Night 69- Marathon, Texas
Another day in the desert, starting off with a pretty cold night. Learning how to deal with temperatures that steadily drop down to freezing by morning. Hills keeping the sun from warming things too quickly.
It’s pretty cold. We will be looking into ways to improve warmth other than hiding in our tents with later and later starts to the day. A frozen phone doesn’t help the typing either.
We got up from our putt putt lawn and move for the next patch of the desert. The canyons were cool, but now we were headed into open plains and in sight of the hills north of big bend. These long stretches of fields let us see cars coming and going for 10 minutes.
With good shoulders and open roads, it became a day of eye spy the wildlife. I’m sorry I couldn’t get pictures of everything that scampered past, but we did see a road runner and a coyote on the same stretch of road.
At one point we had a weird creature that looked like a pig, but it’s fur looked like a porcupine. The majestic collard paccary, or the javelina. Two adults and a baby. They just slowly wandered across the road and didn’t care much. But when one turned towards us it was clearly not a wild boar. They are just, I don’t know, too narrow? Still not actual wild boar yet.
The hills transformed as we continued to gain altitude. The rocky piles turned into larger shadows in the far distance. The hills between us switched between scraggly shale and crumbling mounds. The sides of the road were line with tons of tracks and pits left behind by pigs. The only animals we would see for the rest of the day were ranch herds and antelope.
It wasn’t a bad day at all. Just cruising right along. We got some burritos and settled for an RV park at the end of town. With this being the cross roads of Big Bend and the southern tier route for those who don’t like interstate highways, we fit right in.
I really want to get caught up with these because some days are so long and filled with little things that they can be easily glossed over by the next day. The sights, the people, the ride… it all just starts to blend together when I don’t get it out.
I hope these days were good for you all. Sometimes days don’t have to be 100% memorable. Just know they are how you got to the memories you do remember.
As usual-
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