More Fort Davis

It was very cold at night in this beautiful, elevated place. Our water hose froze the first night and we had to wait for the sun to thaw it out in the morning. The next night we unhooked the water before bed. The campground wasn't busy at all so our two families had a whole section to ourselves and the kids (and adults) could be noisy. There was a great game of 'what time is it mr. fox?'

A large javelina wandered around our site at night, a grey fox crept just near enough to our campfire for us to see him in the dim light, and a male and female deer were always around. We often saw them grazing on the nearby hills and at night they came right into our campsite, obviously they've learned to check for handouts. The female deer would have eaten out of Kyra's hand if we'd let her.

In Fort Davis, Texas, we ran into our friends from New Zealand. We met them at Christmas time in Louisiana. In western Texas we saw them zoom by our motorhome on their bicycles in the Fort Davis state park. We had a great time having bbq's, hanging out in the town, and crashing Sam's bicycle! Sam kindly let Kyra try out his bike and she was doing great until she hit the brakes too hard on a hill and went flying. We recorded her impressive wound on film. The boys were all very sweet telling her how brave she was. Sam's bike seemed to come through it all right.

West of the Pecos

Seminole Canyon, Texas

Seminole Canyon state park is in the north west of Texas, just over the corner of Mexico.

We had a great time here. It was the first time the landscape changed, looking like an old west movie with rocky hills and awesome canyons. We took a crazy bike ride to visit the canyon that ran into the Rio Grande. 160 feet to from the cliff to the water, 100 feet of water below. It was awesome. We could spot the ancient native paintings on the cliff walls with our binoculars.

Falcon State Park, Jan 8

A road runner! This guy was in our campsite in south western Texas at Falcon state park. He did seem to prefer running over flying but as the girls observed he didn't go 'meep meep'.

We were also privileged to see the rare whooping crane at Aransas national wildlife refuge in south eastern Texas. We saw them from about a mile away through a telescope on top of a viewing tower where we also saw a few wandering 'collared peccaries' or wild boars. The whooping cranes were down to 15 in 1941 and are now about 335 wild and captive. The flock of 158 that winters at Aransas is the only self-sustaining group in the wild. They migrate to the Northwest Territories.

We visited the Texas Sea Centre near Houston where we went on a great tour of a large fish hatchery. The girls liked the sticky anemones in the touch tanks.

Camouflage

Texas, Dec. 31

How cute are these guys?

Texas

We've been enjoying Texas for the last few weeks.

At a state park in eastern Texas (Brazos Bend) we enjoyed some great bike rides around small lakes filled with birds, turtles and gators. The gators in one lake were surprisingly large but we were reassured by rangers at the nature centre that it was too cold for them to be hungry. Nevertheless, we stayed away from the edge of the water. The photo of Kyra and Kevin looks as though they are right by the water but they aren't. Check out the gators on the island across from them. We got a good lesson about the gators at the nature centre where we got to pet a baby gator and hear it's 'chirp'.