Tuckahoe State Park, MD

We are in Denton Maryland, only a few miles from our son Bill, his wife Ann, and two of our grandchildren and we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves. We get to see Marisa and Sam regularly and they have even camped out with us in the RV at Tuckahoe State Park In Maryland state where we are staying.

We have been volunteering at the park near Denton on the Eastern Shore. Although we have stayed in this park several times in the past, this is the first time we have volunteered here in exchange for hook-ups for our RV.

Maryland Department of Natural Resources has an educational Program called “Scales to Tails”. In several parks they have aviaries with birds of prey and reptiles that are used for educational programs for groups and schools. Here at Tuckahoe the “Scales to Tails” program is in such high demand that the rangers that administer that program had no time to provide nature interpretation or activities for the weekend campers. Since Sandi and I have experience handling birds of prey and doing nature interpretation and activities our offer to help was quickly accepted.

This campground has 50-60 campsites. From Monday through Friday the entire park is nearly empty but fills up every weekend. Every Friday and Saturday evening we each talk about one of the parks educational animals as we carry them around and roam the campgrounds. The screach owls, barred owl, kestral, and broad-winged hawk are relatively easy to handle but the red-tailed hawk and the horned owl are a bit more unrully. The snakes and turtles are docile. On Saturday and Sunday mornings Sandi has nature craft sessions with the younger kids in the park. She has been making pine-cone owls and tissue paper butterflies. During the same period, I have been leading nature hikes and bird walks.

Rain seems to impact nearly every weekend including Mother’s Day weekend. On Sunday we finished our morning activities and headed east to Rehobeth Beach Delaware where we had both spend time when we were much younger. For Mother’s day I treated her to the fine beach-side cusine: boardwalk french fries, carmel corn, soft pretzels, and then topped it off with chicken BBQ at a volunteer firehall. It actually was a very fun day.

Biloxi to Birmingham

I guess time flies when you are having fun. I can’t believe that over 6 weeks have passed since I last updated this blog. We made it to Mississippi and passed our physician’s inspections with flying colors. We only spent a couple weeks on the coast, just enough time to see a few friends, play a little golf (albeit rather poorly), and do some research at the library. Then we went up to Jackson for some more research at the Museum of Natural Science, a meeting with my publisher and then on to Birmingham, AL.

We got off to a great start in Alabama. Our almost-two grand daughter was changing day care centers and there was a two week break where sitting services were desired. (OH! Don’t throw me in that briar patch!!) What a treat. I'm not sure the cat enjoyed it all that much though. Timing is everything. Walks along the lake at the RV park with geese following for handouts of bread were a daily routine. To see Braelyn respond to the natural world around her and react to the sensory stimulations was a blast. Her vocabulary seems to grow every few days and Sandi and I now have the “A B C Song” down pat as well as “Intsey Wintsey Spider” (not sure of the spelling on that one!).

Sandi met with an orthopedic surgeon to evaluate her shoulder that she injured during volunteer training at Big Bend and her knee that she injured on our “Hike from Hell” (see earlier posting) also at Big Bend and the prognosis is good. Her shoulder is responding exceptionally well to therapy and will probably return to normal; the knee is getting better but still has room for improvement.

We decided to move the few things we had in storage in Biloxi to a similar facility here in Birmingham. The rates are much lower and will be much more convenient since we will get through here periodically to visit.

It is nice being close to see Jayme, Chris, and Braelyn and this time out visit coincided with Easter. After the essential Easter Egg Hunt we got together for Easter dinner here at the RV. Sandi made ham, yams, veggies--excellent! Chris and I fished in the pond and we each caught a few that probably would have been a meal had we kept them.

We'll leave her on the 31st of March and will head to Maryland with plans to arrive around 4 April. We have a one-day delay planned for routine maintenance on the RV.

Big Bend to Gulf Islands

We sure had an enjoyable travel from Big Bend National Park to the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Mississippi where we are now. The varied landscapes and beauty of this country of ours never ceases to amaze me. Big Bend was an interesting park and is really the first place in three years where we have volunteered time and were not ready to depart when the time came. No wonder they have so many volunteers returning year after year. We left Big Bend at the very end of January headed east. The high mountains of Big Bend shrank in the rear view mirror and the lecchugia, sotol, and ocotillo of the Chihuahua dessert changed into mesquite, then pasture like rangeland, and finally the coastal marsh and beach sands of the Gulf of Mexico. Red tail hawks were seen all along the way but the real birds of interest changed from area to area. Common Ravens were replaced by crows, caracaras perched on telephone poles and finally egrets, herons, and roseate spoonbills got our attention.

Laughlin AFB was out first stop for its several offerings—a golf course and a military commissary. Haven’t played golf for nearly a year and my scores were as should have been anticipated. We made a commissary run and finding a well stocked grocery with reasonable prices was a treat after spending three and a half months in Big Bend where the are no groceries closer than 70 miles and no large well stocked groceries closer than 100 miles. We shopped, we golfed and we relaxed. In our accumulation of life’s experiences we find that our most enjoyable times are when we have no schedule. I no longer wear a watch so I do not know the time or date--I can usually guess the month. Since we had lots of free time we extended out stay at Laughlin an extra day just to relax (and get in an additional round of golf). From Del Rio Texas we took two days to get to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi Texas. Padre Island was much as we expected: coastal inter-tidal marshes, sand dunes, and sandy beaches. Padre Island is the longest barrier island in the world. A few attempts at fishing were unproductive but a birding outing with park volunteers was enjoyable and seeing thousands of redhead ducks made the day. After a few days camping within a hundred yards of the beach we packed up and headed further east along the Texas coast. Roads are interrupted by waterways and taking our RV on ferries was a new and interesting experience.

We took two days to get to Anuhuac National Wildlife Refuge where we had volunteered several years ago. After a tour of their new facility, Stephanie took us for a trip around Shoveller pond. Ducks were in abundance and the canvasbacks and cinnamon teal were the highlights.

From Anahuac we worked our way into Louisiana heading south to Grand Isle State Park--about as far south as you can get. Their campground, on the beach, nearly 100 miles south of New Orleans is the tip of the vast sea of Louisiana marsh that is slowly eroding away as a result of the channeling done by oil companies in years past. The oil industry is alive and well in southern Louisiana. Exceeded only by the number of boats in the armada of commercial fishing boats, the boats serving the oil industry are everywhere as are oil related businesses. Towns along the two lane road through the marsh from Houma to Grand Isle are few and far between and all are fueled by either the seafood or oil industry.

We stopped in at Golden Meadow to visit Rob Fritchey and Kathleen. Rob is a high school friend and author (Wetland Raiders). Kathleen is an accomplished artist and I would love to spend time with her to learn more about water color painting. Her artistic skills are exceptional. I could learn a lot from her. Boiled crawfish Cajun style whetted our appetite for fresh seafood and before leaving the area we picked up a half sack of fresh oysters that was our lunch once we arrived at Gulf Islands National Seashore in Ocean Springs Mississippi.

We spent several days at Grand Isle State Park enjoying the great weather and lousy fishing. My day of casting resulted in a few hardhead catfish and a few more stingrays. Nevertheless it was fun and relaxing. I did catch mullet that could have been dinner instead of bait. I may have to try for some mullet in Mississippi.

We left Grand Isle following the road on the west side of the canal stopping a roadside fruit stands for fresh strawberries and satsumas. We had a most enjoyable trip to Gulf Islands in Ocean Springs MS where we will spend about two weeks. We both have appointments with physicians and friends to visit in the area.

Right now our lives seem to have no purpose or direction and we are happy. We must be doing something right (Borrowed from Snoopy the Peanuts beagle)

Goodbye to Big Bend

In less than two weeks we will leave Big Bend National Park and head east. Big Bend has been an interesting place to spend the winter. We will not compare it to other parks we have been to because we find each park so different and each beyond comparison. Each is a national treasure. We give Big Bend the descriptor of “intriguing.” It has been an intriguing place. The brochure describes it as being three parks in one with mountains, dessert, and river habitats-- each worthy of its own designation as a park. The park is magnificent. With 800,000 acres encompassing complete mountain ranges, vast expanses of desert, and the slow flowing but politically significant Rio Grande River, the landscapes seen from every view point in the park are breathtaking. Each landscape changes with the rising and setting of the sun as the shadows crossing arroyos, canyon walls, and escarpments accentuate the color and depth of each feature. In our time in the park we have hiked trails and bushwhacked backcountry areas where the last person to traverse the area may well have been a cavalryman from a century ago or perhaps even a century earlier as the Comanche made their annual migration through here to gather slaves, wives, and horses from the land south of the Rio Grande. There is also plenty of evidence of the existence of paleo-indian activity.
We walked across the desert with friend and professional ranger Bob Hamilton who led us to museum-quality matates and manos (mortars and pestles) used by early Homo sapiens perhaps as much as 8000 years ago—a time when the whether was cooler, rivers flowed through cottonwood groves and game was abundant. Areas abound with numerous stone hearths used to cook sotol, other plants, and game as these early hunter-gatherers moved back and forth across the area when the ice from the last ice age was still receding.

Game was probably considerably more abundant than it is today but one needs not invest more than time to see the abundant wildlife in this park.
Our list of wildlife observed includes antlered mule deer bucks with small herds of does, pig-like javelina, exotic Barbary sheep or Aoudad, and even Desert Big Horn sheep.
The cooler weather has put the desert reptiles into hibernation so we leave here without seeing the expected assortment of rattlesnakes and lizards but the migration of the tarantulas made up for the absence of the reptiles.

This is a geologic wonderland that defies my attempts to decipher how ancient physical forces of heat, pressure, time, and weather, lifted up, twisted, contorted, and eroded solid and plastic mud and mineral into amazing natural monuments and sculptures.

The park is simply too big to allow anyone to see all of it. There is so much that we will not experience this trip: mountain lions and bears have eluded us; miles of trails remain unhiked; century old adobe ruins, abandoned homesteads, and even entire settlements of former inhabitants are unexplored.

We did get to canoe though the Santa Elena Canyon as part of the parks exceptional volunteer training program but Mariscal and Boquillas and Lower Canyons are still virgin territory. Our two week training program exposed us the natural, geologic, and human history of the park via day-long guided tours with professional naturalists, archeologists, paleontologists, and historians.

There is so much we did and yet so much remains undone. We enjoyed working the visitor center and leave knowing we mad a difference to many park visitors. Impromptu interpretive programs with visitors in and around the visitor center as well as on trails and at sites around the park have given us considerable satisfaction and the positive show of appreciation of the visitors is an unparalleled reward. I realize that my primary reason for volunteering at Big Bend, to give interpretive programs, was unfulfilled, but maybe there will be another time. I know without a shadow of doubt that doing interpretive and educational programs is the direction I need to focus on for future volunteer assignments.


We’ve said our goodbye’s to most of our friends and are beginning to look forward to heading back east to spend some time with family and friends.