Arrow Heads, Mountains and Blue Bonnets

It was such a pleasure to meet Helen Bell, Curtis' grandmother, outside the town of Fort Davis, TX.  The ranch land, here, butts up to red rock mountains.  Unique rock formations and huge boulders make this a destination for rock climbers, if they only knew.  We awoke, in our camping spot at Crows Nest Ranch, tucked beneath the rock hills to see Fisher intently watching a mule deer feed.  Evidence of cattle having grazed among the campers was present.  Today, I scraped the red clay and cow patties from the tread of my shoes.  Fisher and I enjoyed a morning walk through the pines.  A walk I could have continued on for hours if there weren't a reason to quit.  I could see the damage done to the trees by an earlier ice storm, experienced this far south.  Having walked among the cactus while looking for sheds and arrow heads, I knew to carefully pick my path around the blood letting spines..  Fisher, however, had spent those days lying beneath the RV and now looked comical trying to pick both of her back feet up at once, having stepped where she shouldn't have.  I had already spent one evening with tweezers and tape removing cactus thorns from Bucky when he unexpectedly slid down a slope landing on a prickly pear.  Not at all a pretty sight or great experience!  I certainly didn't want to be doing the same for Fisher.  But, within moments, she was walking again on all fours.  Curtis had told us to look for the brown house on the hill and that would be his Grandmother's.  It was easy to spot as we walked from the RV.  He had also said to be sure to ask to see her arrow head collection.  And, that we did!  Bucky helped her lift the dusty case from her closet which held hundreds of heads collected over her 85 years.  They made my, possibly imagined, worked pieces of flint, now safely stashed in the RV, look downright pathetic.  In an array of shapes and colors, Helen clearly remembered when and on whose ranch land each had been discovered.  She told the story of being a young girl and finding with her parents the body of a dead Indian, still with quiver and arrows over his shoulder in a hillside cave.  

From Fort Davis we headed to Big Bend National Park which shares the Rio Grande River as its border with Mexico.  Seeing our first Border Guards raised the concern that comes with crossing any border even when there is no reason for it.  This wonderful park occupies the south western point of Texas as you look at the shape of the state. 

Mountains within Big Bend, referring to a large bend in the Rio Grande, are as high as 7,800 feet.





                                                                                                       Some bugs on the windshield

                                                                  Texas Blue Bonnets

                        Thorn removed from my shoe.  How did the natives survive.