Another Year Flown

Where does the time go? I mean, I know I've been a lot of places and seen a lot of stuff (so many pictures!), but it still amazes me that we are here at the threshold of a brand new year. Wow. So, as I dash about the house getting all my stuff packed up and shuttled off to my new digs at Panther Junction, I just thought I'd stop off for a bit and wish all of you a very Happy 2008! As of this posting, that will do it for this particular blog, but look forward to A Doug's-eye View blog comin' at ya soon at http://dougs-eyeview.blogspot.com/. So that's it for this year. As always, thanks so much for tuning in, and catch me at my new blog tomorrow.

Feliz Año Nuevo, y'all!

Fun With Dave and Ann

While my balloonatic friends Dave and Ann were here, I took the opportunity to take them out on a couple of my favorite hikes here at Big Bend, Cattail Falls (shown here in our group shot) and Grapevine Hills. As always, folks who have never been to Cattail Falls are amazed that a place this lush and green -- and wet -- can even exist in such an arid and sparsely-vegetated environment as Big Bend's. Dave and Ann were certainly no exceptions.


No matter how many times I come to Cattail Falls, I'm never bored with the interplay between the colors and textures of the surroundings, and always seek new ways to capture them. There is something so magical about this place.


This is one of my favorite shots in here, and it always comes out blurry. Granted, the waterfall is supposed to be that way, but the rest of the surroundings should not. A tripod or a bean bag would help a great deal.


One of the fun parts of bringing someone new to this place is getting to explain the significance of this leaning tree. As you can tell, it's been bent over most of its life, something done to it long ago by the Native Americans in this area to point out a source of water. There's a creek running nearby in the direction of the tree's leaning.


Leaving the luxurious greenery of Cattail Falls behind, we ventured off to what could probably be considered its polar opposite -- the stark other-worldly terrain of Grapevine Hills. I've always thought this would make a great backdrop for a sci-fi movie about a spaceship and crew who are marooned on a hostile planet. I just love this place!


In addition to the overall look of this place, one of the things that intrigues me about Grapevine Hills is the assortment of textures its rocks come up with, seemingly on their own. The swooshing movement of this particular boulder has always attracted me and I almost always take a new picture of it, hoping to catch it off-guard.


Here we see the main attraction of this particular hike, the famous Balanced Rock. You can find this image -- or one very much like it -- on postcards, posters, and refrigerator magnets at any of the various visitor centers and gift shops in the park. Dave and I puzzled over just how it might have come to rest like this, but no proper justification came to mind. (Well, except for the whole alien UFO thing -- you know, the guys who helped the Egyptians build all those pyramids.) I'll have to ask the park's geologist about this next time I see him.


And now we see Dave, at left, in his attempt to capture the Balanced Rock, something photographers have been doing since the first one brought a camera out here. (On the park's website, you can see a photo of it from the 1950s.) I wonder how his came out?

Dave and Ann are long gone by now, as these shots were actually taken on the 3rd, and are now lounging around in the beautiful Fredericksburg area, I suppose. Hey, Dave, don't forget the Spoetzl brewery in Shiner -- home of Shiner Bock Beer, my favorite -- is not too far away. Oh, and the Mission District of San Antonio is another major photo opportunity area. Man, I gotta get myself out there again someday!

Well, that's the show for now, folks. As always, thanks for tuning in.

Highway 385 (Chasing Rainbows)

It was a gray and foggy day today, but I just had to go into Alpine on an emergency laundry detail (three weeks without doing laundry constitutes an emergency around here), so I took my camera along with me, anyway. Hey, you know, fog can add a lot to a photo sometimes -- all except for this one. It just didn't quite come out the way I'd envisioned it. Oh, well . . .


And then, a little later on down the road, everything started clearing up and suddenly there was something I've never seen out here -- a rainbow. (Odd, but true.) It's very tenuous and broken right now, but the possibility is definitely there. Nice mood and color, anyway.


All of a sudden, things started happening. The clouds (or fog) broke completely, leaving this absolutely perfect double rainbow -- a complete and vivid arc across the sky. Fantastic! I kept stopping every half-mile or so and jumping out of Pepe and snapping shots, as I didn't want to miss any of this. If only I had an ultrawide-angle lens to capture the whole thing. Rats! (I made a mental note of where the rainbow touched down on the road, but there was no pot o' gold there that I could see.)


Feeling pretty clever and cute about being able to pull off that last shot with the rainbow touching down right on the road, I turned to get back in the truck and was dumbstruck by this view. Ohmigod! There sat Santiago Peak, majestically adrift on a bank of fog with the most astounding backdrop imaginable -- and its own rainbow, to boot. What a day this was turning out to be!


Slamming on the brakes once again, I jumped out as I passed by this stretch of flatirons to capture yet another moment of sheer magic, with that strikingly clear burst of morning light. Holy cow, I was never going to get to Alpine at this rate. But what the heck? My laundry had already waited three weeks for a bath, so it could just wait another hour or so while I played.


This one I took just goofing around, with the thought of starting a "Great Highway Stops I've Seen" series. Hey, I wonder if Texas Highways would be interested in something along that line? I know a really awesome limestone-block rest stop on I-35 between Austin and Ft Worth. Anyway, I just couldn't pass up that background.


And, so, with this shot, I say thank you all for tuning in to the show, coming to you live from Highway 385. I was so hoping for some nice shots today, and I have to say I was more than satisfied with the results. It's funny but I've never been too big into taking shots of rainbows before, as beautiful as they are, but today I was just overwhelmed with the mixture of natural beauty and the overall quality of light. It just doesn't get much better than that. Thanks again for checking in.

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

A Busy Week

Ahoy, mateys! Well, once again I'm off to the beautiful little island of Isle au Haut, this time on another work detail for the park. Here are a few of my fellow Trail Workers -- Ray in the foreground and Pete back behind him to the left -- as well as our crew leader, Keith, riding topside on the Miss Lizzie for the first time. This area is usually closed off for normal trips, but we had so much gear with us, they opened it up for seating.


Back at the Eli Creek cabin once more, we're hauling all our personal gear, food stuffs, and ice chests inside and onto the front porch for our four-day stay. There were eight of us this time, with four of us staying in the cabin and the rest of us -- me included -- in tents strewn about the woods.


Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go! My assignment this trip was to work with Vincent doing trail assessments, which included logging features and problem areas. One of my duties was to run this measuring wheel to give us a idea how far along the trail this particular feature or deficiency was.


Then, using a GPS device, I set a waypoint for the feature or deficiency, which will eventually be used to pinpoint the area on a computerized assessment map where, I assume, you'll be able to click onto a feature or deficiency icon and pull up a photo of it. (Sorry for the blurriness, but I ended up deleting the sharp photo by mistake. Duh!)


That's the job of this little guy, the final tool of my workweek. So, basically, I run the wheel until Vince tells me to stop, then take a "point and a picture" of it, and then one or the other of us -- depending on what the situation calls for -- assigns it a number and it's logged into the computer.


And here's Vince hard at it, using the mobile laptop strapped to the "Robert E Lee Memorial Desk" -- so named for its similarity to a field desk -- he invented for this type of job. Deficiencies will also have a work order attached to them and I suppose you'll be able to access that on the computerized map, also. I'm not too sure how this all really works, but I think that's the general idea.


But, you know me, I just couldn't let a trip out here go by without taking a few shots of the surroundings, too. This is the Duck Harbor Trail draped in fog, a typical occurrence out here this time of year.


With it being October and all, things are starting to don their fall colors, and the fern is no exception. They were in various stages of colorization, this one near its end.


Breaking out onto the coastline, we can see that the fog is still with us, but lending some atmosphere in the process. While on a morning fog picture foray in Bar Harbor one morning, I had a guy tell me you couldn't take pictures in the fog. Sorry, sir, but yes, you can.


As the fog began to break one morning, I happened upon this almost perfect bedewed spider web, which came out pretty well, considering I had to depend upon my little camera's autofocus capabilities. (It misses sometimes.)


As a departing Isle au Haut shot, we leave the island with a shot of my lunch view on the last day. One of the guys was taking shots of all the cool places the Government pays him to eat lunch, so I thought I'd add mine. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself.


Once back home, I became Park Guide to my ex-girlfriend Lisa's brother David and his girlfriend, Barbara, seen here at Sand Beach on our way to Great Head.


On Great Head now, we took great delight in poking around and looking into all the tidepools we could find. Nothing of any great importance -- crabs, fish, etc. -- appeared for us, but there were some little squiggly worm-like things that fascinated us. I just love this kind of stuff.


The main attraction of the day was to be Lulu Lobster Boat Ride, captained and emceed by one Captain John, shown here. This guy was a hoot, and kept us informed and entertained the whole time, especially after hauling in a couple of traps with various marine life in it -- even a lobster. More on that later, but first . . .


He took us on a swing around Egg Rock Light, the lighthouse sitting smack dab in the middle of Frenchman Bay. We arrived at near high tide, so there were a number of seals resting on the rocks, but I'm afraid my photos of them only showed what looked like huge lumps of rocks. Anyway, here's the lighthouse itself.


Then we steamed in the lee of one of the many Porcupine Islands to his trap area and hauled in a couple of traps. The first one held only crabs, so he pulled a couple out and the interpretation session began in earnest.


Here, Captain John gives us a lecture on how to properly identify the sex of the crab, while Barb and David look on in amusement. It was hard not to look on in amusement a lot of the time, as this guy was quite a joker.


And he seemed to take special pleasure out of quizzing the little ones aboard, giving these kids his full attention. They did really well and took it all in stride, and we all learned a lot from their mistakes.


The next day, we joined David's friends on a hike up the Precipice Trail. This is where I got to play Park Guide to the max, expounding on the history of the trail and the work we've done on it this year. Other hikers behind us seemed to enjoy it, too.


I never miss the chance to take a shot of people as they walk along this particular piece of ledge. There was some question as to the reliability of the iron railing -- it having taken some good dings due to falling boulders from the earthquake -- but all passed easily and safely.


Rungs, rungs, and more rungs. That's what a lot of this trail is all about, especially the upper part. Here, Barb gives David a little help on one of our ascents.


And here we are, on top at last. A quick shot for posterity, a short snack and some water, and we'd be heading back down. It was a nice day for all this, as the weather had cooled off quite a bit and helped keep us comfortable on the climb.

And that's pretty much that for now. We're supposed to hit up the Oceanarium in a bit and then take a hike up Beehive as soon as the sun breaks out and dries it, so I'll close for now and go get ready. There may be more to show later, so stay tuned.