Returning to road trip notes

Hello, everyone.

The last post about the road trip showed the Magdalena Driving Way information sign.

After the drive north on the back roads from Quemado, New Mexico, we took a right on the US highway into Albuquerque.

This was convenient as our hotel was on that side of the city, anyway. Our hotel was also convenient to the Petroglyphs National Monument, which after vigorous city growth is now actually inside of the area of Albuquerque. 

We looked into the site and discovered that it has three walking trail with petroglyphs. (Plus a fourth recreational area with none.) One allows no pets. One only allows pets on the portion of trail that doesn't actually allow viewing of the art. (That seems rather pointless for a traveler that wants to see the art and walk the dog.) The third one is very welcoming to your leashed dog--bring the little bags in case he/she gets the mood to make a deposit alongside the trail--and is also easy to access. 

We parked the vehicle at the little parking lot and headed to the trail. It split very soon and we had to decide whether to go left on the flat sand or right up onto the lava ridge. We went right. (This may be backwards to what a lot of folks do, but it was very much the right thing that day.) 

Walking along the ridge gives a lovely view back toward the city and across to the Sandia Mountains.

The sun was out when we parked the car. The mountains across the way seem to have generated this rain.

This may actually have been from later in the walk--but it does show the view of the Sandias and the oncoming weather.

The weather was why going up onto the ridge first and then returning by way of the mostly-flat sand was so very much the right plan. If the rain is coming, having it hit when you're walking on level sand is infinitely preferable to having it hit when you are trying to descend on a mix of black lava rocks and beige sand.

Our walking companion was also interested in viewing the various plants and rocks. She was very good about staying on the marked path!

Looking back toward the top of the ridge

The way down from the ridge was marked by convenient cables, which were sturdy to grasp if one felt nervous going down the sand and rocks. There were already some petroglyphs to see during the descent. 

There were a lot of petroglyphs to view after reaching the level sand area. In fact, I felt like by walking the less-traveled trail that welcomed dogs we hit the jackpot. There were a lot more petroglyphs to see than we had expected. (No I'm not going to upload every single photo!)

This is a sample of the interesting artwork:

I liked this image of the bird. Is he pulling something out of the water?

The present-day city of Albuquerque has a river. The people who made the petroglyphs seem to have been very interested in water birds, as well as snakes and leaving hand prints and such. 

They made these artworks by using a pebble to chip away the black, weathered surface of the lava stone and reveal the paler underlayer of material. Their art has survived for hundreds of years.

When we saw the first few of the petroglyphs I wondered if this was another way of demonstrating status, based on how difficult the first ones we saw were to reach. Later on we encountered many more that were easy to get at and I had to revise my theory. 

If y'all should find yourself in Albuquerque, this is a very interesting and worthwhile walk. (You can take other interesting walks in the Sandia Mountains on the other side of the city, too, but I think this one is unique.) As far a walking goes, it's not very long (around 2 miles) and the climb is not very great. You can expect to get some good practice at stepping over and around various rocks and then some practice at walking on loose sand. All very good for maintaining conditioning! 

There are no facilities or concessions at this path, but there is a visitors' center which has a flyer with the trail information and a restroom. We understood that there were displays with more information inside the building also, but since we had the pup with us, we moved directly on to walking the trail.

 

Cool weather has arrived in South Texas

Hello, everyone. After a reasonably warm winter mostly, it's February and the cool fronts are showing up. This morning it was mid-40's in this area.

We've been walking, mostly on the Hike and Bike, where we did 4 miles on Monday and 6 miles on Tuesday, plus taking the critter for her survey of the neighborhood beforehand.

Last week we commenced on buying new trees for the place: avocadoes to keep the one we have company and improve the fruit set.  While we were out and about hunting them down, we were near South Padre Island, drove over to the end of the paved road and strolled a bit on the dunes in the chilly weather.

South Padre Island National Seashore view

The other direction had a few hardy tourists, also strolling, and all of us wearing jackets and long pants and sometimes headwear.

I've gotten no interesting bird pictures on the Hike and Bike this season, there was construction where the water ditches cross (one over the other) and the birds haven't come back to that place yet, plus there are a lot of folks these days walking, running, and biking on it.

There appears to have been a bot posting comments with a link in several of the posts in the last few months, I know my readers will know better than to click on the link and so I merely mention it as an advisory.

Just because

Hello, everyone.

Last weekend we drove down to South Padre Island. It was "between the Easters" and there were neither the clogged crowds of Mexican Holy Week vacationers nor the mobs of Spring Break students. It was, in fact, refreshing.

This is inside the city limits of South Padre Island, the part of the barrier island that is not National Seashore, and because cars are not allowed on the beach inside the town, the city has installed board accesses with pocket parking lots. (The public has an enforced right to access the public beaches. Which are all of the beaches in Texas.) The loads of green vegetation in sight is the area that the local property owners try really hard to keep green--anything below the permanent vegetation line belongs to the State of Texas as part of the public beach.

We didn't even wander around doing a big walk and keeping track of birds, bugs and flowers. We just enjoyed the fresh breezes for a few minutes. (There are, of course, seagulls along here like nobody's business.) On the other side of the barrier island, where the water is calmer, we saw some hermit crabs and regular crabs crawling around in the water near wooden piers, and oyster shells clinging to the wood.

A refreshing bit of memories: Montes de Oca

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday was very busy, with a large party for many children, and the pleasure of working with wonderful ladies! Today I find myself needing to rest a little--rest mentally, that is, with memories of one of our 2014 Camino days.

We departed from the parish albergue in Villambistia at our usual crack-of-dawn time. We walked along seeing the dew on the flowers and watching the cloudless sky change colors. The trail wasn't a completely abandoned place, but we weren't in a huge clump of people, like you may have seen in various Camino movies (like The Way when characters depart from St. Jean.) By the time you get as far as the area of Tosantos and Villambistia everyone is thinned out and less crowded. We got to Villafranca (one of the many Villafrancas, but I can't remember which one just now) about 9:30 and had coffee.

Then we started walking over the range of hills called Montes de Oca. According to the wonderful guidebook The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook (This book is highly recommended--get it on Kindle, read it before you go and refer to it as needed on the way.) the Montes de Oca had at one point been a nest of bandits. It's not at all flat, and there's loads of cover, and when there was only horse travel, feet travel, and slow clumsy wagon travel it was probably perfect for the robbers to hide in. These days there is a marked trail which connects to some dirt roads that were put in to service windmills. There are no services between the last village before this and San Juan de Orbigo.

A waymark on the side of the road

This looks remote, but in the distance there is another little group of pilgrims.

The bridge at the bottom of the ravine. This bit is steep, both going down and coming up. Note arrows painted on bridge.

Just for pretty!

Another pretty flower

At the end of this forested bit, you come to the old monastery of San Juan. San Juan is one of the Engineer Saints of the Camino. He had been a disciple of Santo Domingo de Calzada. After Santo Domingo (another Engineer Saint) died, he came to this place and made a monastery. Santo Domingo and San Juan were responsible for getting roads and bridges built that would never have been there at all back in the middle ages. The monastery is currently being restored. We saw the casket where the saint's remains rest and the church. The monastery was listed as an albergue in various guide books, but it was too early to stop so we ate bocadillo at the little cafe and took pictures of the church and headed on down the road.

The monastery of San Juan de Orbigo

Matosinhos and the Boardwalk

Hello, everyone.

Passing along from Porto, where we stayed for two nights, and picking up with the walk, we rode the bus to Matosinhos. (Reading the destinations on the glowing light board while hearing them read aloud by the automated announcer was always a trip. There was no correspondence that we could see between the letters appearing and the sounds heard. Though the pilgrims who already had French language skills did a lot better than we did at following what they heard!)

We got to watch a ship go under the moving bridge at the port. 

One of the many beaches--they were all coves like this one, separated by rocks and little peninsulas.

This is the boardwalk that we walked for most of the day on. The cool breeze from the Atlantic operated like an air conditioner, taking much of the heat out of the bright sunlight.

Some of the boardwalk was still in process. (Note the path alongside.)

Ancient salt works, either Roman or older.

This was the day we saw a McDonald's. That was all we did, though, because it was around 9 in the morning and the sign clearly said that the McDonald's would be open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.! No coffee, breakfast, and facility for you, traveler! Fortunately, even though they open somewhat late, there are a lot of coffee shops along the Atlantic coast.

Ocala National Forest, Florida

Hello, everyone.

The last time I posted I brought our Miami trip up to arriving in the city of Ocala. Near Ocala is a national forest--a hybrid kind of area that isn't a park, because you can fish and collect things in it, but isn't privately owned woodland, because the harvesting contracts for commercial lumber and such go through the government. They seem to be part of the legacy of Muir, who was very fond of unpeopled lands and didn't want their mystical beauty to be mussed up by such things as tour operations, farming, logging, and so on. Mr. Muir had a very great influence on the US national park system. While I don't think he's directly connected to the national forests, the idea that the forests are "patrimony" of the entire nation and should not be let go into private hands was certainly gaining a lot of steam around the time he was active.

Ocala National Forest, according to its web site, is one of the most used forest properties in the entire country. It is convenient not only to the nearby city of Ocala, Florida, but also semi-convenient to Orlando, the Space Coast, and so on. I can well believe that a lot of people go there! It's pretty.

It's also occupied by the most rapacious, stubborn, sneaky, ugly ticks and chiggers we have ever seen in our lives. I am convinced that as soon as the spy-mites saw us pause to focus the camera, they waved a flag to the field officer, who blew his teensy-tiny bug whistle and hollered "CHARGE!" They were running up our shoes. They were parachuting down from trees. And we thought we had them well picked-off before departing, but there were still more that appeared when we sat down to chat with friends. Even after we checked into the hotel that evening and showered, there were still more of the evil things!

But I was saying that the forest is pretty, so it's only fair to post some pretty after that long rant.

Deer moss, a lichen that colonized patches on the forest floor

Pretty sure this is bull nettle, whose sting is legendary

The scrub oak forest was thick and we were the first ones to go through in a while.
Many spider webs across the path!

Lake with spatterdock lilies in the midst of the pines and scrub

Pretty moss cushion

The path here was on leaves. Other places it was mostly on white sugar sand, with the occasional leaf or moss bit. Palmetto shrubs on the left. Pines in the distance, with gray Spanish moss hanging down.

The interpretive signs call the scrub forest a "desert with water" because the sugar sands it is growing in don't retain any moisture at all from the frequent rains. We saw eastern forest yuccas (a succulent family plant, somewhat more shade tolerant than Spanish Dagger yuccas) growing in the ground near trees and fern fronds sprouting from any place the spores had landed on the tree trunks. And lichen, lichen everywhere: white deer moss, red round patches on trunks, gray frilly "leaves" on twigs.

It's a pretty place to walk--we did four miles of easy trail walking and picture taking--but you really, really need to put the bug repellant on your ankles, your shoes, your socks, your arms...you get the picture. There are a few benches along the trails we walked, but I didn't see any picnic tables. There was a facility, with the standard Forest Service pit potty, where we parked the car. Bring your own hand sanitizer. Also, like most Forest Service properties, there is not much in the way of concessionaires in the forest itself, so pack your drinks and your lunch, and get your fishing license before you head off to drown worms in the little patch of wild in the middle of Florida.

Enjoying our trip, day 2

Hello, everyone.

When we left Beaumont, we drove along the coast, stopping at the Welcome Centers the various states have built at the state lines. We got maps and a collection of brochures at them. (The lady at the Louisiana one was very friendly, informative, and helpful. She found for me a couple of magazines with recipes  printed for various Louisiana foods. Also, the Louisiana welcome center had free coffee.)

The Alabama welcome center is currently not where it is supposed to be. We saw the "remodeling project" from the highway, and it looks like they tore the building down to its concrete foundation pad! The temporary digs are in a town at the outskirts of Mobile. The ladies there are friendly and helpful, too.

We stayed in Gulf Shores that night.

Dawn from the balcony of our suite

As you can see, the sand at Gulf Shores isn't as brown as the sand at South Padre Island, Texas, nor is it as coarse and white as the sand at Destin, Florida.

The hotel we stayed at: Phoenix All Suites Hotel.

Little birdie getting his breakfast at the incoming morning tide.

We tried some Alabama wine--the liquor store only had in-state wine, and we got the driest one we could see on their little shelf unit. It was drinkable, but I can't really say I like it. Most of the offerings were "sweet Muscadine table wine" and I just don't like the sweet wines. YMMV.

We got some really good fried whitefish at the Shrimp Basket (I think that's the name of that chain) and DH had shrimp grits. I thought the shrimp grits were tasty but a bit on the thick side--I really liked my fried fish, however. This chain food place served its wine (an anonymous white Zin) in plastic punch cups, the kind you use for kids' parties. I don't think it hurt the wine any--but it didn't help it either.

The next morning, after taking about a mile walk on the sand in the early light, we stopped for coffee at the local Krispy Kreme and headed out. They make good coffee at Krispy Kreme!