my cameras and not chase creepy crawlies and the occasional bird or other charismatic megafauna, but fifteen minutes before I reached town I caught a six-foot red racer. I had taken the park road west across Big Bend and then took 118 north to Alpine. Ten miles south of town the big western coachwhip (a large, fast, diurnal snake that is red to pink here and called the red racer) was coiled in the southbound side of the two-laneroad. It was midday and about 82ºF. I pulled over as soon as I could and on the walk back a few hundred yards told myself how foolish I was for walking back for a piece of hose or rubber. Road cruising is an effective dusk or nighttime snake hunting method, but midday doesn’t normally yield many snakes because daytime active species like this red racer move quickly across. If it was a snake I decided it must be dead. As I approached I saw no blood or injury. That is a miracle as most people are wastes of carbon and will veer at a snake and intentionally reduce it to roadkill. The next miracle was that when I picked it up I didn’t get covered in snake shit and my own blood. Coachwhips are feisty and usually bite repeatedly and evacuate their bowels all over you at the same time. This one just hissed and made a few closed-mouth bluff strikes. The bigger miracle was that I picked it up at all. These are are faster snakes and this six and a half-footer could speed slither away pretty quickly. Then again, it wasn’t my first rodeo and I would have grabbed it even if it was a biter. Photos taken, snake released, I had to resign myself that I wasn’t snake hunting for the next week.

Big Bend National Park is amazing and vast. I will return soon and probably will overwinter there. The April heat was already sweltering and the warmth was stifling at night, but the terrain and wildlife are all that I care about. The night before I had found a very uncommon Mojave rattlesnake and couldn’t have been happier. It was in Boquillas Canyon where I had spent the day crossing into México, and the previous night black-lighting for scorpions. I had returned to release a tarantula and scorpion that I had found the night before after my flash batteries had died. [BTW, I guess this is a good spot to announce once again, that I am not posting pix in the blog because I do so via Instagram and Snapchat. If you don’t choose to use you are shit out of luck and I am not bothered. But, for those of you savvy readers who are following my images, I posted 14 new Insta pix last night and they include rattlesnake, coachwhip, scorpions, tarantula, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, jackrabbit [American Desert Hare] and more].

But let me tell you the tale of my border crossing. The village of Boquillas del Carmen sits on the Rio Grande in Boquillas Canyon. Hiking the canyon trails leads you to many hop, skip and jumps into another country. But there is one legal port of entry and it is pedestrian only. Closed for 13 years after 9/11, the 250 villagers are again earning their livings exclusively by serving the Big Bend National Park visitors who choose to visit their home. A passport is all that’s required. That, and the $5 round trip fare for the fifteen second flat bottom row boat trip to México. After showing the park ranger your passport and listening to rules regarding conduct and what you cannot return with, you walk down a little path to the river and your boatman paddles you into México. You then have the option of a very hot and dusty 3/4 mile walk to the village down a road of deep sand, with or without a “guide”, or you can opt for a truck, horse or donkey ride into town with someone who will show you around the small village. For $8 I rented a horse. My guide led it by the reins as it was not pleased with the large gringo cowboy on its back. As we approached town I tried my best steering it with my heels, but I was wearing sandals not boots. The horse was not amused with my faux cowboy skills. I guess that is one photo that I will share here. Miguel, el caballero. 

My guide tied off the horse beneath a wisp of a desert willow sapling that provided pretty much no shade (see left side of above image) and led me into the village and to the immigration office. I was surprised the town had such bureaucracy, but it took both sides of the border to work out the post-9/11 reopening of the crossing three years ago. A pretty Latina in a white and blue uniform scanned my passport and filled out the necessary document. I would have to return again upon departure. My amigo (I don't recall his unique name) led me to a restaurant where I enjoyed a plate of tacos and a couple of Carta Blanca beers. During the ride/walk into town I had impressed him with my Spanish and he had impressed me with his English. Speaking English allowed him the work of dealing directly with the tourists and it was why he learned. He told me that when tourism ended he was forced to leave his family in Boquillas and make his way into the U.S. and then east to Alabama where he worked as a house painter. I told him that I chased scorpions, spiders and snakes, and he told me he made special wire scorpions for souvenirs. Him and everyone else in the village. It was remarkable how every house displayed exactly the same small variety of handmade souvenirs. Everyone had wire scorpions and other animals. But after I finished my lunch he led me to his house, which was located at the edge of the village next to the solar farm. The only electricity they have is solar-powered and the government had built a nice solar farm and installed meters on their homes. The people of Boquillas were proud of their green energy and happy about American tourists like me. I asked what they had the most difficulty getting and they said gasoline. You wouldn't think they'd use much, but there were about a dozen old trucks in the town. The nearest town is 160 miles over bad road. The village had a little health clinic and a shiny new ambulance, but the drive to the town's hospital takes four hours. Once a week trucks come selling meats, produce, dairy products and other essentials. Prior to 9/11 they could shop at the National Park camp store. Now the crossing is mostly one way. Very few people can visit the American side. I bought a couple of the wire creatures and then paid my guide "what is in your heart". That turned out to be $25 for hanging out with me for two hours. I returned my ornery horse friend and three or four strokes of the boat oars later I was back in America and walking back to the Boquillas Crossing building where I spoke to a Customs Officer via camera and telephone.

The previous night I had hiked into Boquillas Canyon to search for scorpions. My friend Dr. Brent Hendrixson, who I will meet along with three students near Tucson in two weeks, told me about almost a dozen species that inhabit the canyon. The most interesting is found nowhere else. It is a psammophile – or sand lover/liver – and specialized to living in the sand dunes that sit from the mountain base to the river at the end of the canyon trail. I hiked to the dunes as the sun set, using a new GPS app I have on my iPhone to set waypoints that I could use to navigate back out of the canyon after dark. I am still a bit unfamiliar with the app and it's built-in maps failed a bit right at the river, so before darkness fell I hung four neon glow sticks from trees to lead myself from the dunes back to recognizable path points. Then I waited on the shore of the river and laughed at the idea of building a wall here. Once it was dark I turned on my UV flashlight. For those who do not know, scorpions fluoresce under "black light". They glow greenish and with the power of the flashlight I use I can see them as much as fifty feet away. The dune scorpions (<i>Paruroctonus boquillas</i>) sometimes would be just a speck of yellow-green as only a bit of their bodies broke the surface of the sand. Often you'd just see the claws sticking out of the dunes. They were wary and even if fully on the sand's surface a disturbance would make them vanish instantly. I used my forceps to flick them back out of the sand for photographs. I ended up only finding three species, but it was good fun. Brent and his students and I will be looking for specific scorpions in Arizona starting May 7.

My worst adventure was yesterday morning as I was to leave. During the night I woke and went into the bathroom. I flicked the light switch and the light lasted only a half second. My two batteries were drained after living without electricity for over a week. After I fell back asleep I was awakened by a periodic beep. It was my carbon monoxide detector/alarm. It wasn't wailing to tell me that I was at risk of death, but only chirping to let me know there was a fault. It needs electricity. The problem is that without power I can't break camp. I need electricity to move my slide-outs back in, lift the stabilizer jacks, and operate the power tongue jack on the trailer. I fell back asleep thinking I would just have to use my battery charger in the morning. That's why one feature for my new truck that I knew would be essential was an inverter-powered AC power outlet. Long story short ... I had problems with the brand new battery charger (only used once before so ...). It would only stay on charge for a few minutes and then would indicate that my batteries were fully charged and on a maintenance trickle. Um, no. It did it enough times that I became convinced that there was another problem and did some investigating. I even pulled out my manuals and tried to see if I could retract the slide outs manually. I gave up and walked to the camp store for coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I came back and still dead batteries. It took maybe 20 unpluggings, frustrated slaps and random expletives before the charger finally worked. I gave it fifteen minutes, saw that my batteries were at 40% and then broke camp. The batteries would be completely charged by my truck via the smart connection during my trip north.

This must be the longest blog entry yet! If you got this far thank you. I'm here until the third and then have a few days to get to Tucson. I'll post again when I am farther on down the road. All the best, M

#52 - Saturday, 22 April 2017 - Big Bend National Park, Texas

Roughin’ It Part II
Instant Coffee. The horror. I feel like I am in the U.K. or an Asian hotel room. The tea kettle went on my propane stove and I emptied a packet of Starbucks Via freeze-dried instant into the cup. At least it is Starbucks. There would be no fresh brewed coffee this morning and I’m likely to drink more tea this week.

Yesterday’s heat was stifling. Even as the sun fell below the Chisos Mountains in the distance, the thermometer read 104ºF/40ºC. There was little breeze and despite the weather being beautiful at dark the inside of the Wheelhouse was the warmest it has ever been when I hit the sheets. My bed felt like it was heated. I went to sleep with both Wheelhouse doors open hoping the predicted winds that would bring atypically cool weekend temperatures would hurry up.

This morning it is indeed windy. The sun is rising on a day that is expected to be 35ºF cooler than yesterday. Crazy. 104 followed by a forecasted 67ºF. Tomorrow should be in the upper 70’s and then next week low 90s are anticipated.

Last night I went for a sunset drive and then waited at the Panther Junction Visitor’s Center 20 miles west of camp for it to become dark. I walked the grounds looking at the desert plants and their identification placards. In my truck my laptop was connected to the center’s wifi downloading some television episodes to watch on my laptop since I have no AC power for the week. That’s OK as I just began a David Baldacci novel. Once it was completely dark, I drove back toward camp very slowly hoping for snakes on the road. I encountered mule deer and jackrabbits, and some sort of desert rodent ran across the road. But nothing reptilian.

Today might be a good day for cool weather hiking, but it also is Saturday and the park is more crowded than it will be on Monday. When I returned from last night’s drive many of the vacant campsites in my little out of the way loop had filled up. I’m likely to spend more time editing and writing while more people are on the trails, and then begin hiking in earnest first thing Monday morning. I expect Saturday is a bit of chaos at the Boquillas Crossing, but if I don’t go this weekend I will have to wait until Wednesday as the border crossing is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and I don’t want to be stuck en México. It also is probably a good day to use the park village’s laundry and do some RV chores. One of the reasons I like staying in a place for an extended period is selecting the best days for activities based on weather and less people.

This park is so big and so remote that it actually has its own zip code and a post office at the Panther Junction Visitor's Center. "Big Bend National Park" is actually a town name as well. I discovered this last night when I walked through the desert plant exhibit outside the visitor's center. A note on the name "Panther Junction". The park has about 130 reported mountain lion sightings per year. Over half of these lions are seen from the road by visitors. There are believed to be about two dozen adult mountain lions in Big Bend National Park and they say that no matter where you are within the park you are always within the home range of one of them. Occasionally one is sighted in a campground and then the campground is closed down. Other mammalian wildlife includes black bears and javelinas. I enjoyed my javelina encounter in Laredo, but have yet to see any here. Bears completely disappeared from Big Bend years ago, but now have returned by way of Mexico. There are supposed to be about two dozen in the park now, most of which are on the other side of the park where it is more mountainous and a bit cooler.

All the best, M

#48 - Thursday, 13 April 2017 - near Comstock, Texas

I’ve woken to the most spectacular thunderstorm I’ve experienced since one violent and terrifying thunderstorm near Negombo, Sri Lanka in 2014. The thunderstorms and rain began back in Laredo a few days ago and, as I drove northwest along the Rio Grande through Eagle Pass and Del Rio yesterday, the skies were extremely overcast and rains were scattered. I drove 40 miles northwest of Del Rio toward Comstock and eventually pulled into Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site. The rains held off, but the skies were threatening. Seminole Canyon is beautiful and the desert is more picturesque than it had been to the southeast.

My plan for the morning was to take the most challenging hike here. It is 7.5 miles roundtrip and the trail leads along the Seminole Canyon rim past views of Presa Canyon to the confluence with the Rio Grande. You are prohibited from venturing into the canyon itself except on the guided tours that lead you to the pictographs at Fate Bell. Seminole Canyon contains vast collections of pictographs created by the Desert Archaic people, and the Canyon Rim Trail that I wished to trek this morning leads you to a view across the inlet river to a pictograph that includes a nine foot jaguar (Panther Cave). Torrential rains fall at dawn while I type this, so I am not sure when I’ll be able to get out today.

There is no cell signal here and just some poor wifi reception near the headquarters. If the rains continue I’ll drive down the road to where I get good LTE signal so I can post this and send some files I need to get to Petco for Northwest Zoological’s 2017 Catalog. A rain out day would allow me to work on the BTS Journal as well, but that is what I intended to do over the weekend while I am staying at an RV Park back in Del Rio. Del Rio is the seat of Val Verde County and the nearest town of significance. Comstock is a small old west town.

During my drive from Laredo through Del Rio to this park I saw many Crested Caracaras. In Florida I only saw these scavenging falcons at one particular spot in Kissimmee Prairie State Park, but in Texas they are abundant along the Rio Grande. I also saw many Pyrrhuloxia, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and Mockingbirds. Images of all these birds may be found on my Instagram. I also saw my first Harris Hawks, which is one of my favorite raptors.

My last day in the Laredo area I returned to a site outside of town where my friend Dr. Brent Hendrixson had given me GPS coordinates for. It was a spot he had found both of the tarantula species of the region. I had scouted it out the day I arrived and returned two days later but didn’t have any luck. During my third visit I finally found my target species – Aphonopelma moderatum. Tarantula hobbyists call this spider the “Rio Grande Gold” and most including myself consider it the most attractive of American tarantulas. Again, see Instagram for my photos.

I had intended to visit a few other waypoints Brent had generous shared, and did stop at one picnic area in between the rains. I found a couple of nice burrows, but either nobody was home or my pouring water down the holes didn’t have the desired effect due to the rains. The weather made me push on, but I may return. I first visited this stretch between Laredo and Del Rio over 30 years ago with my friend Ralph Henning. We met up with Stanley Schultz, his wife Marguerite and a young Canadian friend of theirs. Schultz is well-known for his tarantula guide, a very overrated, bloated and mistakenly lauded book that is hugely popular and in its third edition. I remember being appalled at how he collected anything that moved in the desert and had an RV with coolers full of cups of invertebrates and reptiles. All were smuggled back into Canada. As the years passed, my opinion of him only worsened, but I did get a signed copy of his first edition which was a smaller book published by Sterling. Oo-rah.

The pouring rains keep coming – and my cell phone keeps stirring with emergency flash flood alerts – (funny how you can get those when you have no signal …) so we’ll see how my two days here pan out. It is looking like today will be a laptop day. My A/C power keeps going in and out too, but I have D/C power that runs my LED lights and backup water pump and such. I was only able to book last night and tonight (Thursday) because of the upcoming holiday weekend. The area and park are beautiful and I know there are nice snakes about. I will spend Friday through Sunday nights back in Del Rio at the RV Park, but I may very well book a few more nights here afterward. If the weather is mild I could stay at Amistad National Recreation Area in the Del Rio area for cheap in a primitive site without hook-ups, but if the temperatures are hot I will need electricity for air-conditioning. I can sweat on the trail, but I have my parrot with me and I don’t wish for her to be cooked. I have to head back this way regardless as I continue west and slightly south to get to the Big Bend region. I haven’t booked any campsites there yet so I remain completely flexible.

Texas has already been terrific. Lake Casa Blanca International State Park was a bit overpopulated and chaotic at times, but I saw Javelinas, deer, raccoons, osprey, caracaras, and wonderful bird species. Lizards were surprisingly scarce and most darted to cover before I identified them except for one racerunner whiptail that I still need to post an image of. I saw another whiptail near the restrooms here yesterday. The only snake I’ve seen in Texas so far was a dead-on-road (DOR) garter snake outside of Sea Rim State Park. However, I haven’t begun to road cruise after dark yet. This area has treasures like the grey-banded king snake so when the weather improves I will be looking.

Well, my power is now out. It may just be that my surge protector has tripped, but I’m not going outside in this downpour to check. I have A/C power in my truck and can sit in there and charge my laptop if need be. Even without electricity I still have my battery powered lights, USB chargers, water pump and backup water heater, and propane powered stove and refrigerator.

Cheers, M

Afterword: I'm posting this from the outskirts of Del Rio. I had to drive 30 miles before I had a weak cell signal and another 15 before I had 4G LTE. I needed to fill up my gas tank anyway and I've been sitting in this gas station parking lot taking care of all that I need to do on the cyber webs. The storms obviously don't dissuade the bass fishermen. I've seen at least 15 fancy bass boat rigs pull into this parking lot. They're obviously all fishing the Amisatad Reservoir above the Rio Grande. It's got me thinking of Border Patrol on the water, because it connects with the border river. Now that I am driving back toward Comstock and the state park I will have to pass through a border patrol checkpoint. I did so twice yesterday. First time dude asked if I was U.S. Citizen. I said yes and he waved. Second time (the checkpoint I am passing through again shortly) the dude asked if I was having a nice trip so far and quickly waved me through.

#47 - Monday, 10 April 2017 - Laredo, Texas

Lake Casa Blanca International State Park is an odd place. Within the border city of Laredo’s city limits and adjacent to the Laredo International Airport, it is urban, noisy and over the weekend was overflowing with Mexican fiestas. I messaged a lovely friend this morning stating that I have a love/hate relationship with the park, and that’s about as accurate as a description as I can give. This morning I saw some beautiful birds and followed a pack of javelinas (desert collared peccaries) through the desert scrub. Cell signal is superb. The campsite is quite beautiful and has all I need. Those are the love aspects. The hate is having the place inundated with people over the weekend as everyone from both sides of the border seemed to be picnicking in the park or fishing the entire shore of the large lake. The hate is the revving of loud truck engines at 2 or 3 in the morning and children screaming after midnight. But now it is Monday and the park is again home mostly to fellow RV travelers. I am extending my stay for two more nights.

Wednesday morning I will head northwest along the Rio Grande towards Del Rio and on to Seminole Canyon State Park & State Historical Site. Because of Easter weekend I was only able to book two nights there. Nearby is Amistad Reservoir and its extensive recreation area, but its campgrounds are first-come, first-serve only and are sure to be chaos on the holiday weekend. Also, it doesn’t offer hookups and it’s been pretty hot for no air-conditioning. I found a real nice RV park with full hookups including cable TV and wifi at a reasonable rate that has amazing reviews and I will spend the 14th to 16th there before continuing west towards Big Bend one week from today.

All the best, M

#44 - Sunday, 2 April 2017 - Sea Rim State Park, Texas

Second post for Sunday Funday. This entry from the blustery beach of the Gulf of Mexico at Sea Rim State Park. Those of you who caught my Snap or Insta stories today saw my campsite right along the ocean. It’s the middle of nowhere and I get cell signal for a couple minutes every five hours or so. When I arrived the volunteer at the headquarters told me that the weekend was slow due to the severe thunderstorm warnings. I sure can pick a good time to perch my Wheelhouse right above the windy beach!

After 510 miles on Friday and 410 yesterday, I was glad to only have about 100 miles today, but a leisurely stop at the Texas Welcome Center, the remote location of the park and the back highways that were my path meant that it took almost three hours. (The visitor’s center was impressive with loads of literature and a nice boardwalk through the Blue Elbow Swamp behind the building). This area of extreme southeastern Texas near the border with Louisiana is pretty desolate. The major feature during my trip south once I was in Texas was the cluster of oil refineries for petroleum conglomerates like Valero that are just north of this park. The day was gloomy and overcast and that only enhanced the bilging smoke coming out of the dirty stacks of the oil plants.

I am here for three nights. I really need to do some computer work so I actually picked the location due to its remoteness. Sun is predicted for tomorrow and I’ll definitely spend a few hours chasing shorebirds, waterfowl and gators with cameras, but I am here to relax and sit in front of this laptop and get some projects completed. Hopefully tomorrow’s draft will be the final one for the catalog I have been working on for Northwest Zoological Supply and I’ll spend hours working on the Journal of the BTS

All the best, M

#43 - Sunday, 2 April 2017 - Lake Charles, Louisiana

Rainy Sunday morning greetings from Twelve Oaks RV Park near Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana. Yesterday was a four state day. I left the panhandle of Florida and drove across the narrow southern tips of Alabama and Mississippi and on past New Orleans, through Baton Rouge across the mighty Mississippi River near its end at the Gulf of Mexico and on to this park 33 miles from the Texas border. I doubt this 2017 road trip will have any other days where I am in four states. Only a half hour from Texas, I could have easily made it five states, but my next destination is Sea Rim State Park. It lies on the Gulf coast in extreme southeastern Texas about 100 miles from here.

The freedom to choose destinations on a momentary whim is a wonderful part of this experience. As I drove along the Gulf of Mexico through four states I didn’t really consider spending any time oceanside until I stopped for a picnic lunch with Jesse at the Mississippi Welcome Center along Interstate 10. As she ate her apple and I had a can of tuna and crackers, I looked at my Texas Gazetteer and 2017 Road Atlas. I looked at the path I had driven and the stretches of ocean I had passed. State and National Parks are my sites of choice, and I spied Sea Rim State Park. I looked at its website on my iPhone and became intrigued. It has RV sites along the beach and a boardwalk that takes you along a path above the brackish marshes. It also said there were wildlife observation blinds. I decided I had to go. Unfortunately, a website glitch didn’t allow booking a campsite for the same day, so I was only able to reserve a site for the following day – today. I booked two nights, but if it is what I hope I likely will ask for another two during check in.

Since I couldn’t get into Sea Rim last night, I had two choices: crash for free in a truck stop or Wal-Mart parking lot, or find an inexpensive RV park somewhere along the interstate in Louisiana. After the picnic ended I sat in my truck and thumbed through my giant RV campground directory and chose one. It was three hours farther along the interstate. I read the guide’s brief description and three ratings system and then visit the park’s website to check out photos and more info. I’m not too choosy for only one night’s stay, but I certainly don’t want to pay $ to stay in a shithole. Twelve Oaks was certainly reasonable at the Good Sam Club discount price and I wasn’t disappointed upon arrival.

I only have two hours to go so I’ll have a leisurely morning here and am now making eggs and coffee. I plan to get a few more images up on Instagram and write a few postcards. Then I’ll break camp and drive a short distance west before heading south to explore the gulf coast for a few days.

Cheers, MJ

#42 - Saturday, 1 April 2017 - Holt, Florida

Good morning from River’s Edge RV Campground near Holt, Florida. Yesterday morning I left Kissimmee Prairie and drove a little over 500 miles over the course of 10 hours. I will miss that state park. As I left I was treated to glimpses of the park’s two most noticeable raptors. I paused to photograph a Red-shouldered Hawk on the ground among palmetto scrub. As I neared the spot near the park entrance where one or two Crested Caracaras were often sighted, I slowed to watch one perched high on a post and then noticed another on the ground on the opposite side of the road. I came to a stop and realized that there were two on the ground roadside in addition to the one perched high above. They are wary and didn’t give me a chance to aim a lens at them. I hadn’t seen three caracaras together before, nor had a red-shouldered hawk fly right alongside my truck as I cruised down the road. It was as if the best had been saved for last. Later when the Florida Turnpike ended at I-75 north I saw my first bald eagle of the trip hovering just above the road. When I started west on I-10 toward Tallahassee and the Florida Panhandle I began to see some dead-on-road (DOR) armadillos and turtles.

Although I photograph what wildlife I can, I’ve written before how I’d rather just enjoy the animals and nature instead of being distracted by capturing the moment for others to see. Additionally, there is so much to see that I can’t capture images of. I have photographed herons, egrets and raptors because I love them, but also because they are larger birds. Aside from a mockingbird photograph from the Everglades and another odd small bird here and there, I am really not a bird photographer. I couldn’t be even if I wanted to be. My longest lens is a second hand 300 mm f4 I bought from Chad Campbell along with a 1.4x teleconverter that extends its range to 420 mm. Bird photographers use faster glass and longer prime lenses. 600 mm fast prime lenses are standard with those with deep pockets using an 800 mm behemoth. These lenses start at about $12,000 and fast 800 mm to 20-25K or more. I’ll stick to spiders and snakes.

Wildlife I saw in the Everglades, but either did not photograph or capture satisfactory images of include Roseate Spoonbills, Wood Storks, Black-necked Stilts, White-tailed Kites, Swallow-tailed Kites, Brown Pelicans, etc. At Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park I saw but did not capture with camera include American Kestrel, Northern Bobwhite, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Eastern Meadowlark, Black Racers, Eastern Glass Lizard, Blue-sided Garter Snakes, Ribbon Snakes, raccoons, fox, kites, Eastern and Florida Grasshopper Sparrows, etc.

I had thought about getting completely out of Florida yesterday, but after ten hours on the road had had enough. If I went farther into sunset and the dark beyond I would have just crashed in a truck stop or something. I decided to look for an inexpensive RV park where I’d have water and electricity and be able to rest comfortably. As its name declares, River’s Edge RV Campground sits along the Yellow River and has a boat launch that I’ll explore after I post this for waterfowl and such. Holt is off Interstate 10 east of Blackwater Bay and where highway 110 drops south to Pensacola and the Gulf of Mexico. Just northwest of here is Blackwater River State Park. My campsite is about 40 miles from downtown Pensacola. After drinking my coffee, eating an egg bagel and breaking camp, I’ll continue west on I-10 past Pensacola and into Alabama. I’m less than 90 miles from Mobile, which sits on the Gulf’s Mobile Bay. From there the Mississippi border is not much farther and I-10 continues along the southern coast to Biloxi and onward. I’ll see where the wind blows me, but I expect to spend tonight in Louisiana or Texas.

Shortly after this morning’s drive begins I will hit 10,000 miles on a truck I got a week or two into January! My truck also records how many miles each trailer is connected and I believe the Wheelhouse now has around 2600 miles on it. It has served me well and is a cozy home for a gypsy. I admit I do ogle other rigs and consider what I might have had. My gas mileage is poor so I think about the smaller RV I was going to originally go with. I also see the advantage of a self-contained small motorhome. However, one factor in choosing my rig was the fact that I have a parrot along for the ride. A small bird takes up a lot of space!

Mentioning Jesse reminds me of something … Yesterday I posted story pics and video of her riding shotgun, which in her case means sitting on my right shoulder as I cruise down the highway. My last blog entry was a compendium of LINKS. I mentioned Snapchat and my fondness for sharing my travels other than wildlife photographs using it. What I neglected to mention is that Instagram copied Snapchat and added a story feature. Those are those circles at the top of your feed if you are using the app. Since I know that both my bonus dad Joel and my sister Lisa use Instagram regularly, I realized I should just post my road pix to both Snap and the Insta story. This means that they don’t have to screw with Snapchat. For those of you who only view my Instagram photos via your web browser, this gives you a reason to download the free app for iOS (or android) and view my Instagram on your iPhone, iPad or other handheld device. You don’t have to use it for other things. Just make a quick account so you can like and comment on my photos and then click on my story circle at the top to see my miscellaneous snapshots from my journey. It’s really easy and a quick YouTube video “Instagram for Beginners” will set you straight. Just sayin’.

Cheers, MJ

#41 - Thursday, 30 March 2017 - Kissimmee Prairie Preserve S.P., Florida

Today is my last at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. I've said that before and returned, but this time I can honestly say it is my last visit in 2017. It's supposed to reach 90ºF today after a high yesterday of about 87ºF. At 10 pm last night it was still close to 80ºF. But the weather was perfect for sleeping and a gentle breeze kept me comfortable. Tomorrow morning I depart. It will be the last day of March and it is time to get out of Florida. I've had my maps out over the course of the past couple days, but they can be overwhelming as every location intrigues me in at least some way. That's the amazing thing about America – you could spend an entire year just exploring one state. As someone who seeks snakes and spiders, Florida holds all sorts of treasures. But I am itching for the west. I love the deserts and rocky hills and mountains. My next destination is Texas and that state would require years to explore.

My plan – admittedly a strong word for my very loose ideas – is to head out tomorrow morning with no set destination. See, that certainly isn't "a plan". I looked for state park campground vacancies near Tallahassee, but they are hard to come by. I looked at RV parks in my phone book size directory. Then I realized that I just want to get west. I can crash at a Pilot Travel Center or Wal-Mart parking lot or rest area when I get tired. I'll half fill my reserve water tank and fill my propane and just keep filling my truck fuel tank until I feel like stopping for a couple days. I'm still considering a quick visit to Jackson, Mississippi, but likely will just take I-10 west across the panhandle of Florida cutting across the narrow southern tips of Alabama and Mississippi, and circumvent New Orleans as I cross Louisiana into Texas.

I have an amazing set of six eBooks that are guides to boondocking in the southwestern states. The author has been everywhere and pens her "Frugal RV" bibles telling you how to live on the cheap everywhere. The guides not only tell you where to camp free, but also the best roads to shunpike. As I've explained previously, this means using secondary highways and back roads to avoid interstates. I don't have a problem with using interstates as I like the services that are found along the way like truck stops and nice rest areas, but the biggest attractions of shunpiking are seeing out of the way places most don't visit and, even more so, circumventing major cities. As I enter Texas and look to head southwest I don't want to take the superhighway right through Houston. I'll follow her route around it and toward Austin before heading south and trying to avoid San Antonio.

Either way, the "plan" is to get to Texas for April and make my way to Big Bend National Park. Unfortunately, April 15 is the change of seasons for most camping locations. That means that the warm climate south uses reservations earlier in the year due to the influx of snowbirds. By mid-April reservations "are not necessary" and everything becomes first come, first serve. I'm going to look for an "off grid" free boondocks campsite near Big Bend, but I'd really like to camp in the state park if possible. It doesn't make sense to avoid camping fees and then spend more on fuel to drive in and out every day. There are two campgrounds within Big Bend operated by the National Park Service. Only one accommodates RVs the size of my Wheelhouse. However, it does not have electric/water hookups. That's fine for a week and can be stretched to two weeks by minimizing showers and dish washing and such. There is a third campground in the park (maybe on outskirts?) that has full hookups and is operated by a third-party vendor. I'll give them a call once I get to Texas. For the geographically challenged, Big Bend is extreme southwestern Texas so there are plenty of spots along the Rio Grande I plan to visit prior to spending a couple weeks around Big Bend. But first I need to get out of Florida and tomorrow I will try to put some miles behind.

M