Tuesday May 21 2024
Tuesday May 21
Travel day from Lost Maples to Seminole State Park. Very hot with highs
approaching 40 C. Thought we might connect with a couple from Del Rio that
Lydia had been in contact with on Facebook (Alto owners) and who suggested we
meet if passing through town. Del Rio was on our route to Seminole, but
unfortunately today was not a good day for them, too bad. We went to Del Rio
anyway and had a nice coffee made our grocery stop. The campsite was 45 minutes
west of Del Rio and the further west we travelled, the more it looked like
desert.
We checked in at Seminole, it was very quiet and extremely hot. Found our
campsite, we were the only trailer in our section of the campground! We got set
up and managed to deploy our new reflective tarp over the Free-da. The trailer
was so hot from being on the road you really couldn’t stay inside. Got the A/C
going and sat under the picnic table shelter out of the sun, a nice feature installed
at each campsite.
As soon as the sun was low in the sky, the A/C was able to cool the trailer
down and we were able to have dinner and even ventured out for a quick walk on
the birding trail that heads off into the desert from our campground loop.
Wednesday May 22
Before arriving a Seminole campground, we booked an interpretive tour done
by the ranger staff at the park. It’s a walking tour into the canyon to view petroglyphs
on the limestone walls of cave like overhangs in the canyons. Our ranger James
was new on the job but was very pleasant and well informed. Our group was small
with only 5 participants. The tour started at the visitor center which is
located close to the edge of the canyon, so we had a short walk and a number of
stone steps to descend to get us down in the canyon, which is 250 feet deep.
The tour started at 10 am so when down in the canyon we were still mostly in
the shade which was nice. James led us to 3 separate caves with large sweeping
overhanging ceilings. The pictographs are between 4,000 and 2,000 years old
with a few that were added approximately 300 years ago by the natives living in
the area at that time. The artwork was interesting and still quite visible although it is definitely
fading and eroding as time moves on. At each site were depictions of what an
archeologist recorded 90 years ago and those panels certainly had more detail
than what is visible today. There have been extensive efforts to map out and
chronicle the artwork so that it is not completely lost as time takes it’s toll
on these historic artifacts.
After the tour we were informed that there would be a free van ride at 2:30
pm out to the end of the canyon where it meets the Rio Grande River. Lydia and
I had been planning on walking the trail in the morning but this provided an
opportunity for us to see get there without worrying about the heat.
We went back to the campsite and hung out there until tour time. The new
tarp was working it’s magic and the trailer although warm, was chilly compared
to outside.
The afternoon tour was fun, same participants as the morning group plus we
had an additional ranger along for the ride. It was a 3 mile ride out the end
of the canyon on old ranch roads, so they were rough. Once there we were able
to view another cave which was across the canyon approximately 200 meters away.
There was one prominent pictograph of a nine-foot-long panther which was quite
impressive. The sun was brutal, and we didn’t hang out at the top of the canyon
for long.
We returned back to camp and decided to take a drive to closest town to see
if there was anything going on (coffee maybe) but it was dead so we returned to
camp, relaxed in whatever shade we could find.
A couple of interesting side notes; we met a cyclist at our campground who
was doing a cross country tour. He started in San Francisco with New York as a
destination. He was meandering all over the place though and had already been
on the road for two months. Not sure how he was able to manage the heat, but he
seemed fine.
Comments
Post a Comment