Abbey's Road

I made arrangements to catch up with Doug and Liane, an RVing couple I met last year near Big Bend, at McKinney Falls State Park outside of Austin. They had told me they were going to spend 5 days in Austin, one of which was Liane’s birthday, and I had gathered several restaurant recommendations from friends for them. The restaurants sounded too enticing to pass up so I decided to join them. I have met up with them a number of times and we always enjoy having meals together. They keep telling me where they’re going so I guess I’m not getting too annoying yet. Since we were both arriving in the afternoon on Friday, the plan was to have dinner at their “place” Friday night and to go out to one of the suggested restaurants on Saturday. I was to bring a salad, and it goes without saying now, a bottle of wine. I also added a surprise – the fresh shrimp I procured before leaving Alabama. I had planned to make a remoulade sauce instead of the usual cocktail fare, and was excited that I could finally use that Zatarain’s Creole Mustard I have been carrying around for far too long. Unfortunately, it had been far too long as the expiration date clearly attested to. I made an emergency run to the nearest grocery store only to find that they didn’t carry Zatarain’s and so I went with some store-prepared smoked chipotle cocktail sauce at the suggestion of one of the clerks. Let’s just say it was interesting, but still too sweet like many prepared cocktail sauces. We still managed to eat all the shrimp and the rest of dinner was great as usual.

On my way into Austin, I had spoken to Stephanie Lochbaum (of Andrew and Stephanie) and found that Andrew was out of town ‘til Sunday and she was wondering if I wanted to go to see an old Austin band called Storyville at Antone’s, a fixture on Austin’s 6th St. for years. Since I had never been to Antone’s, and never heard Storyville live, I figured why not. It’s funny but I’ve been to a number of places in Austin since I left that I never did when I was there. I switched plans with Doug & Liane to go out to a barbecue joint on Sunday. Stephanie and I had a nice dinner and made our way over to Antone’s a little before the first act was to start. She had warned me that Storyville might not come on ‘til 10 or so, probably thinking that I’m getting too old for this stuff. She was probably right. Well, I might have been OK if they had started close to 10, and if we had been able to sit down all night. Basically, Antone’s is a big open room with a bar, a stage and plenty of hard, concrete floor for everyone to stand on. When I got back to the campground somewhere around 2AM I was pretty beat, but the show was worth it. Another classic Austin experience I can check off my list.

If you go to Austin for barbecue, it doesn’t get any better, or bigger, than the Salt Lick, even though it’s located several miles outside of Austin in a dry county. Luckily, I knew this so Doug, Liane and I brought our own. After driving out into the middle of nowhere, they were pretty surprised when we pulled up, on a Sunday evening no less, and the place was packed. You have to “check in” at a table outside the restaurant and people were waiting all over the place. When you finally get inside it isn’t anything special – just picnic tables lined up one after the other – except for the food. It may not be the best barbecue you’ve ever had but it sure is pretty good and it fit Doug & Liane’s requirement of a place that’s uniquely Austin, or uniquely Texas. Check it out at http://www.saltlickbbq.com We weren’t done with the dinners yet. Liane’s birthday was Monday and they invited me to join them once again, probably because I offered to be their designated driver for the night. This time Liane picked one of my favorite Austin restaurants, Z Tejas. It has turned into a small chain, but it was still as good as I remember with unique, Southwestern cuisine.

After Doug and Liane left town, I stuck around the quiet of McKinney Falls for one more night before heading up to Andrew & Stephanie’s in north Austin for the rest of my stay. Zoe, one of their huskies, wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Abbey again, but we managed to keep them under control after a few minor scrapes. Of course, it did take some coaxing to get Abbey to go back into the house for the first couple of days. Andrew & Stephanie went down to San Antonio on Saturday to see Eric Clapton so I stayed behind and watched the “kids”. I did go out Saturday night with Michele, a girl I used to work with at IBM, and her new husband, Michael. Things have been very hectic for them lately. They were in the middle of moving into Michele’s house after it had been renovated. The interesting part about it was that it was covered by the This Old House gang. It was their first renovation outside of the northeast. Michele and Michael said it actually cost them a little more, but they ended up doing more than originally planned and it was a lot more interesting. Anyways, we had a quick dinner near campus and then went to see an unbelievable guitarist, Richard Thompson. He plays lively folk music and keeps up a great banter with the crowd, but man can he play a guitar. As Michele said, “It’s hard to believe all that sound is coming out of one guy.” The opening act, Eliza Gilkyson, is an Austin regular and also plays folk music, and some of it quite politically slanted. Since I couldn’t argue with her view too much, I didn’t complain. That’s the nice thing about Austin, there’s a wide variety of music to enjoy and just about any night of the week.

While I was in Austin I did get to take Abbey to some of her old stomping grounds – Barton Creek, Zilker Park, Town Lake and Bull Creek. Andrew & Stephanie actually share the same birthday, which happened to be on Monday, and they invited a bunch of people out to happy hour to celebrate. So I stuck around an extra day so I could see them all.

After Austin I drove all the way out to Ft. Davis, TX, a place I also stayed last year. There’s a real nice state park there. The deer have no fear of people so sometimes I’d have to be careful when coming out of the RV with Abbey. They’d be 10 ft. away and would look up but not move at all. Then one night I had the door open, but luckily the screen door was shut, and I heard some rustling right outside the door. I turned the light on and there was a javelina family not even 8 ft. from the door. Abbey started going crazy so I shut the door. It wasn’t the only time we saw them so close. I stayed long enough to go to the McDonald Observatory Star Party on Friday night. Just like last year, it was a beautiful, clear night for star gazing. They were preparing for the onslaught of spring breakers so they had double the amount of telescopes set up. It’s a pretty amazing place if you’re ever in the area. OK, it is out in the middle of nowhere, on purpose to take advantage of the dark skies, but if you’re passing through west Texas it’s worth the trip.

Posted by Ed at 10:33 PM | Permalink

On Friday I left the Davis Mountains and drove up to Guadalupe Mountains NP. I had remembered being told in the past that the park is supposed to be a beautiful place. Of course, I had to apply the Texas factor so I wasn’t getting my hopes up too high. The park is pretty small – only 82,000 acres – and there are very few roads into it. The campground was in a nice setting, right up against the mountains, but the RV area was actually part of the trailhead parking lot. I wasn’t too excited at first, but it turned out to be not that bad. There was even a short trail I could take Abbey on. We got there in the early afternoon so after taking Abbey on her lone trail, I took a moderate hike up one of the canyons. It wasn’t quite as beautiful as I had been told, but I think part of that is due to the severe drought the whole southwest has been under the last several months. The next morning I started out early on a loop hike which was supposed to be pretty strenuous climbing over 2300 ft. up to the Bowl. It also was supposed to have an entirely different ecosystem than down below. The Bowl did have pine trees but it wasn’t overwhelming, at least not to me. The view from the top, however, was quite nice and it felt good to get in a moderately difficult climb. Besides, I can't complain too much. I did get to see the tallest peak in Texas - Guadalupe Peak. I’m sure Abbey was happy she missed it, especially since it was pretty warm. I got done much earlier than I expected. That afternoon a couple from Germany pulled up in the site next to mine. They had a pickup with a truck camper on the back that they had actually shipped over from Germany. They have been traveling around since July and are winding up their trip in a few months. They had a really big dog, Mila, with them so I can only imagine how cramped it was in their camper. Poor Mila had sore paws from the rough rocks and all the burrs. Apparently she had gotten a few stuck in her paws and they must have gotten infected. They didn’t have any booties for her so they put socks and plastic bags on her front paws. It was pretty funny looking but I felt bad for her because I’m sure they hurt. I have to pull the burrs out of Abbey’s paws all the time. They didn’t have anything to disinfect them with so I gave them my peroxide and some other stuff. I told them I used to live in Germany but was embarrassed that I could hardly speak a word of German. I really have forgotten much of the little German that I knew. Anyways, they tried to talk me into going to Alaska this summer instead of the Canadian Rockies, which I have been planning on. It was their favorite place so far. Of course they could go to some pretty remote places with their truck that would be hard for me in my RV. Maybe I’ll have to look at trading mine in for a truck camper so I can see the real Alaska. Decisions, decisions. And I thought this was going to be easy.

On Sunday I went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I was anxious to compare it to the previously visited Caverns of Sonora. I have to admit that they aren’t really in the same class, but in some ways I like Sonora better than Carlsbad. They were much smaller, but much homier. For their size they had an amazing amount of formations and they did have more color than Carlsbad. But for sheer size and volume of formations Carlsbad prevails. Carlsbad also had helictites, like Sonora, though they kind of got lost because of all the other formations. It also had something I hadn’t seen before – cave pearls. I’m learning more about caves than I ever imagined. I wanted to do one of the auxiliary tours which were supposed to be a bit more active so I signed up for one on Monday to go down into Lower Cave. Other than climbing down a rope and a few ladders it wasn’t that strenuous. It was an OK tour, but it was a little slow for me. The guide did a lot more talking so we didn’t cover as much ground as I had expected. However, there were some pretty amazing formations nonetheless. Sorry, but the lighting wasn’t that great so I didn’t take any pictures in Lower Cave. We mostly just had the light of our headlamps.

Sunday evening I moved to a new campground at Brantley Lake State Park north of the town of Carlsbad. It turned out that a couple I had first seen in Big Bend, and ran into several times in Terlingua and the Davis Mountains, were staying there as well. When they saw me pull in they came down and invited me over for dinner – my first dinner invitation by other RVers. I guess I’m one of them now. Actually, Doug and Liane have been fulltimers less than I (only 2 months) so I even had some tips for them. They plan on traveling around for about 2 years or so before looking for some type of work to do. Of course, they are in their 50s and a bit closer to real retirement than I am. Then again, I could always do workamping or be a park host….. Just kidding Dad. In any case, I had a good time talking to them and comparing notes on places to go, but I probably had a bit too much wine. I was pretty tired today, Monday, after the Lower Cave tour. Tomorrow I’m heading to either Cloudcroft or Ruidoso, NM, depending on which has less snow and open campgrounds. That’s all for now.

Carlsbad Pics

Posted by Ed at 2:46 PM | Permalink

The Big Scopes

The McDonald Observatory, near Ft. Davis, TX, is one of the best known observatories in the US. Any of you NPR listeners may have heard their Star Date radio program. It supposedly has one of the darkest skies in the US, a great thing if you want to look at the stars. The Observatory has many programs but they have Star Parties every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evening. I made sure I arrived at Davis Mountains State Park on Tuesday so I could catch the big show. It turned out to be nearly a perfect night for star gazing – no clouds and just the first day of a new moon. I went to the Twilight program first, which I wouldn’t recommend, but the Star Party more than made up for it. They had a general program pointing out many constellations, the Andromeda galaxy and some of the planets. We then got a chance to look through several telescopes of various sizes at some interesting stuff like the Orion nebula (fancy word meaning gaseous cloud) and Saturn. Saturn was so clear it almost looked fake. After checking out the 5 telescopes they had set up for individual viewing, we then went into the theatre where they beamed in live camera shots from other, more powerful telescopes. It would have been really cool if they had printed off shots that we could take, but no luck with that so I have no pictures for you. You’ll have to settle for going to their website at http://www.mcdonaldobservatory.org. All in all, it was pretty amazing and I would highly recommend it if you ever find yourself out in the middle of the West Texas desert.

Davis Mountain State Park is a nice little park with a couple of hiking trails. I tried to take Abbey out in the morning before it got too hot so she got a little exercise. They have a year round population of white-winged doves. They were quite loud in the morning and evening and I think Abbey was even wondering what was making all the racket. Luckily they slept most of the night and didn’t wake up too early. On Thursday night the Interpretive Center had a showing of the March of Penguins which I had been wanting to see. It’s a pretty amazing documentary if you haven’t seen it yet. Of course, my nephew, Robbie, told me “Uncle Eddie, it’s stupid. It’s about penguins,” when I told him I wanted to see it. What else would you expect from a teenager, though.

Posted by Ed at 2:41 PM | Permalink

Unfortunately, I wasn’t in town during the Chili Cook Off, but I did actually get some good food as I ate out 2 nights in a row – a rarity for me. Terlingua is pretty much a ghost town (http://www.texasghosttown.com), but there is actually a small, dare I say thriving, community there. Some people even live there through the summer when temps are regularly 100+. I ate at a place called the Starlight Theatre & Grill, which actually had a pretty good looking menu for being about 80 miles from the nearest town of any size. It is right next to the local museum, gallery and trading co. store and they all share a big, long front porch where the local men seem to hang out every night and drink beer. Terlingua definitely has its local characters. Willie Nelson would fit right in. The Starlight has 2-for-1 burgers and live music on Monday nights, though I didn’t find that out ‘til after I placed my order with the bartender, who’s also the owner. He started out working in Big Bend and after a few years opened the Starlight and then another bar. Another good idea for me, though I’d want someplace a bit cooler in summer. Terlingua is an old mining town so there really are a lot of abandoned, run down houses, but some have been restored so it’s an odd mix of ruins, homes and even a guesthouse. They have a walking tour with some unique signs. I didn’t get the guide to know what I was looking at so I just checked out the signs. They were more interesting.

I did get to take Abbey on a hike finally, but it got hot quick and it was quite a rocky trail up a canyon. Miraculously, though, there was water on the trail. The southwest, including Texas, has been under a severe drought for a while so everything is bone dry. I was shocked when I found out there was water, but even moreso when I found out there is a waterfall, with flowing water of all things, at the end of that trail. Abbey hasn’t hiked a whole lot lately so I didn’t want to push her, especially with the heat, so we only went up a few miles before turning back.
Terlingua Church
Prickly Pear Cactus on Rancherias Canyon Trail

Posted by Ed at 2:13 PM | Permalink

Way down in the southwest corner of Texas right smack up against the Mexican border sits Big Bend NP. It is one of the largest, but least visited national parks in the country. However, this is the time of year to go before it gets unbearably hot so campsites weren’t exactly plentiful. I did manage to find a decent site in a beautiful campground in the Chisos Basin. It’s up in the mountains so it is nice and cool when it gets hot at lower elevations, like down by the river. There was an RV park by the river, but it was full when I arrived. I found out later it looked more like a parking lot so I was happy I didn’t waste my time driving down there the first day. The Chisos Basin has a length limit of 24 ft. so I was lucky to fit in just under the wire. The weather was actually real nice – 40s and 50s at night and 60s and 70s during the day. Unfortunately, most of Texas has been under a severe drought so everything was quite dry and brown. No desert wildflowers this year. The other bad thing was that Abbey couldn’t hike on any trails in the park, but seeing that it was a little warm and there was no water on the trails it was just as well. I arrived in the afternoon so I had just enough time for a hike down a trail right from the campground to a place called “The Window”. It’s the only drainage out of the basin so when it rains there is a raging torrent that cascades several hundred feet out of this narrow opening. As I mentioned it’s been very dry here for quite sometime so there was not even a trickle. Unfortunately, my batteries died so I didn't have any good pictures of the Window, but here is one I took from the trail of Casa Grande which overlooks the campground. On the way back up I heard rustling in the brush ahead of me and I got a little nervous. There are signs everywhere around here warning you of how to react if you see a mountain lion on the trail. The first thing is don’t run! Yea, right! Anyways, I stopped to listen better and decided it was way too much noise for a mountain lion. It was a pack of javelinas instead. I was pretty relieved, but still wondering if they were going to charge me until I noticed that they don’t have tusks or anything. I guess I thought they were more like wild boar. They aren’t even related to pigs, it turns out. The hike ended uneventfully after all.

Since Abbey couldn’t hike with me in the park I tried to get her out as much as possible before and after I went somewhere. On Friday morning I drove down to the eastern end of the park where it meets the Rio Grande. The Boquillas Canyon trail takes you right down to the river, only a mere 30 feet from Mexico. Some Mexicans bring hiking sticks and other trinkets over to the US side to sell and leave them there with a sign and a can for the money. They sit on the other side of the river watching with binoculars to make sure noone takes anything. Before 9/11 they were pretty laid back about Americans going over to the Mexican side to get something to eat or buy junk, but now you can be imprisoned or fined for doing it. So I happily stayed on our side of the river. Besides I’ve heard the Rio Grande is pretty much floating sewage so it didn’t bother me not wading through it. The left bank in this picture is Mexico.
After lunch I hiked to a hot spring up the river a few miles. A big group of young kids got there just after I did so it wasn’t exactly a relaxing soak, but it did feel good on my feet. I met a guy there who needed a ride back to the campground area, so I offered him a lift. He just moved down here from Michigan a week ago and is working in the store up in the Basin. I couldn’t believe he had no car as it is very isolated. He said before he was in Michigan he lived in Hawaii for four years working as a lifeguard and massage therapist. He’s going to work in Big Bend until he gets tired of it and then move on. I could relate to that. He was good “research” for my “career” planning. On Saturday I decided to do a long hike, about 13 miles, up in the basin to the South Rim. It’s a pretty tough trail, and longer than I had done in a while, so I got an early start hoping not to leave Abbey too long. About halfway up to the top I ran into another guy hiking by himself so I joined him ‘til we hit the rim. When he told me he was trying to get by on as little food as possible and wasn’t stopping for lunch, I knew it was time to split up. Besides, the views from my lunch spot were unbeatable. He was an interesting guy, though, who offered me more inspiration for my career search. He said that when he works, he works hard. But he just doesn’t like to be tied down by a steady job. He also seemed to have an amazing talent for getting by on very little money, much like my brother Michael. He likes to travel a lot and usually takes off on a long trip each year around the country, sometimes with his dog, a chocolate lab. So we had a lot to talk about, which made the uphill hiking seem a lot easier. On Sunday, it was time to head out of the NP and towards Big Bend Ranch State Park. There isn’t a lot of hiking there, but at least Abbey could go on the trails. More on that next time.

Posted by Ed at 3:29 PM | Permalink

Stephanie (if you read the Austin update you will know who she is) said on my way west I had to stop and see the Caverns of Sonora in, of course, Sonora, TX. I got there in the late afternoon, but they had one more tour starting about 35 minutes from when I arrived. I thought the $20 price was a bit steep, but the timing allowed me to walk Abbey around for a while and I was in no rush so I decided “What the heck!” One of the endorsements for the caverns said, “Even Texans can’t exaggerate how beautiful it is.” Having lived in Texas for 6 years I knew exactly what they meant. Mary Beth and I always had to apply the “Texas factor” when deciding whether or not to follow a local’s recommendation on some supposedly quaint or charming town in Texas. Back to the subject at hand. The beginning part of the cavern started out pretty inconspicuously and I was starting to have doubts, but I was soon turned around. Not that I’m a cave expert by any stretch of the imagination (though I have been to Inner Space Caverns in Georgetown, TX!), but it had an amazing amount and variety of formations. We were told by our guide that it has one of the foremost collection of helictites (hope I spelled that right) of any cave in the world. Helictites, as opposed to stalactites and stalagmites, grow in directions other than straight up or down. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find out just how they do this. No matter how they do it, some of them are pretty amazing, including the “butterfly” helictite – see the last picture which was shot with the guide sidelighting it with his flashlight. What the guide called the “Christmas Tree” effect on many of the formations was formed by water splashing on the formations and new crystals forming. I highly recommend this place if you ever find yourself passing through Sonora, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it is on the way to Big Bend.

The RV park at the Caverns of Sonora were not quite as spectacular, to put it nicely, but the price was right and I didn’t feel like driving 2 more hours to the next town on the map. So we stayed the night and had the place pretty much to ourselves save the caretakers. The next morning it was on to Big Bend.

Posted by Ed at 3:19 PM | Permalink

Mary Beth and I lived in Austin for 6 years up until we left for Germany in ’99 so I was anxious to go back and visit with some old friends. In the 7 years that I’ve been gone it has grown tremendously. There are a lot of parts of Austin I still like, but I don’t think I could live there any more. The traffic has gotten ridiculous and the construction is awful. I stayed with Andrew and Stephanie Lochbaum. I think they were a bit nervous when I said I might stay for 2 weeks, and were probably relieved when it was “only” 10 days. They have 2 huskies so I wasn’t sure how it would work out with Abbey. They were real excited when Abbey first came in the house, and Zoe, the younger one, had to make sure Abbey knew who was boss. After a minor incident on the 2nd day, they actually got fairly friendly, and Zoe tried to get Abbey to play. We even caught them sleeping on the same bed one day. Every time Abbey and I would go out and come back in, Zoe would sniff her up one side and down the other. I’m not quite sure what she was looking for, but she was definitely pretty thorough.

I didn’t end up going out downtown a whole lot. I mostly hung out and visited friends. We did manage to see the Cowboy Junkies at this real cool, intimate theatre which wasn’t there when we were. It reminded me of the good things I liked about Austin – good music, good restaurants, and an eclectic mix of people and places. A favorite Austin bumper sticker is “Keep Austin Weird”. I made it to one of my favorite places, Central Market, but somehow it didn’t feel the same. Maybe it was because it seemed like everything I was looking for was higher prices than I remember. I also made it to the new flagship Whole Foods Market. It is pretty incredible with all kinds of great takeout food, which it didn’t have much of before. If you ever get to Austin, you gotta check it out.

I tried taking Abbey to some of her old stomping grounds – Town Lake, Barton Creek, Turkey Creek – but except for Turkey Creek she really wasn’t that interested. I think it was partly because of the heat in the beginning of the week. Lucky for her it turned colder later in the week and stayed cool and rainy ‘til we left. Turkey Creek Nature Trail is in the city park right near where we used to live. On Monday Abbey and I went to see our old neighbors for dinner so I brought her to the trail beforehand. I’m not sure if she remembered it, but at first I was more excited than she was. After a while she loosened up and seemed to enjoy it. It was dark by the time we got to the Branches so I didn’t get to see our old house. Bill and Valerie said they have put a pool in, but didn’t say much more than that. Of course, they did say it’s not the same without us there;) Their son, Charles, is a junior at UT which is hard to believe since he was about 8 when we first moved there. He used to love to come on walks with us when we took the dogs. Their dog, Ollie, has since passed away, but they just recently got a new cocker spaniel named Bentley. He is very friendly with all dogs, but he had never had a dog in “his” house before so he put up a real stink when we first got there. It took him quite a while to settle down, but he finally resigned himself to the fact that Abbey was sticking around for at least a little while. He got excited again after dinner was over just to make sure she wasn’t getting too comfortable, but he was actually trying to get her to play. I did get some potentially bad news about Abbey on this trip. I took her to Buster’s old vet to get her checked out for a few things and found out she may have Lyme disease. She isn’t showing any symptoms, but 2 tests came back positive and she’s been exposed to dozens of ticks in her life. Hopefully, we can keep it under control somehow. She has already slowed down a lot this year, so I’m not sure how much hiking she’ll do anyways.

Austin was really one of the last stops on my list of places I wanted to go to visit people. It’s kind of the end of my first loop around the country and now the second loop begins. I have some vague plans so far with a few definite stops mapped out, but a lot of it is up in the air. I don’t think I’ll see as many of you this time around but if you ever want to join me somewhere along the way just drop me an email. There are tons of great places to visit around the country.

Posted by Ed at 3:12 PM | Permalink