Rocks Rocks Rocks and more rocks

Yesterday, we met  up at the property with Jack and Fred, to look at options for putting in a new road. First, we drove up the really bad road and decided that no matter where we cut off of it, we would still have to deal with the really bad part before our property started. As Fred said, " You can only put so much lipstick on that pig". We discarded that idea and drove down to Holbrook Avenue (Avenue, really? Did I say that?). Our property crosses Holbrook, so we were looking at a way in from the east. After finding the rock markers we put out last September, we were able to determine that we really could put in a road that would cut out the 4 or 5 miles of bad roads. Yes!!!

Anyway, after walking the property and marking a route, Fred came back and gave me this incredible crystal filled ammonite that he found as he was walking. The ammonites always blow me away. 

This area was an inland sea 100 - 500 million years ago (Yeah, yeah, big span - next time I'll do some reseach and try to pin it down within a hundred million years or so).. Don't quote me on the exact age. Everywhere I look on our property, I see shell fossils and ammonites.  Some have been imbedded in the walls of the house.

A few days before, we went down to the quarry where the rock for the house has been gathered and there were 3 or 4 slabs of calcite crystals on limestone matrix (similar in color and formation to the crystal we got up in Fort Davis). That one came from the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico. I didn't take any pictures that day, but, next time we go up, I'll walk over to the quarry and take some.

Crystal filled ammonite

Everytime we walk the dogs, in the field next to the Rock House, there are more rocks.  Now those of you who have known me for a long time, know that I love rocks. People at Harris brought me rocks from their travels all over the world.  You know I had shelves of rocks in my office - so I've brought them all out here. Kind of like carrying coals to Newcastle but they're packed in boxes and will be part of our garden out here someday. Anyway, my point is, that I can't resist rocks. They are fascinating.  This little field where we walk the dogs has thousands of rocks just laying around. Not one like any other.  So, how did all of those get in one little location. Each walk has us collecting more rocks . . . they're starting to pile up on the table outside and on the window sills. Here are some of them:

                                                

This one looks like - malocchio -  the evil eye - we'll have to ward that one off

A completely round cylinder - a core sample? How did it end up in the middle of a field?

The outer shell has flaked off and exposed a space landscape

This one is off our property - looks like calcite but is shaped like gypsum. Wild.

House news - the fireplace and rock walls are finished - work on roof can continue now. Will take photos of walls and rocks! 

So what's a woman who's afraid of falling doing climbing up to Balanced Rock???

Good question!

First, let me say that this blog was going to be all about our off-grid house stuff and off-grid living . . . but, since we're not in the house yet and normalcy is on hold temporarily, I'm going to talk about mundane day-to-day things that we are doing here in Terlingua. 

Back to climbing.  I'm not big on falling.  Historically, I tend to freeze when hanging off the side of mountains. Usually, I start crying and become paralyzed with fear. The first time I remember doing that was when Rem and I went backpacking above Anna Ruby Falls in Georgia shortly after we met. Wearing a 50 lb pack and blindly following Rem up the trail, I remember at some point, hearing him tell me not to look down . . .right.  Of course, I immediately looked down and freaked out. There was nothing there . . . nothing . . . empty space. I started to grab the rock for dear life, yelling "Where the hell are you taking me????? Are you out of your mind?" We had had a late start in the day, the sun was going down and we ended up sleeping on a ledge on an extremely steep mountainside. Needless to say, climbing is not on the list. No raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens here. Over the years, I had other climbing adventures that ended up in very similar ways - tears and fears. Not good.

This morning, since jewelry tools and supplies are packed up in the storage container and oil paints and canvas are stored too, I decided to explore the national park. Got on-line, pulled up a map. did some searches.  Read some rave reviews about Balanced Rock - nice pictures, too. Cool. Off Grapevine Hills trail. Even cooler.  Nice easy walk - couple of miles. Excellent. 

Drove up to the park, talked to a very nice ranger at the entrance gate.  Asked her about how to find Balanced Rock. She gave me directions and told me to ignore what some people said about the climb, it's not bad, just the last little bit . . . OK.  I'm there. On my way to Grapevine Hills. Nice drive.

Turned onto Grapevine Hills Road and about 7 or so miles in found the trailhead. Just like everyone said, nice easy soft sand walk.

Beautiful place. Huge boulders, way high up . . . not a grape vine in sight . . . not one. Some very cool vegetation that I couldn't identify because all the books are packed up in the storage container . . . sigh.

Really don't want to buy duplicate books for temporary situations. Finally, reached this trail sign. 1/4 mile. Hmmmm, more than a last little bit . . .

Off I go. Up the trail. It started getting steeper and steeper but not too bad. I had a walking stick for balance.  I guess it is needed for balanced rock. Trail started getting obscure . . . steep and obscure. All of a sudden, I was going downhill in very perilous territory. Very loose rock, many cacti, what the heck? I'm off the trail and feeling the onset of paralysis. OK, I started looking very hard for signs of footfalls and trails. Sat down on my butt. I've found that's the best way to go down if there are no good places for feet. Yikes. Cactus. Started talking to myself. OK, this is really not so bad. You are alone and you will have to deal with this. You are off the trail and going downhill - you should be going uphill. I sat there, staring at the rocks looking for the trail and where I went wrong. No tears, no paralysis yet, just a few heart palpitations. And, the mountain below me was very steep. What the heck is that about? Am I being brave? I sat there inching along avoiding cactus for about 10 minutes . . . couldn't locate the trail. Voices . . . I'm hearing voices . . . not from heaven . . . trail angels! People! Somewhere above me. I started calling - Helloooooo, helloooo, are you guys on the trail? Ha, that sounded silly. They heard me and they saw me and told me that they were indeed on the trail. I could see them, too, which gave me hope and a direction to follow.  They waited till I reached them on the trail and they showed me the right way. Even steeper, foot and handholds, small spaces for shoes. Could I do this? See those rocks way high up in this next picture . . . that's where I was heading.

The path in some places became solid rock, narrow with some indentations, not too bad, I tell myself and I'm still on the trail. I'm not even getting winded. Just forging on.  Each new turn in the trail made me speculate - can I really do this, do I really want to?  Guess I did! Because, finally, there it was, Balanced Rock.  I made it with no tears and no paralysis. Wow, I impressed myself! And, what an impressive sight. Well worth the hike.

I didn't climb up through the arch to view the rock from the other side. Decided to leave that for the next visit. Usually going back down is worse than going up. Not so today. With my new found courage, going down was a piece of cake. Wow. Breakthrough! Runic Dagaz! Yea!

Lovely walk back to the Jeep. Mellow drive back to Terlingua.

Doctors and Doggies

These last few days have been dedicated to getting nitty gritty things done.  Changing auto insurance to go along with the new licenses and license plates, straightening out insurance issues - who would have thought that getting benefits would be so complicated?  Medicare Parts A, B, D,  F? Supplemental. What? Just when you think you understand it all, a new wrinkle pops up. All that had to be in place before we could finally get established with a new doctor.

Victory! Made two trips this week to Fort Davis. 110 miles one way. One trip to have blood tests done and one trip to see the doctor. Packed the doggies up in the car with us and killed more than one bird with a number of stones. Gave the doggies baths first . . . and then found a nice picnic area on the way to Fort Davis.  

Kayleigh

Sierra

Mandie

 In-between trips to Fort Davis, we headed up to the property to check out the progress. Fireplace and that last wall is almost finished. After that, the roof can be finished and the floors laid down.  The mantlepiece is an oak beam from a Civil War barn ~1861.  We bought it on-line about 7 years ago and had planned to have it added to our fireplace but we could never locate a craftsman who could install it.  Perfect for the Terlingua fireplace! Also, we had some crystals embedded in the rock. Awesome.

It's looking good! 

While we were in Fort Davis, we visited the local rock shop. OMG, are you surprised? Found an irresistable piece of Chihuahuan calcite AND a crystal from THE CRYSTAL CAVE!!!! Sadly, we found out that the mine finally did flood the cave again and all those incredible 35' giant selenite crystals are no longer accessible. Maybe someday, someone will be able to keep the mine pumped out, so the crystals and the cave can be studied again. But, in the meantime, here are my treasures.

Not a great picture of the Crystal Cave selenite - the crystals going to the left and right actually look like little angel wings.  I'll try to get a better picture with a real camera, not a phone.

This morning, I decided to take a hike up toward the entrance to the National Park.  The views are beautiful.

Ciao!  I'll post more photos tomorrow.

                                                                                   

   

Giant Mailboxes Rule

When I got up this morning I thought for sure someone would have had a comment about the new blog. Imagine my surprise - not one! Doesn't sound like most of the people I know. You are way more vocal than that.

My brain churned on that for awhile  . . .  Yikes - I forgot to add a comments tab. Apologies. This blog thing is new to me.
So here you go - comments turned on. Let's see if that works. If it doesn't, I'm sure I will hear about it.

To reward you for being patient, here is a picture of our new gigundo mailbox.

This thing is almost taller than me.

Now, it was a process to get this incredible mailbox. 

First a trip to the post office to find out how mailboxes happen. Our post office is awesome - I don't know how they keep up with the comings and goings of everyone in Terlingua but they do.  

The first step is to evaluate if there's room out on the road for a new mailbox. The carrier has to go out and check. Since he determined that there was room, the next step was to obtain a mailbox.

Off to Bee Mountain Hardware - not difficult since we were staying in the trailer behind it. Easy walk to buy a mailbox. Uh-oh. Mailboxes not stocked. Will have to get a mailbox in Alpine. Since Rem came down with a nasty cold that was spreading around town and various other things happened, we didn't make that trip for a few weeks.

Off to the hardware store in Alpine, much bigger, much further away (80 miles) and not nearly as much fun to visit as Bee Mountain. When we got to the store, there were multiple decisions to make. What color? What size? What kind of letters to buy? How many letters and numbers do we need? Of course, Rem decided that (because we are now in Texas), we had to have the biggest baddest mailbox on South County Road. Don't know if we accomplished all that. However, I do know that we got a JUMBO mailbox.

Once home, street numbers and names and addresses had to be added to the mailbox. Then, I had to take it to the Department of Transportation to have it installed. They were really busy because a lot of their signs had been blown down from high winds (so we heard) and it took a number of trips to connect. Mailbox delivered to the appropriate people! And a few days later, there our mailbox stood, on the entrance to South County Road. Another trip to the post office to tell them to start delivering our mail to a new home and like magic - this morning we had mail!!!!! Thanks Lisa and Carlos for all your help.

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

Well, we've been in the neighborhood for close to two months, but, this is the first day that we've had a chance to take a deep breath and start to really enjoy being Terlingua residents.  

We're newly retired and establishing ourselves in our new community. 

Texas license plates and driver's licenses arrived today, so that must make it official!

We've left behind a lot of family and friends who want to know how we're doing and, hopefully, this blog will keep everyone up-to-date.

I'll be adding some news and photos of what's been happening since we first arrived. That might take me a little while, but, be patient and tell yourself, you are now on Terlingua Time!  That's what everyone around here says to explain everything that does, can or will happen. Kind of like the Twilight Zone . . . it really is different and we love it!

More to come.