Day 199: Hueco Tanks State Park, TX

We returned to where we had stopped riding yesterday (Monday - I am behind on blogging) and headed toward El Paso.  We split the ride into four shifts covering a total of 76 miles, with Alea riding a few less miles than I did.  The first 50 miles were slightly downhill with fair winds, though the roads were of rough chip seal.  The next 15 or so miles was through some moderate rollers with a brisk quartering headwind/side wind.  From there it was downhill to where we packed up the bikes and drove to Hueco Tanks State Park.  

The only event of note during my portion of the day's riding was that, absent-mindedly, I almost ran over a four foot long diamondback rattlesnake that was trying to cross the highway.  Fortunately, I missed him and he was as unaware of me as I had been of him.  I didn't relish the idea of going back and seeing if he would pose for a picture, thinking my memory of the event was quite sufficient.

Hueco Tanks is yet another unexpected delight on our journey.  It is an odd island of jumbled rock, which is apparently an unusually soft granite.  The granite creates large depressions that trap rain water (these are called tanks), making this a year-round oasis for flora and fauna.  The area has also been inhabited by Native Americans for the past 10,000 years, so there lots of interesting pictographs and the graffiti of many travelers who had passed through the area in the 1800s (I guess some of the names include early Texas Rangers, so they don't call it graffiti).

Faded pictographs.

We have a nice campsite ($16, power, water and showers) set amidst boulders that have been cast off from the adjacent mountain, complete with a deeply shaded picnic table.  In order to limit the campground to only registered campers, there is a gate that we need to open and close behind us as we come and go.

Park vandalism has been a problem in the past, so we were required to go through an indoctrination DVD to learn the dos and don'ts.  About three fourths of the parks is only open via guided tour, but the area closest to us we can explore on our own.

Everyone is expected to be off the rocks by 6 pm, and campers are confined to the campground at that time.  Next, the park rangers make sure that all the cars have left the day use area.  If they find one that hasn't, they wait one hour for the person to return.  After that, they bring in the search and rescue teams, presuming that someone may have fallen and has been injured.

We had a raucous serenade by coyotes all night long, and the rabbits were numerous enough that we almost had to watch where we stepped (needless to say, Lana had a great time!).