From Dad's letters to his parent's.
The weather is holding out pretty well. At Big Bend it has been about freezing at night but good in the daytime.
Did I tell you that Bryan's teacher is going with us? (to Big Bend) She is a Girl Scout leader with lot of experience in camping and she know a lot about biology and geology, Right now e plan to be back some time Saturday, If you need to get in touch with us before then the best bet would be the main camp at the State Park I guess.
I will try to tell you about our Christmas trip. We got away a little after noon on Saturday the 23rd. Bryan's teacher, Mrs. Pearl Tanzer was with us. She was also one of Diane's teachers and knows everyone who has gone through that school She is an ambitious teacher and takes courses or travels every summer. She had been to Big Bend and showed us her colored slides before we started. She lost her husband some 20 years ago and has a son who has just started graduate work. She certainly mentioned his name often enough, We felt that we knew all about him before the trip was over.
The first night we drove until 10pm and stopped at a roadside park near Sheffield. It was at the top of one of the biggest grades in Texas. We were the only occupants. There was a good supply of cut firewood there which we made good use of, The nights were all about alike as far as weather was concerned – clear and cold. We had hardly a cloud the whole trip. Most nights got to freezing or below, This night Mrs. T slept on the back seat of the car and all of us in the trailer which meant that Bryan was on the floor. The other nights on the road we took out the middle seat and Mrs. T had more room in the car. At Big Bend camp she put up her tent and Diane slept in that with her.
We arrived in Big Bend early Sunday and wnt to the campground on the East at Boquillas Canyon, elevation 1800 ft. It was a beautiful place with heated rest rooms – but no hot water. There were two other families there. We had a very good hot Christmas supper and decorated a tree. The kids hung up their stockings although they had opened most of their presents on Friday before we left home. While Va. And Mrs. T were at the rest room after the kids had gone to bed I was sitting by the table with the lantern and saw something under the trailer, It was a skunk. He investigated our whole camp. Twice he got within some 15 ft of where I was sitting and I had to shoo him away. No bad affects.
On the way to Big Bend we had seen more than 20 deer. In the park we saw quite a few more including one big buck in a small herd. I got some moving pictures which may show them. On the way out of the park westward we saw antelope in at least three different places. The fist ones were just beside the road and I think I got their pictures, There were a lot of hawks and armadillos, a few rabbits and lots of ground squirrels, The desert there was the most lush we had ever seen. There was one bright purple type of cactus and there were several flowers in bloom.
We hiked up the Lost Mine Trail for 3/4th mile. It had labeled plants and trees. There was a cactus garden on a mountain top that made us think of you, Dad. The main camp was at 5400 ft but was not much colder than the canyon location. The highest peaks were about 7000 ft. There were some real grades to climb and we had to go in low a couple of times. At the two camp places closest to where we were the people had Internationals also. Another fellow with a Ford and an Airstream trailer was asking us about them also. He did not think his car would pull him out of the basin.
We ate one lunch in the dining hall and got some souvenirs. They were banners of the park and a Mexican cook book for Va. There weren't many places to buy things along our whole route and of course most of the ones we did pass were closed for Christmas.
In the evenings there were illustrated talks by the park rangers and we heard two of them. We were always in bed before ten pm and got up about eight. There was no wood in Big Bend unless you brought it yourself. They did have charcoal and we had baked potatoes one night. Va. Did most of the cooking in the trailer but some on open fires outside.
We all took a 2 ½ hour horseback ride down a canyon to a place called the Window. It was a steep walled stream bed which came to an opening overlooking a big valley with a sharp drop off of several hundred feet. I guess this was the high spot in the trip for the kids. They all got along fine. We had a cowboy guide and it was a good trail although a little steep in places.
On Wednesday we went to the Santa Elena Canyon in the west of the park and then started on back by a different route. It was a brand new paved highway along the Rio Grande from LaJitas to Presidio. It was the prettiest scenery of the trip. One hill there was really a hill. I know the grades were greater than 17% which we found marked at one place.
From Presidio we went to Marfa and saw the antelope along here. We stayed in a motel in Marfa to get a good shower. What I should sy is that three of us stayed in the motel and the other four used it for showers and getting warmed up good. We set up our table in it and ate there too. The next morning early we headed for Fort Davis. We had thought of staying in the State park near there and visiting the McDonald observatory, the world's fourth largest telescope. Since it was open at 1 pm we decided to take the scenic route 188 around the Davis Mountains. This was very pleasant and we stopped at a big rock pile for lunch where the kids about wore me down climbing through caves and up over rocks. We did see the telescope but did not care much for the Sate Park. Also it was early in the day so we started home by way of highway 290. As it worked out we arrived at the Sheffield park again at a good time to stop for the night and used up some more of their good firewood.
On Friday we drove the rest of the way home and arrived at 5pm. We picked up Mrs. Tanzer's two pekenese dogs. Everything at home was under control. There had been no freezing or problems of other kinds, the cats were pleased to see us, the apartments were OK.
Since this is one of the few trips we have taken where it was all to come out of our pockets I figured the costs. Va. Took some groceries along but we spent $30 more on that, $3 for gasoline, and $42 for miscellaneous including the $28 for horses. I gave Piet Groot $5 for watching the apartments and suppose we should give Vivian a present for taking care of the cats. (Whe uses our deep freeze and dryer so this may not be needed). The total costs then were about $120. We averaged 11.6 miles per gallon with a real heavy load.
We got our pictures back for the Big Bend trip and they give a pretty good coverage of it. The movies don't show the deer and the antelope quite as close up as we had thought since I do not have a telescopic lens, but they do show, The big slides are fine and the small ones almost as good. Diane took a roll of black and white so maybe we can send you a print of one or so of them.