I Miss You, Big Bend

So here I am back in Denver. I guess I'll kind of try to pick back up where I left off, but it'll be hard. We'll see how it goes.

Spring break in Austin was pretty cool. The only bad part was that on the first morning we were there, Lindsey hurt her foot pretty badly when we were walking to breakfast. She was stepping off a curb and her sandal got caught, but her foot kept going. She still walked all around the city with us, just a little slower. We came back to the park on Monday after spring break, and Lindsey wasn't able to go to work on Tuesday because she couldn't do the hike to our work site. Scott took her to the doctor in Alpine on Wednesday and we found out some horrible news. Her foot was broken and she was being sent back to Denver to work with a team from another unit who was living on campus and working at a school. We were all really sad that she had to leave and so was she.

That day while they were at the doctor was pretty interesting for the rest of us. It was a service learning day for us as well as for the whole trail crew. (They don't do service learning like we do, but they all came with us.) We took a tour with Tom, the park archaeologist, of an area called Indian Head. He showed us all kinds of evidence of people living there many many years ago. There were several pictographs and petroglyphs on the huge boulders around.

Do you see the little hand prints under the circle thing? Tom said they were probably made by like a 10-year-old. Crazy!

The next day, Scott assigned me to have another service learning day with Lindsey. I think it was mostly just to get her some hours since she had to miss work after spring break. Davis ended up coming with us because he had hurt his knee the day before. The three of us went to Boquillas Canyon. It was really pretty. (Surprising, huh?) To get from the parking area into the actual canyon was like a mile hike which unfortunately Lindsey and Davis couldn't do with their injuries. There were a couple of overlook things that we could drive to so we were still able to see some of it and get some good pictures. At one of the overlooks was a bunch of crafts set up on rocks. There were signs saying that they were made in Boquillas, Mexico with a list of prices for all the crafts. The sign said that buying them (putting money in the plastic containers next to the rocks) would benefit Boquillas schools. Unfortunately, none of us had money with us, but the things were really pretty.

That is obviously the Rio Grande behind us, with Mexico on the other side. We even got to see someone crossing the river back over to Mexico on a horse, most likely after dropping off more crafts or collecting money or something. It was a really nice day. We just drove around the Boquillas Canyon area and looked at pretty scenery then had lunch in Rio Grande Village. (The village isn't as cool as it sounds. It's just another visitor center and a store. But it was still nice.)

The day after that was our Alpine day. Alpine days, as I've mentioned, are just pretty horrible. Too much going on. And that day was even worse because I had my team leader phone interview scheduled for that day. (Yes, I applied to be a team leader for next year.) I thought it went pretty well. The Unit Leaders from all four units were on the phone but I didn't really feel nervous or anything.

Saturday April 10 was an all-day event in Terlingua called Green Scene. Terlingua has been trying to do a lot more recycling and move toward sustainability and the Green Scene was kind of a celebration of that. There were demonstrations on things like solar ovens and composting, and a lot of locals were selling their art and food. Terlingua only has like five or six hundred people, but a lot of them seem to be artists. All of the local art I've seen is really good. The Green Scene was really fun. I think probably the whole town was there as well as people from surrounding communities. One of the highlights was a demonstration by the local acro-balance yoga class. Colin, our supervisor, and Laura, another member of the trail crew, are part of this class. They were doing some crazy stuff!


Alex, a member of the trail crew, had given us a brilliant idea. There's a "camping hostel" in Terlingua, so we should just bring our sleeping bags and stuff and sleep there so no one would have to drive back (beer is a pretty important part of life in Terlingua) and so we could stay out as long as we want (the curfew for the van is midnight which means we would have to leave at 11:15 to get back in time). Such a good idea! At the end of the night, we slept beneath the stars in the campground. Stars in Terlingua/Big Bend are probably the prettiest I've seen. In the middle of the night, I woke up to a strange pattering sound that I didn't recognize at first. Then I realized it was rain. Only a little sprinkling. How ironic, that the first time we decide to sleep without tents in the desert is the first time it rains. It only lasted a few minutes so it was kind of refreshing. In the morning we had breakfast at a really good little cafe next to Starlight, then went back to the park.

Well I guess I might as well go ahead and post what I have so far. This is going to take a while.