Day Twenty Four - June 29, 2000

When we arrived in Big Bend today Chris and Becca made friends with a group of kids playing baseball with a hyper elastic tennis racket and squishy foam ball. The great fun with this game was the fact that the bases were tents that would be run in to frequently.

This is the first camping we've had since New York, surprisingly. Chris cleans out the dinner pot while Becca enjoys a smaller meal as the result of a loss of appetite on an afternoon bike ride... hehe hehe.

Speaking of bikes, here's a look at Chris's new GT that we mentioned a couple of pages back. This is actually the first time he had a chance to "mountain" bike since New York as well. If you could see the look on his face, you could tell that Chris is thinking about riding off again... *sigh*

Day Twenty Five - June 30, 2000

Becca examines a living agave on the side of the road. It's a real trick to see these things in their final weeks of life since they grow for 15 to 50 years, flower briefly, then shrivel up and die. Chris frolics in the shadows.

The sun was scorching today on the open desert so we decided to make a trip to the Big Bend hot springs! The Rio Grande may have been a nice swimming experience here if it weren't brown with silt and fraught with swirling rapids. The hot springs weren't bad by comparison.

Steve fends off a sniper attack from Becca who waves an orange water gun in the air. The thing cooled us off really well and we ate lunch just wishing we had brought more guns.

Chris says that he sees Santa Claus in the rock wall of Santa Elena Canyon. Steve doesn't believe in Santa but Becca seems to see something too. Can you find Jolly Saint Nick's face in this picture?

Becca torments the park wildlife with her water gun while we wait for the sun to go down at the canyon. Despite the gun's fancy design, it was something less that accurate and it took Becca a while to finally hit the crow on the rock.

Chris had a hard time acting his age on the muddy banks of the Rio Grande. As soon as he took off his socks, his feet and hands were covered with the gooey sludge and stayed that way for over half an hour.

Chris got dragged into the wrong end of an ice water fight this morning as you can tell by his drenched shirt. This is the glorious moment where Chris realizes he's hosed. In a fight between a water bottle and a cooler full of freezing water, the cooler wins.

Oh yes, did we mention that we went to Big Bend? We got this picture of the Park sign on our way out this morning. Chris and Becca's clothes are mostly dry at this point. An interesting note on this picture is the car passing the sign on the left. We talked to these folks before we got up on the sign... all eight of them! There are eight people crammed into that little car! (maniacal laughter)

We had lunch in a teepee today right on the border between Mexico and Texas. The mountains on the left are Mexico are in Mexico and the ones on the right are in Texas.

Fort Davis is a historical outpost that guarded the El Paso trail from Apache Indian raids. Chris and Becca look out of place as they stand next to a campaigning soldier. The horse (name unknown) was on duty as the fort lawn mower and never stopped eating while we were there.

Becca demonstrates the law of buoyancy at Balmorhea State Park with her beach ball. Notice the expression on her face and see the lasting effect that her visit with Holly had back in Indiana.

Balmorhea has a unique attraction aside from being a natural spring pool. It's filled with thousands of murderous little fish. The pool was cleared due to a lightning threat and we sat on the side tossing bits of Pringles to them, watching as they attacked each other trying to get them.

We took a road through the Guadalupe Mountain National Park this morning and hiked to a small spring (here we go with the springs again) on the edge of the park. Guadalupe Mountain, the tallest peak in Texas, looms in the distance while the kids look at fish.

Chris shrugs off self control for a while and hurls rocks into the peaceful spring. This is his big chance since there aren't many peaceful springs back home in Santa Fe.

Back in New Mexico. What an exciting place. Becca takes a nap on the state welcome sign and Chris emphasizes the zero on the mile post.

This is what the Texas welcome sign was really supposed to look like. Becca disagrees with the part about friendly driving, though.

Finally! After four weeks of nonstop car travel, we end up right back where we started and strike a pose with our dog Sydney (Linda is still in Germany at this point). Hope you had a great time taking our vacation with us. Now it's YOUR turn.