camping

Loose-Leash Encounters

 in camping / travel / Wildlife/animals  tagged baby fawn / bears / dog leash / hiking / moose / Sawtooth Mountains by

    High in the Sawtooth Mountains, my Molly mutt charged into a small valley. Through the trees, I glimpsed the creature she’d spotted. It was a little bigger than Molly, dark, and slow. Bear cub? The glance I’d gotten had left a calf shaped impression, but rough-cut, like a Gumby character. Bear or bovine, that critter’s mama was not going to stand for this. I shouted with little hope. I knew that Molly was too excited to hear me, and that my lumbering pace would make me a fine target for that mama’s wrath. This sort of situation is […]

Who’s the Helper in Helper, Utah?

 in camping / travel by

Why did the folks in Helper, Utah choose that name? Knowing that Utah is predominantly Morman, I thought of a Morman friend who once told me that she was happy to watch my little ones on our moving day because God rewarded her good deeds with blessings. So, maybe the town fathers chose the name to promote neighborly cooperation? No, according to a historical marker, Helper began as a railway stop where extra (helper) engines were added to power coal trains over the mountain. In any case, Helper is a well-kept, welcoming community. I was impressed to see an antique […]

Critter Fix

 in camping / Colorado / Travel tips / Wildlife/animals  tagged camping / mice / pests / prevention / Rodents / Travel tips / Tucson Mountain Park by

Inches from my head was a critter scratching, skittering, gnawing, hellbent on creeping me out and doing a fine job of it. I wondered if it was looking for a secret passage through the propane tanks, storming the storage compartment under our bed, or using the headboard as a jungle gym. Wherever the intruder was, it was not the nature I’d come to commune with. Other pests we’ve picked up  over the years have been more considerate-except that mouse that built a nest on our pickup’s engine and started a family overnight. The festive looking light strings I noticed under […]

Camping in a Shoot Out

 in Arizona / camping  tagged Arizona / ATV riding / Black Canyon Trail / Phoenix / primitive camping / Table Mesa Recreation Area / target shooting / travel by

We noticed some people target shooting as we looked for a camping spot in  Arizona’s Table Mesa BLM Recreation Area.  Unlike other BLM camping we’ve used, these primitive campsites were grouped which seemed a good idea to prevent bullet riddled campers.  I could almost smell the testosterone wafting off rough and ready campsites and wicked rigs.  Between that and the steady barrage of gunfire, we weren’t sure we’d stay long.  If our poor dog had had a vote, we wouldn’t have stayed at all. The sunset was killer, but the firing continued far into the night.  Bullets rattled in bursts, […]

Trailside Shopping Ops

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / border / Cottonwood Campground / coyotes / Mexican souvenirs / nature trail / Rio Grande River / roadrunners / sunset / Texas / travel by

Cottonwood campground in Big Bend National Park, Texas, has many usual campground attractions and way more.  We watched coyotes trot casually across our backyard.  Roadrunners scurried a few steps, cranked their tails up and down, scurried, cranked, scurried, cranked. Then a neighbor alerted us of spectacular nature trail sunsets–and shopping.  Not just any shopping, illicit border infiltration shopping! Before we got to the nature trail to peruse the wares, we discovered another shopping outlet on a scenic overlook.  As we took in the view, Steve noticed a man across the Rio Grande who climbed into a boat and rowed our […]

Rowboat to Mexico

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / Boquillas / caves / donkeys / ferry / guide / Mexican restaurants / Mexico / Port of Entry / Shopping / travel by

Red flags lofted at the suggestion of a side trip to Mexico, so I asked the Information Desk staffer in Big Bend National Park. “You are safer here than in your home town,” she claimed.  (Apparently she considers the Mexican village of Boquillas part of Big Bend.) The next surprise was the Port of Entry, a nice official building on a dirt path leading to the Rio Grande River–no road, no bridge, no Immigration officials, just a friendly Parks employee who prompted us to check and see if our passports were expired or we’d picked up another family member’s by […]

Hi Jolly Who?

 in camping / Snowbirding / Wildlife/animals  tagged Arizona / camels / Great American Desert / Hadji Ali / Hi Jolly / Jefferson Davis / Quartzsite / travel by

A sign pointing the way to Hi Jolly Monument caught my eye in Quartzsite, Arizona, so I checked Google and found that yes, I wanted to see Hi Jolly Monument.  Hi Jolly, AKA Hadji Ali, was a camel driver recruited from Syria to help run Jefferson Davis’ experimental transportation project.  Who knew that the US imported 74 camels to haul freight across the “Great American Desert in the 1850s?” If only the Civil War hadn’t trampled the effort, the Southwest might be crawling with camels today, and camels are cool! At least some of the Corps’ camels were freed to […]

How Do These Holes Happen?

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / camping / Ernst Tinajas / fox / hike / hydrologic holes / pond / rock formations / snowbird / trail / travel by

I hadn’t expected anything like this when we hiked to one of the highlights recommended in Big Bend National Park.  Tinaja is Spanish for pond, so I’d assumed oasis which would naturally be a big draw in arid Big Bend.  The formations were even cooler though, especially when a fox trotted into the canyon and left a deposit in my path.  (Apparently he was delivering a message: get outta my yard!) On seeing the tinajas, the holes’ symmetry made me wonder if people had somehow bored them.  But who would have taken so much trouble, and why? A month later […]

Javelina Tough

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged desert / dogs / Javelina / prickly pear / rabbits / skunk smell / thorns / travel by

A prickly pear with scalloped notches made me wonder if desert critters manage to eat around the thorns.  I know cactus is nourishing because my great-grandfather sometimes resorted to feeding his cattle by burning thorns off.  Rabbits, I hear, do eat around the thorns, but Javelina munch thorns and all–without wincing. Javelinas are peccaries, not pigs.  They’re named for javelins because their canines are that sharp.  They also smell like skunks.  Fortunately they don’t generally mess with people unless a mother thinks she needs to defend her young.  They feel differently about dogs. All in all, I was happy to […]

Midnight Raid

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend Ranch State Park / camping / raccoons / Rocket City Trash Pandas / Texas by

Camped along the Rio Grande in Big Bend Ranch State Park, we were pretty much alone in the campground and miles from most everybody.  The night was dark and chilly, so when I heard a clank very near the camper, I stayed in bed and listened rather than leave my warm covers to peer into darkness.  After a bit there was ticking on roof followed by a trill that made me think of a cricket though it was clearly not a cricket. Then there were sprinkles on roof.  Had the ticking only been raindrops?  What could the trill have been?  […]