Technical difficulties
I’m all for going someplace where the cell phones will not work. I’m all for “roughing it on the old frontier” a time or two, but when my parents suggested that one dude ranch, I was really remiss in checking out all the details.
I looked at the website, and I was sure I saw a phone in the picture of a bedroom. Net access, cool. Horses, trucks, wranglers, hiking, Indian Petroglyphs, tons of history, and best of all, limited electrical access. A phone in every cabin, right?
Nice, but wrong assumption.
My usual voice mail alert didn’t work, and neither did my cell phone. I knew that was probably the case. Didn’t bother me, not at first.
My camera, which plugs into the same unit that holds the phone, would work just fine. Did, in fact, for several pictures. Then, while up in Alpine with my parental units, I stuck the thing in my back pocket for a few minutes, and next thing I know, handheld doesn’t work.
Worried? Why? No phone, not a problem, and the pictures? I was sure I could save them later, when I got home. I just tossed it all in the suitcase and let it go. It’s why I always carry a pen and paper. Never can tell when those items will come in handy.
But the mail backed up. The dial-up connection I used, I had to sneak down to the office, undo their phone, then hook up my Power Book, then watch as everything downloaded. Over a few days, though, that adds up to some serious mail. I took to ignoring most of what came through – only out of necessity.
I ran into a writer from England, and he was amused at my seeming discomfort. But after a while, I got rather used to it.
Red Tail hawks, one wrangler insisting that Zone Tail hawks were in the neighborhood (doubtful, but you never can tell), one coyote, mule deer, one big buck early on the day after Thanksgiving, more hawks, some deer, and the list goes on.
The other technical difficulty I ran into was what I took to wear. Clothing. I tend to disregard the comment about the “the clothes make the man,” but that generated a really interesting problem.
To deal with the lack of a camera for myself, I wound up with a disposable one, purchased in Ft. Davis. Have to wait and see how those pictures come out. Too bad, too, as I got another couple of shots of my favorite Texas Sign Post, “Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Area.”
But alas, nothing but memories for right now.
Borderlands.
I was following my own advice, and glancing back over my shoulder to see some of the places I’ve been. Seems like I’ve spent a lot of time in borderlands. Mexican, “La Frontera,” I believe is how it’s said. Birthday, and I’m what? About 40 miles from the border? I think this dude ranch actually backs up to the Rio Grande. It’s not the first place I’ve stayed that shares the border with Mexico.
In that history book I was reading, maybe it was Santa Anna, or one of his generals, but whomever referred to the distance from the Rio Grande to Bexar (San Antonio) as the desert of bones, or some similar title. J. Frank calls it the Brush Country. Get out just a little further west? I call it all magical.
I was winding up the road from Balmorhea, which, in and of its own is pretty special. I stopped to take a leak and a picture. Don’t think they turned out too well, but it was worth an effort. I sure felt better after a leak, anyway.
Balmorhea, the spring fed water is cold in the summer, but with the recent batch of chilly weather? The rent car’s thermometer was indicating 32 degrees, conditions known as “icy.” So those constant-temperature springs had steam rising up in thin tendrils from the surface.
Mountain Rose Pass was next, up and over. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps it was the settling sun, not visible behind a heavy layer of fog. Or rain clouds, I guess, it depends on the perspective, but the light washed out over the landscape, giving the high fields a truly lunar look.
Makes my blood sing. I was tired, been on the road for several hours, but coming up 17 into the Davis Mountains just make my blood run quicker in a happy way.
It’s different every time, it’s not like I get out here too often. But the way the volcano flows look, after they’ve been etched out by eons of rain and wear, then set this against a backdrop of the that “lunar light,” it just adds to the surreal experience.