Balloonatic Reunion

Look at this happy bunch! This is the crew of the Rise-N-Shine, a hot-air balloon based out of the Dallas area and piloted by my boss at the time, Dave Conger.
Back row: Michael, Dave, Pam, Jennifer, and me
Bottom row: Steve, Ann (Dave's wife), and Peggy
Bottomest row: Jenny (Dave and Ann's daughter)

So this year, at Jennifer's persistent request, a balloon crew reunion was offered up for this Thanksgiving weekend to be held at her and her husband Romaldo's house in Terlingua. The invitations went far and wide -- at least as far as lost communications would allow -- and here is the result. Due to the arrival of the snowstorm, the official reunion, complete with Thanksgiving feast, was missing one person -- me -- so a backup reunion was held at the new fifth-wheel trailer of Dave and Ann the following day. It was so good to see everyone again, and we had a great time poring through my one ballooning photo album I brought along. (The others being in storage still.) Clockwise from left: Ann, Dave, me, Peggy, and Jennifer.


Many thanks, Jen, for such a wonderful idea and your persistence to get it realized, and many, many thanks to you, Dave, for all the fond memories. Those crazy days in ballooning were some of the most treasured ones in my entire life. In closing, I'd like to leave you all with this, the Balloonist's Prayer:

The winds have welcomed you with softness
The sun has blessed you with his warm hands
You have flown so high and so well
That God has joined you in your laughter
And set you gently back again
Into the loving arms of Mother Earth.

Soft landings!

Let It Snow

Who says it never snows in the desert? Not me, as is evidenced by this shot of a little winter storm that rolled through here yesterday. It started out as rain and sleet around noon, which continued on all afternoon, then turned to snow and kept coming. This was only the beginning.


Here's a closer view of the stop sign just outside my booth window and its icicle-ish trail of slush.


As the storm progresses, the temperature begins to drop. This causes the sleet to begin sticking to my front window, hindering my vision down my incoming lane. Even though I went out and scraped off the sleet just a short while ago, it's back at it again -- and I have the heater on inside! Eventually, the entire window would be frosted over, but I was on my way out by then.


At lunch, I fired Pepe up and drove him back to the booth to avoid having to walk the 200 yards in the driving rain and sleet. When that turned to driving snow, I began to have second thoughts about my decision, as I know how squirrelly he gets in slick weather. Sure enough, as I made the turn around the booth to head back to the Visitor Center to close out my day, his rear end lost it and spun us around almost 180 degrees -- and I wasn't even going that fast. Luckily, I managed to pull him out of it before we smacked into the booth. He'd hate Maine in the winter.


One last shot for the day as I'm headed out the door for home. I took some more photos on my way back into work this morning, so those will be up next as soon as I can download them. All in all, we got 2-3" of sleet/snow which totalled up to 1.14" of precipitation, when the stuff in the rain gauge (the official one at the VC, not my little glass tube one) was melted down. Not too shabby a storm for November.


The next morning, I stepped out the front door to find my poor little desert willow's young shoots drooped and resting on the front porch railing. Look at all that snow!


Walking to work, I just couldn't help firing off a couple of shots of the snow-covered desert landscape, starting off with Persimmon Peak behind a bedecked yucca.


To the south stands the snowy expanse of the Rosillos Mountains, their tops shrouded in clouds of shredded cotton. They take on a whole different personality with snow on them.


Here we have a prickly pear portrait in snow. There's something so incongruous about a cactus with snow on it, don't you think?


By the time I got to the Visitor Center to start my day, the sun had begun to rise and color the clouds in subtle hues. This country just takes my breath away sometimes.


Arriving at the booth, I decided to update yesterday's photo looking back toward the Visitor Center. A much prettier day with lots of color and much more snow -- around 2-3" I'd say, giving us 1.14" of moisture in the rain gauge.


In the booth now, I just had to take a shot of the Persimmon Gap Ranch peak out of my booth's window, as it appears to float in the clouds. When I left Dallas in 1995 after 13 years of working in a camera store whose view was the back of an Exxon station, I vowed never to work in a place that didn't have a proper view. I'd say i've pretty much held to that, wouldn't you?

Life In These Here Parts

And hello again! I'm now set up with my own internet service, so I'm all set to keep this thing up-to-date -- at least as well as I have in the past. To start off this season, I thought I'd give you a little sample of the wildlife I run across in my wanderings around the park. This first critter is a male tarantula, caught ambling across the path to our work place "bathroom" (an area screened off by a stand of creosote bushes). I've had one of these crawling around in my hands before -- thanks to friends Jennifer and Romaldo -- but, as I was at work, I figured I'd just take his picture this time around. How would I explain that to the park medic?


Here's one of our residents that everybody comes to see -- a collared peccary, more commonly known as a javelina. These guys may look like pigs, but they're actually more closely related to a hippopotamus than a pig, if you can believe that. This one in particular is marked for either removal from the park or extermination, as it seems he's become a nuisance around the Rio Grande Village Campground. He's reported to have a somewhat foul temper and will charge and chase people for no good reason at all. I didn't know this when I stealthily creeped up on him under cover of a large cottonwood, but it's a good thing I kept its trunk between me and him. What a fun experience that would've been! NOT!!!


On a much more peaceful and elegant note, here is a frequenly seen denizen of these parts, the common roadrunner. The native Mexican Indian population used to call this little fellow paisano -- or "little friend" -- due to their tendency to follow herds of cattle, hunting for insects stirred up in their wake. When they move from place to place, they always walk/run stretched out fully, then upon stopping, they fluidly move to an erect stance as if hydraulically operated. It's really quite amusing to watch.


And here we have -- if you look closely at the motorhome's hub -- a California towhee pecking at what I have no idea. I kept hearing this metallic "bink, bink, bink, bonk, bonk, bonk" the other day and looked out to find him pecking three times at the rim and three times at the hub. He almost never deviated from this pattern. You can click on the photo to get a closer look at him, but the shutter speed was so slow he's still a bit blurry.


To close out today's entry, I thought I'd leave you with not a wildlife shot, but a rather interesting shot of a passing storm cloud, which I believe moved on to the east and dumped almost 8" of rain on my cousin Carol in Harwood, near San Antonio. We got spit on a little bit out of all this, but didn't get any real measurable precipitation. Great mood shot, though, don't you think?

Well, that's that for this portion of the program. As I'm back online at home now, you can bet -- or hope -- there'll be more updates coming along as soon as they happen. That's the theory, anyway. Stay tuned!

Doug's Diner Dash

Well, mighty fine and a great big western "Howdy," buckaroos and buckarettes. Ranger Doug here, back in the saddle once again in wild and woolly Big Bend National Park in the deserts of Texas. (I've always wondered about that "woolly" part, but then we do have Bighorn Sheep here.) I'm sorry it's been so long since my last entry -- over a month! -- but there's been a lot going on and little time to do it. As you can see by the above photo, I've been busy packing and such for this latest dash from Acadia National Park in Maine back down to here, whose theme this time around was a Diner Tour. Our fun-loving Human Resources Director at Acadia, Tammy, suggested this due to one of her favorite Food Network shows, "Guy's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives," and it was just the ticket. I managed to hit most of my intended targets, but alas, there were some that will have to wait for a later time. Let me show you the winners.


The first one achieved off the list was the cozy little A-1 Diner in Gardiner, Maine. It was built in 1946 and is in pretty much the same configuration as it was back then, except that it has now been attached to a building out back. This allows them much more room behind the counter and keeps the place a lot cooler. Its well-worn interior shows a lot of loving traffic over the years.


The second stop on the dash was not an official diner at all, but a home-cooked diner dinner was served me at the home of former girlfriend Lisa and her family in Vermont. The entree was homemade chicken pot pie, whose recipe was from Dot's Diner somewhere on the Vermont/Canadian border, I think.


Next on the list was the Triple XXX Diner in West Lafayette, Indiana. I was treated to a scrumptious breakfast here by friends Bill and Susan, and I can highly recommend their Mother Road Omelet. (They claim to be a Route 66 eatery, but I wasn't aware that Route 66 went through Indiana. Huh.) Established in 1929, this place was established to tout Triple XXX Root Beer, for which it gets its name and which still served, and is famous for their Chop Steak Burger made from ground sirloin steak, fresh-ground right there on the premises. If it's half as good as the breakfast I had, I've gotta get back here for one of those.


Several states went by before coming across my next target, the Cafe on the Route in Baxter Springs, Kansas. For some reason, the cafe -- as well as the entire town of Baxter Springs, for all I could tell -- was closed, so a photo of the place would have to suffice. From the looks of what I could see through the windows, it's a more upscale establishment and not really my style, anyway. Oh, well.


By far, the major highlight of this little diner dash of mine was this classic Route 66 eatery: the Rock Cafe in the little town of Stroud, Oklahoma. Located halfway between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, the Rock Cafe was established in 1939 and built from rocks unearthed during the paving of Route 66, and holds the dubious honor of having served me my very first buffalo burger ever. Mighty tasty, I must say, and the floor show -- owner/operator/cook Sally -- was well worth the trip. While downing my burger, fries, and Shiner Bock, I heard her explain to her wait staff (her kids), "You tell those people out there the burgers are just cooked; no medium rare or well done -- none of that crap!" The fact that I had arrived just prior to 25 members of a car club probably didn't help her mood any, but I don't think she takes much guff from anybody. What a character! This place -- and Sally -- was visited by the Pixar group, led by none other than John Lasseter himself, and both can be seen in the Bonus Features of their animation Cars, for which John and crew were out doing background scouting. Be sure to check it out -- both the movie and the cafe.


Here I am at another eatery not on the list, Theo's Grill and Bar in beautiful(?) downtown Grand Prairie, Texas. My sister Lyn (seen here digging into her purse) sought to lovingly add her own favorite place to the list, so I naturally complied, always ready for a treat. Good home-style cooking is served here, as can be verified by the place being packed to the grills.


And last but not least, this is my own personal addition to this little gastronomical voyage -- Penny's Diner here in nearby (70 miles away!) Alpine, Texas. Having only been built six years ago, it doesn't have that well-worn appearance and homey feel the A-1 or the Triple XXX does, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. The food is good and wholesome and the patronage is very faithful (one fellow actually sat down and ordered "the usual"), and with good reason, too. Be sure to check it out if you're ever in these parts.

So, that's the show for now, folks, but stay tuned for more of Doug's rambling adventures through the sprawling Trans-Pecos region of Texas (the area west of the Pecos River, made famous by none other than ol' Judge Roy Bean himself), as I'm back and ready to roll. Cameras, ho!

p.s. If you'd like to see the entire show, either go to my SmugMug Galleries link above or Click Here