Wednesday March 17
I got the bright idea of going to look for Golden Eagles. They had been sighted all along the highways in the area, but most often at a prairie dog town ten miles north of Marathon on highway 385. And that's where we went.
But the wind--which was supposed to have died down at 3am that morning--was still harassing us. We were lucky to see this one bird:
A few dogs were out and about, but mostly I think they were sheltering underground from the wind.
From there we went out the road to Marfa and beyond, me scanning the sides of the road for birds of which I saw None! Nada, Nilch, Zilch, Zero. And then we took a scenic drive north up some little ranch road, to join TX-16 and circle the Davis Mountains to the West, then get back on highway 118 to cut directly through the mountains and all the way back to the RV park.
I will herefore name Highway 118 the Wonderfully Wicked Way. It seems to delight in taking the most scenic route directly up, over and through every mountain it can find. Our drive was marvelous. Of the many thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people who visit the Davis Mountains every year, almost none of them were encountered on that drive. It was glorious. And lonely. Gloriously lonely.
Eventually we ended up back at Davis Mountains State Park, where I made a quick stop at the bird blind and the dogs got a little walk. They hadn't gotten to walk hardly at all for the day, which was our fault for hauling them around in the Jeep. I promised Molly a nice long one when we got back.
Spotted Towhee:
And she got one. Round and round the RV park. It was so late in the day (after six) that the highway was clearing, so we walked along the road to the bottom of the hill and then back up. We got in a good solid thirty minute of walking, at the least. Poor, long-suffering doggie.
La Vista:
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