Life isn't a sprint, it's a Marathon, but occasionally there are Bends

Last weekend, Mrs Juvat, myself and Little Juvat and his bride, took the weekend off and drove to Marathon, Texas, to see what there is to see and maybe drink a bit of Texas Whiskey.  

Between a delicious meal and trouncing the competition in the Pop Quiz, there was a bit of conversation about what to do Sunday before heading home.  There was talk of visiting Balmorhea and going swimming.  However, since nobody had brought a swimsuit, and swimming without one was discouraged, that idea was a non-starter.  Another idea was visiting the McDonald Observatory in Ft Davis, but since it had been overcast all day Saturday with rain and more forecast for Sunday, that idea didn't float either.

I casually mentioned that I wouldn't mind visiting Big Bend again and Mrs J said that was ok with her.  Up piped Little Juvat and DIL saying they'd never been to the park before.  That sealed the deal.

Cue Yul Brynner...again!

Woke up the next morning and enjoyed breakfast.

Mrs J had something called Avocado Toast.  Looks a little "healthy" for me.

 Not being gastronomically adventuresome, Little Juvat and I passed and ordered green chile and bacon scramble.

DIL, being even less adventuresome, ordered Oatmeal and a Mexican Chocolate Latte.  All met with the Juvat Clan seal of gastronomic approval. 

Now properly fortified, we set out southward towards the park.  

Along the way, we saw indications that President Trump is, indeed, building a wall (with a considerable assist from an ancient asteroid impact in the region).

Notice, in the above picture, the predominate color.  This is a desert.  This is probably the 10th maybe 15th time I've visited the region.  I have NEVER seen it green before.  The heavy rains that had occurred over the preceding days had performed a miraculous transformation. 

One of the reasons I've visited this area so often is I find it very relaxing and peaceful.  Sarge kidded me last week about "see 'em comin' " distance, but the getting away from the rest of humanity for a short period does wondrous thing for my blood pressure.  It's about 80 miles from Marathon to the Park Entrance  at Panther Gap.  Took less than an hour and during that time, we saw a grand total of 2 vehicles, both going the opposite direction. 

As the above picture shows, it was blue sky as we departed, but there are clouds over the mountains.  Since we have to RTB by that evening, we're not going to be able to see everything.  OK, Big Bend is huge, I've been there many times, I STILL haven't seen everything. 

Still, we've got to pick what we want to see.  Hands down, the voting from the people who'd been there before was to visit Chisos Basin. But as we approach the area, there's a low ceiling covering the tops of the Chisos Mountains. 

Hoping for the best, we start up the mountain, stopping at a few traffic pullouts for to take pictures.  (Little Juvat being an amateur photographer of considerable talent with a camera to match. However, he doesn't seem to share pictures with me, so these are from my phone. Update: He did send them to me after this was posted.  My favorite in the batch is included below.)

Shortly thereafter we enter the clouds and continue our climb over the top of the pass.  Finally cresting and beginning our descent and behold....

This might turn out alright anyhow.

Because there are two things I wanted to point out to my Son and His Bride.  The "Window"

And "Appetite Hill"

A while back, Sarge had posted about Memories and what sparked them.  We had pulled in to the Chisos Basin park compound to park, visit the facilities and hike around a bit.  As I'm headed to the head, the building in the lower right, I glance over to the left and am struck by one of those memories.

My very first visit to the park, was with a church group from Webb AFB when I was about 13.  For whatever reason, the chaplain and I decided we were going to climb that hill.  I'm pretty sure, knowing me, that it was I that decided and the chaplain thought he'd better go along if he wanted to keep his job. 

Now, that peak doesn't look very high from this perspective, but that rock formation on the left center about half to 2/3rds up was as far as we got.  And couldn't get back down.  Had to get the Ranger's up to extract us.

Even though it doesn't look that high from the photo's perspective, it looked waaaayyy higher from the perspective of a 13 year old looking down.

No,  we didn't try to climb it again, not back then, not this trip.  The ensuing 50 years having done wonders for my judgement as well as my knees and back.

So we proceeded along one of the nature trails to see what we could see.  While there are Mountain Lions and Bears in the area, we were fortunate and didn't encounter any. 

An additional advantage to visiting after a large rainfall, is that there are waterfalls.  I'd estimate we were about a mile away from this waterfall, but when I got the gang to be quiet for a minute, the waterfall was easily heard.

Continuing down a little more, we came across this lovely example of the Lord's architectural skills.

I decided to sit down in the pew and ponder it all for a bit.

This was my favorite from my son.  I wonder why?

Shortly thereafter it was time to being the trek home, and with every mountain trail that begins by going down, returning means going up.  Which we did.

Upon returning to Rancho Juvat, we discovered that it had been raining while we were gone.  Quite a bit actually.

This served to saturate the ground, which was needed.  However the rain continued most of this week for a total of about 10" over the last two weeks.  Which resulted in.....

Wet, muddy, dopey horses that haven't figured out how to come in from the rain.

And water in the stockpond.  Something that hasn't occurred in several years.  Again, note the color.  The grass in our front yard desperately needs mowing, but the ground is too soggy to get the mower out there.  Maybe this week.