Saturday, September 30, 2017

My, What Big Toes You Have!


We have had day after day after day of rain.  Not hard rain, just a good soaking rain.  After sitting in the house for a week we decided we really needed to get out and do something.  I Googled things to do in the Bandera area and got a hit on two museums.  One we have been planning on visiting but had never gotten to and one we had never heard of. 

The Bandera Museum of Natural History sounded interesting and we were somewhat puzzled that we didn’t know it was here.

Bandera (Spanish for flag) is a small town (population almost 1000) about 20 miles from us.  When the weather is nice we drive into Bandera almost every morning.  There is a very nice 9 hole disc golf course that Mark really enjoys playing.  There are lots of restaurants and we have a few favorites.

So we plugged the museum into the GPS and off we went. 

The museum looked brand new and it turns out that it is.  We went inside to pay the entrance fee ($10 each). 

While driving in we noticed several very large dinosaurs scattered around the grounds.  Since the rain had let up we decided we had better see the outside exhibits first before it started raining again.

The museum sits on 8 acres.  I neglected to count how many life-sized, fiberglass reproductions of dinosaurs and Ice Age animals there were.

The monster was Mark’s favorite:
 Indricotherium (Indric beast)
I took about 4 pictures before my camera quit working.  Yep, it’s the same camera that quit during a kayak trip in Alaska.  That camera is now in the trash and a new one is has been ordered.  Mark got out his phone and we continued the tour.

The big toe guy is a Deinonychus (Terrible Claw).


Some of the Dinosaurs were in Texas 70 million years ago.

These play stations were a lot of fun!  You take the bones off the walls and bury them in the sand. 


 Then dig them up!


After walking around the grounds we headed inside the 14,000 square foot museum. 

The creator of the museum is 81 year old Juan Infante, an Argentina-born mechanical engineer and big-game hunter.  He’s also been a rancher in Bandera for over 40 years.


The museum initially was planned as an exotic wildlife museum filled with the mounted figures of the animals Infante had hunted on his many trips around the world.  It ended up being a $4 million natural history museum.


The museum’s six dioramas display some of the nearly 100 body mounts of animals Infante downed on his hunting.


 Artwork, all of it collected by Infante, also is displayed throughout.

Ironwood carving of two lions on attack (this was carved from one piece of wood).


 70 native masks from Latin America


  Possibly the largest collection of hardwood sculptures from the late Mexican artist Isaac Carrasco.

The museum is small but is packed with lots to see.  There isn’t a lot of written information.  Everything is nice and clean and well displayed.


Before we left we talked with one of the employees.  She told us the museum had opened about a year ago.  Now it made more sense that we hadn’t heard of it before!

It was a great way to spend a rainy morning.

Teri

Monday, September 25, 2017

Time to Reorganize


We’ve had an amazing year so far.  It’s not over and we still have trips planned but while we’re home I wanted to organize my magnet collection.

I’ve added many magnets to my collection this year.  We went to Costa Rica, Alaska, San Juan Islands.  Stayed in New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Texas.

Even though I had run out of room in the RV I kept thinking when we get home I have another refrigerator with plenty of room.

The place of honor in the RV is a cookie sheet that is right over the kitchen sink.  This is where I put the magnets I like the most.



I like unusual magnets such as 3-D or interactive.  They are hard to find and since I now have a lot of magnets, I’m starting to get pretty choosy about what I buy. 

Complete magnet collection.

There have been some places we’ve visited that either don’t have any magnets or just don’t have any that catch my eye.  It’s disappointing but sometimes I don’t purchase anything at these places.

It’s a tough decision but I think I’ve got the cookie sheet the way I want it.


 I’ve bought a new cookie sheet to display some additional magnets (I don’t yet know where I’ll get Mark to hang this one).

There will be plenty left over to leave at home.  This has turned out to be a fun, enjoyable collection!

Teri

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

I Thought They Were Supposed To Be Green

We’re back home in Texas but before leaving New Mexico we made one more stop - The UFO Museum in Roswell. 

We visited the museum many years ago.  The museum has changed a lot since our last visit.

Most of the museum is newspaper articles from 1947 when a “weather balloon” crashed at a ranch in Roswell.



There were a few other things to see in the museum.

 Old teletype machine, typewriter, etc.


The difference between a human mandible and an alien mandible - just in case you ever run across a mandible lying around.

Alien autopsy.
Pickled alien.

I thought aliens were supposed to be little green men.  In the UFO Museum, they are tall silver men.  


This was the best display in the museum.  The spaceship spun around and the smoke came down with lots of colored lights.  There was some "creepy" music.

Apparently aliens like Coke too!



Our next volunteer gig is supposed to be at Goose Island State Park in Rockport.  We have contacted the park to see if they can use us to help clean up after hurricane Harvey.  We haven't heard from them yet.
Teri

Friday, September 8, 2017

To The Bat Cave!

One night a week there is a guided walk to the bat cave on the El Calderon Loop Trail.  Before getting to the bat cave, our Ranger guide made several stops along the way.

Junction cave is a lava tube created by the lava flows from nearby El Calderon Cinder Cone.  It’s 115,000 years old.  Junction Cave has more cave-adapted species than any other cave in El Malpais.
Junction Cave
By the time we got to the bat cave, the bats were already flying.
 Thousands of Mexican Freetailed Bats. 

Our guide indicated that this cave was a “bachelor pad.”  So far, White-nose-syndrome has not been found in any New Mexico caves. 

We stayed until all the bats had left.

On the way back to the truck we enjoyed a beautiful pink sunset.


We were surprised that it was still light by the time all the bats had left the cave.

Teri

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

The Ice Cave

After visiting the volcano we made the short hike to the ice cave. 

The ice cave is located in a collapsed lava tube.  There were several steps to get there.


We saw beautiful colored lichens on the way down.


 This cave is really interesting.  The temperature never gets above 31 degrees!  The floor is approximately 20 feet deep. 


This isn't the type of cave you walk into and explore.  As we were walking down to the plateform the air was getting considerably cooler.  The deepest ice is the oldest and dates back to 1100 AD.  


The green tint is caused by an Arctic algae.



The ice was “harvested” in 30s and 40s to chill the beer that was served in the Saloon of the Ice Cave Trading Post.

The ice cave was a great ending to our day.

Next time:  To The Bat Cave!

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Fire and Ice

We’re continuing our trip home.  We’ve left Utah and are in Grants, New Mexico.  We have not been here before and there is a lot of exploring to do in this area.

We like to get up early while it’s cool and do our sightseeing.  Unfortunately, we’re finding that the attractions in this area aren’t on our schedule.  Opening at 9:00 a.m. is not an “early” start, in our opinion. 

Our outing this morning was to the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano (Land of Fire and Ice).  We stopped at the 1930’s trading post, paid our $12 and headed out. 

Along the path to the Crater are numerous stopping points. 

Spatter Cone.
Spatter cones are formed when minor vents form in the molten lava.  A surge of hot air rushes through the lava forming surface tubes and minor vents.  When the air breaks through the surface, lava will splash out forming a type of blow hole.


Natural ice box.
In the early days, there was ice present in the bottom of this cave.  It was used as a refrigerator long before electricity was available.

Lava Tubes.
This is part of a collapsed lava tube.  A lava tube is formed when the molten lava pours out of a volcano.  The surface hardens, while below, the lava continues to flow.  The porous lava acts as an insulator and keeps the lava hot beneath the surface.  This creates a pipeline of lava known as a lava tube.
Sink holes.
Sink holes are created when lava tubes collapse.

Anasazi Indian ruins.
Stacks of lava form a wall in front of this small cave.  The insulating properties of the lava made an ideal shelter. 
‘A’a lava.
‘A’a lava is composed of jagged, broken lava produced when the surface of the flow cools and hardens while underlying lava is still in motion.  This region is called El Malpais which is Spanish for “bad lands.”

After about a half mile hike we arrived at the crater.  
This volcano is a cinder cone.  The volcano began as the earth started to swell.  Eventually a crack broke open and high pressure lava began spraying out.  The molten rock hardened in mid air and fell back down to the ground as cinders.  As the eruption continued the cinder cone got larger and larger.

The Bandera Crater is the largest volcano in the region.  It erupted around 10,000 years ago.  There were two stages of eruption.  First the cinder cone developed, then a massive lava flow broke out the side.  The molten lava reached temperatures above 2,000 degrees.  The lava flow is nearly 23 miles long.  At the end of the eruption the lava fell back down the main vent making the bottom of the cone deeper than the outside lava flow.  This crater is nearly 1,400 feet wide at the top and roughly 800 feet deep.
The crater is slowly filling up as cinders and rocks fall down into it.

Next time:  Aaaaah, the ice cave.



Friday, September 1, 2017

Canyonlands National Park

After visiting Newspaper Rock (previous blog) we made our way to Canyonlands National Park.

Canyonlands is huge, at almost 340,000 acres. There are several sections, and we visited "The Needles" area in the southeastern part of the park.

This is the Needles Range that gives this section of the park its name. As the sandstone erodes it forms amazing pillars and spires.

As we drove into the park we passed Sixshooter Peak.

A little further on we saw Wooden Shoe Arch.

There were heat warnings up for the park (after all, it is still August!!) and we decided to hike the shorter Slickrock Trail so we'd be out before things really heated up. That turned out to be a smart decision as it is really exposed out on the trails!

Slickrock refers to the bare rock that forms much of the landscape in Canyonlands. It is fairly smooth and can be slippery in places.

The Slickrock Trail is about 2.2 miles long and has several viewpoints along the way. An interpretive booklet describes how the landscape is shaped by water, wind and ice. The resulting area is harsh, but beautiful.
By far the most common wildlife was lizards. This Plateau Side-Blotched Lizard had some subtle blue spotting on it.

As we made our way around the trail we continued to find amazing views and landscapes.

The views continued even after we'd left the park and were headed back to our trailer. We plan to return to the area and do more exploring, but probably not in the middle of the summer!!

Mark