Big Bend: The First Days
I went to the big bend region of Texas and I knew it would be a trip full of rockhounding, relaxation, and rejuvenation…or something like that. Every time I’ve gone before, I spent so much time inside the park that I never really got to do any rockhounding. Even with a whole week, you’re not going to have time to see everything you want to see, much less what you should see. I started planning my time there weeks ahead of time. I wanted to have a basic schedule in mind. For the most part, it worked.
This trip, I spent most of the time in the north end of the park near the persimmon gap area. I’d never really explored that part, so I did a lot of hiking and took pics of a lot of cool rocks and cactus. plus, I found the persimmons, so that was an extra bonus.
I also found a storage room dug out of the side of a hill that is said to be an old icehouse (for actual ice, not beer). I don’t know about all of that; I can’t find any information and you might know how the NPS likes to hide certain bits of history and literally erase landmarks, so who knows. There was a baby javelina skull and a few bones in it (I didn’t go in - I took a pic, lightened it, and zoomed) and what I was fairly certain was bear poop nearby, so I didn’t stick around.
Remember the persimmons? Yeah, I figured bears and javelina both like persimmons, and although I’m not scared of either, I know that both have been sighted near where I was roaming, so I was being cautious. Which is good, because I did happen upon a few javelina munching on fallen persimmons. I got some video. It’s on my instagram.
Then, I got a text message from my dogsitter. She informed me that the oldest of my three Australian Shepherds, Crash, would not eat. Now, he’s 16.5 years old at this point. He’s a double merle, was born deaf, and is starting to have health issues indicative of being a geriatric dog, including some kidney and liver issues. I specifically asked if maybe he was just depressed, and she said no. He was not eating much of anything else, either. I began making plans to fly home and kinda didn’t sleep much over the next couple of days.
But then he started eating just a little bit and I got some help from a neighbor; they got Crash to the vet and the bloodwork showed his kidneys had gotten worse. So he was put on a special kidney diet, pumped with fluids, and sent home. My dogsitter worked with different types of foods because he still didn’t want to eat but he was eating enough where he’d be okay until I got home, so I tried to relax and enjoy myself; my dogsitter is a real professional - she’s more than capable. She’d take him to the vet if it got bad, and the vet said he’d feel better once he got used to his new diet. (Mind you, it’s not a ‘curable’ issue, but it would prevent further decline due to neglecting the root cause. He’s still an ancient dog, and nothing can be done about that.)
Over the next couple of days, I found a neat little volcanic field along the road to Black Gap and picked up agates along the roadside and just happened to stop in a place where I found a ton of crystals along the road as well. Ended up going to La Linda International Bridge (still not open) and took some pics there. Had a really great time doing that, and then spent a couple of days working on video editing, and came out with the longer video about finding the crystals, agates, and hematite nodules. I was still going out and doing other stuff during these days, but a lot of it was spent in the truck so I took mostly landscape photos and the occasional “OH! STOP HERE!” thing.
There’s more to come from this trip…stay tuned!
