Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Goodbye Choke Canyon, Hello Alice!

Regretfully, we agreed it was time to leave Choke Canyon State Park and move along. On our last day, we took a long walk and for the first time since I have had a digital camera, I lost the pictures in transferring them to my computer, so I cannot show you the strange areas of vegetation we saw. Trees and shrubs had been overgrown thickly by vines and distorted in shape to grey mounds. Since we lost the pictures, I will combine two days notes into one days posting this time.

Here's a little northern cardinal bidding us farewell.


We spent most of the day at Choke Canyon because our destination, Alice, was only about an hour away. But the country changed, more dry looking, greyer. Even the road kill was different -- we saw our first armadillo, unfortunately not alive. Be glad I lost pictures.

Lots of cactus.

This is the Texas prickly pear cactus and it grows to be 5 to 10 feet tall. We have seen the fleshy pads from these cactuses in grocery stores and they are said to be nutrient dense and helpful in lowering cholesterol. I will try some if I find them in a market again before I leave Texas.

We arrived in Alice in time to do our grocery shopping (no cactus pads to be seen) and also to do our laundry. My laundry, I should say, because Chorro's bandana does not add appreciably to a laundry load. I took a book in with me and read while I waited for the machines to do their job. When I came out, I saw a different kind of sunset picture in the parking lot of the shopping center.


And Chorro, waiting in the air-conditioned RV, looking impatient. You might think he was wishing I would return and take him for a ride on that ferris wheel, but remember, Chorro is a terrier, an earth dog, who likes to keep his feet on the ground.


We have permission to overnight in parking lot tonight and tomorrow we will make the last leg of our southward journey to Laredo, Texas.

Tomorrow is a new day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love the photo of the cardinal - we don't have them in Albuquerque and I really miss them.