Well, here I am, splurging. Totally unintended. I left BBRSP at about 2:30 today after a delightful ride to Cueva Larga (large cave) and headed to Fort Leaton in order to get there by 5pm to pick up the package UPS should have delivered. It contains prescription sunglasses and a cold weather sleeping bag, waterproof map cases that I can attach to the saddle, etc. Well, toured the Fort and searched the hot, dusty streets of Presidio for the UPS man (at the Park Rangers’ suggestion), to no avail. Came back to the Fort at 4:40 and the UPS man was there! but he had only one package and it wasn’t for me. So,I left Alicia’s address with the Park Rangers and with The UPS Man and headed north to Fort Davis State Park.
when I got to the primitive campground that has horse sites, it was padlocked closed. Now what? It was an hour to dark and where we’re Rio, Zoloft and I going to sleep? Drove down the road to The Prude Ranch, pulled in and asked an owner if I could pen my horse and camp there? She said they were full but could let me put Rio in a corral but recommended against it because they’d had sick horses and didn’t want to endanger mine. one more hour closer to dark….
So, I went back to Fort Davis and registered at the Limpia Hotel. Had to stay in a specific more expensive room because of Zoloft but got to park the horse trailer right next to the room in the shade. Opened up the divider in the horse trailer, took Rio’s halter off and gave him hay, water and grain. He seems quite happy. Held Zoloft in the bathtub and gave dusty her and dusty me a bath, then went across the alley to the restaurant adjacent to the hotel and ordered me up a steak dinner that’s too big to eat. Doggy bagged half of it. Had a constant stream of visitors to the table to pet Zoloft.
Despite the peaceful, high-ceilinged room with AIR CONDITIONING! And the comfortable bed with MY pillow, I had a lousy sleep. First I stayed up getting caught up on my electronic devices, writing notes, uploading photos to Picasa so I don’t somehow lose them…… finally fell asleep but awoke at 7:30, as did Zoloft – we both needed to go potty. I’ve been amazed at how our bladders are in tune. Is that a proven phenomenon, like women’s periods syncing up when they live together?
We drank a little room-made coffee in the rocking chair on the large verandah. The verandah must be 12 feet deep. Fort Davis, apparently is the highest town in Texas, just at 5000′ elevation. The prior evening was delightfully cool, as was the morning. By noon, however, it’s pushing 90 degrees…. Because of the dryness, verandah-sitting is delightful. Asked at the hotel desk the whereabouts of laundry facilities and headed to the RV park two blocks away that has a laundroMat, with just washers- no dryers. The desert air is SO dry that everything, including jeans, dried on the fence next to the hotel’s pool within about forty five minutes. After putting my was in the machine (had to knock on the grizzled owner’s door for change), I had breakfast at the “Drugstore” cafe…..as I went in, three couples on Harley’s were just mounting up and racing their motors to pull out of town. free Internet service along with my egg,hash browns, sausage and biscuit(which I had to exchange for a warm one, literally- the waitress said she had to take it back to the cook or he wouldn’t give her another one. The second one was warm, and good). quit the cafe after paying the bill with all of Bill’s change from the console in his truck., got my wet laundry and went back to the hotel room where I’d left Zoloft sleeping on a red velvet-covered chair on red velvet-covered cushions. such is the life! After being covered in dust for four days at Big Bend Ranch, she looked her old beautiful black and WHITE and brown self.
Now the fun began – truck and trailer cleaning. Driving about 70 miles on the dirt/gravel roads in Big Bend State Park meant that everything was covered in a layer of dust. I have plastic boxes of camping stuff – food, supplies, entertainment(including my precious beading supplies and books) and had naively left the tops off most of the boxes – lazy me. Well, I paid the price. I took everything out of the tack room in the horse trailer as well as the back of the pickup truck, emptied out containers and washed both the containers and the contents…..stuff was strewn all over the pool area and lawn in front of my room. I kept Zoloft in the room and Opened the door and let Rio watch the action. four hours later I was put back together, straightened out and tidied up and had two boxes packed to ship home- the books on Utah, the Pacific Northwest and Colorado I’d brought along just in case I decided to go those ways, as well as extra horse and people supplies. in my worry about not having the right stuff, I’d overpacked and couldn’t find anything in the back of the truck because there was no room to maneuver. Near the end of my work the hotels owners came out and pointed out a broken wall that apparently I’d backed into with the horse trailer. I knew I’d hit it but didn’t know I’d done any damage. Paid them forty bucks cash and a little later the woman-owner brought my a bottle of water and told me she and her husband were from Dallas, had bought the Hotel Limpia two years ago and moved to Fort Davis to “get away from the craziness.” To me, they seem lucky. Driving through El Paso later in the day I thought, “Who needs THIS!?”
on the road, my first stop was the post office to mail the two packages I’d taped up. I arrived at 3:07 and they were closed. I yodeled a bit and a woman behind the closed metal pull-down door said “She’s at lunch, Will be back at 3:30.” I was starting to worry about getting to my mountain destination but went and bought a few groceries at the health food market, came back and mailed the packages, second-in-line behind a National Park Service uniformed man picking up the Fort’s packages. Whew, finally, on the road. Good-bye Fort Davis!
Drove north, a few miles out of the way, to take a quick swim at Balmorhea State Park. By now my car’s thermometer registered 98 and it was cooking! I’d not jumped in the hotel’s pool at Fort Davis to save time, knowing I’d get to get some exercise in the cool spring water at Balmorhea. the drive had some stunning vistas along its deserted route and I wondered what it must be like to live on one of the ranches along the way. But, the swim was not to be. The pool was closed because some swimmers had been stung by some unknown something in the pool and it was closed till the Park Service could ascertain the cause. I was SO disappointed but used the park’s WiFi to check email then went down the road towards El Paso.
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