Weekly Update Archive

Week Ending 05/03/04

April 23-25, 2004

This is going to be a weekly update including a couple of weeks combined. I had a few problems with my new digital camera so this has been delayed. Here we go!

Our ETHS had a campout at Martin Dies State Park outside of Jasper Texas. This was the first time we have had an outing there. We saw absolutely zero snakes in the park itself, but when some of us went out road cruising around the area, we only found dead Southern Copperheads, and live Texas Rats, although some of those were road kill. Brandon Bowers found a gorgeous 4 ft. plus female Canebrake Rattlesnake that unfortunately was a road kill. A mud snake was found also. The unfortunate part of the trip was it rained all weekend long, but fortunately it just misted on and off. By the time we left on Sunday, the skies opened up and it poured hard all the way home. Talk about a little humid!! The club had fun overall excluding an incident that I will not go into. Let's just say it involved the park warden, an ambulance, and the Jasper County Sheriff. NO, it was not snakebite!!!

We move on to April 29-May 3, 2004. This has been a trip in the making for over 1 year now. My cousin Les and his wife Mary came to Texas to visit and hike in Big Bend National Park. I took Friday and Monday off as personal days from work so I could have a couple of days to spend with them. For me, Big Bend is a 9-½ hour drive including a couple of stops. Me, Kim and the kids tore out of here at 8:00 P.M. on Thursday night. We arrived at Seminole Canyon State Park. This is where we met up with Les and Mary; however, it was 2:20 a.m. before we arrived. We broke out the air mattress and sleeping bags and crashed. The wind picked up and the humidity was in the air, and I had no doubt if I went out looking for Alterna at that time, I could find one, maybe two. Being as we got there late, I did not have it in me.

We woke up to several friends with us crawling on our sleeping bags. No, not snakes, but a billion little snails. It was THAT humid. Les and Mary fixed breakfast for everyone and off we went to the Chisos Basin. Les and Mary took their time and visited Judge Roy Beans place and we cruised to Sanderson and filled up and visited Roy and Ruth at the Outback Oasis Motel. We caught up on a few things, saw some snakes and moved on.

We arrived in the basin mid afternoon on Friday. Kim and I set up our new 7 man Wenzel tent. That takes nothing shy of a chemical engineering degree to set up, especially when it is the first time. An hour later by the grace of GOD it was up. Les and Mary arrived 10 minutes after we set it up. Talk about good timing!!! I will have to admit though, the tent looks sharp! After we all settled down and set up camp, we decided to take the window trail. The temperature was great for hiking. The only problem we had though was we forgot the baby backpack and frame, so we had to let the kids hike on their own, and a fine job they did until Weston started to fall asleep on the trail. I decided to hike back with Weston in my arms. Now, even though the Window Trail is an easy and very simple trail, let me tell you, if you have to carry an 18 month old a mile and a half up a trail and steps, by the end, you are just a little bit worn out. At age 41, this becomes a little more difficult especially when you compare it to when you first started going out to Big Bend (1980). The rest of the group got back right at dusk. We cooked dinner and kicked back and talked about old times. It has been 24 years since I have gotten together with my cousin Les to do a hiking trip. Back in 1980, we did the Smokey Mountains and then later in the summer, we canoed the Okeefenokee Swamp in Georgia. Les said we better start getting some more trips in if ya know what I mean! Here's a hint: AGE. Enough of that!!! I am getting depressed already. That night during our sleeping period, some mystical wind with hurricane force it seemed made its presence in the park. Every 1-2 minutes this wind that was obviously trapped in the Basin would make the rounds and would howl and blow for about 30 seconds or more and would come around like clock work ALL NIGHT LONG!!!!!!! Caleb woke up scared to death and we had to explain to him that any second we could float up to Casa Grande within a matter of seconds! (Just kidding). The wind was really fierce though and our tent looked like it was going to implode. It stayed up to the high winds and held up great! Kim said she heard a tapping close by. It seems some of our neighbors had cheaper tents and/or used plastic cheap little tent spikes that did not hold up to the gale force winds. I had to laugh! On Saturday, we went to Dugout Wells and hiked the short little nature trail there. Poor Caleb slipped in the rocks and into a cactus, but damage was minimal. Only his pride was hurt. I had never been to Dugout Wells before so it was nice to see something new. We all moved on to Hot Springs that was inhabited by several tourists. I decided I would not scare anyone by taking my shirt off and jumping in so I just did some videotaping and hiking around. The Mexicans from Boquillas walked across the river to try and hock their little necklaces and walking sticks and copper scorpion figures. Isn't Homeland Security great!! (What a joke.) We stayed here for a couple of hours and I will have to say, it was enjoyable.

After the Springs, we had lunch at Rio Grande Village on the East side of the park and Caleb decided he wanted to go chase the Javalinas that were grouped together in the lush green field across from us. Lucky for him they were not aggressive. Now, we had to drive all the way to the West end of the park to LaKiva where we really kicked back and had drinks and dinner. Believe me, by the time we got over there, we were hungry again. We kinda bar hopped and went to the Starlight, had some drinks there, then the gift shop, then we hit LaKiva. We had more drinks and good food. I was surprised to see that not very many people were there on a Saturday. It was early I guess. The local band had not yet arrived. We straggled back to base camp, told more stories and hit the sack.

Sunday May 2, we got up early, ate breakfast and tore out towards Castalon. On the way out of the Basin, I saw about a 2 foot long Northern Blacktail Rattler lying in the road waiting for a tourist to run him over. I stopped and got a couple of pictures and kicked him well off the road. I would have preferred an Alterna but at that time of day, they were all back in their crevices. We hiked the Cattail Falls on the road to Castalon. This took several hours because the trail was all rocks and toward the end was very rough and had some small passages. Not having the back pack and frame for Weston was another factor. Kim slipped and fell on her butt hard on the rocks. Weston was not hurt as he was in her lap upon slipping and falling. She has a big ol' bruise for her efforts. By the end of the trail Kim and I were pretty tired. We still had Santa Elena Canyon to do!!! That was actually pretty cool. We crossed Terlingua Creek and went up the observation ramp and down to the water. Kim and Caleb decided to stay behind. Les and Mary went swimming in the River. We let Caleb and Weston do their favorite thing…stand and throw rocks into the water for over 30 minutes. They would still be there if we had let them. We had to keep Caleb well away form Weston as he started coming closer to nailing Weston in the back of the head. That's all we need while on vacation. "Big brother pegs little brother in the head with a rock" details to follow at six!

We took our time back to the Basin. Stopped at Burro Mesa Pouroff, which holds good and bad memories! but non the less, is still a cool place to hang out. Speaking of cool, the temps at sundown were too cold to see any Herps, but Les and Mary did manage to see a coach whip flying across the road on their way back. We had a late dinner this night and told more stories "around the campfire" and hit the sack late.

Monday, May 3 marked the end of our long awaited and planned out hiking trip. We really enjoyed spending time with Les and Mary and the kids had a great time as well. The only draw back is it's always too short!!!!

By the way, I just want to point out that when we went through Sanderson, gasoline was $1.96/gal. In marathon, it was $1.98. Two days later the gas had gone up in Marathon to $2.04 and 9 tenths of a gallon. Snake hunting is going to be lean this year!!!

Did I mention that Caleb and I are going on our first father and son Alterna hunt next week??? We will be hooking up with all the other Herpers in Del Rio, and I may even go to Sanderson as well. Nothing would make my day greater than to see Caleb spotlight and catch his own Alterna!

Updates will be done after next weekend so stay tuned!!! I am outta here.

Happy Herping!

Wayne Howell

Our first family
vacation of the year!

Road Kill Mud Snake
in East Texas