Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Mountain Climbing

For the past two weeks I have been desert chronicling for you our trip to Big Bend National Park. What you may not have realized is that for the past two weeks I have only been talking about one day of our trip.

It took me two weeks to blog one day.

I think it's time to move on.....

Behind our RV at Lajitas near Big Bend was this awesome rocky mountain. One afternoon we had seen some people riding 4-wheelers down a path that seemed to lead up into the beautiful striated mountain. Since we had no 4-wheelers, we decided to follow the path on 2-legs.

It's much, much slower.

We set out one morning but we didn't get very far before we came across a no trespassing sign. I was in favor of going farther the other way where there was no sign and then going up the mountain, but Jerry said no. I can't blame him, really. I had been the one to send my children illegally across an international border. (I promise I did not know it was illegal!!!!)

So instead, we made an about-face and decided to climb the smaller, loose-rocked hills between our RV and the mountain.


The hills were very crumbly and had many water run-off grooves. Josh scrambled up like a mountain goat while Paige carefully tried to keep pace.

It didn't help her climbing that Josh was so fast that he was slinging rocks at her face.


Josh climbed up one, down another, up one, down another so fast we couldn't keep up. I tried very hard not to freak out over the heights he was reaching.

Paige was mostly able to keep up, but poor Phoebe was just not coordinated enough to climb up the crumbling hills.


She may not be a good climber, but this girl is fantastic at crying. A real, queen of fussing. Mistress of misery. A whining winner.

It makes me feel bad for her, and for me and my chronic stress disorder to which she has been the main contributor. Apparently I cannot handle crying babies.

Jerry gave her a comforting hug and some fatherly words of encouragement while I tried to hide my eye twitching from the near constant crying.

Whatever he said to her seemed to work:

Good job, baby! You are climbing that hill like a chimp! I mean champ!


Belly was with us on this walk and she seemed interested in climbing up with us. Here she is trying not to die from heatstroke. What I do not have documented is how the dang dog got to the top of that steep, crumbling hill.

I'll just say that my hands were way too close to the nastiest part of the dog as I pushed her up the hill.


After they had their fill of climbing, the kids decided to walk along the ridge of the hill before climbing down. A ridge that was flanked by 70 degree drop-offs on both sides. They weren't scared so I said nothing.

And didn't watch them do it. And I prayed. And I hyperventilated...


And then I walked with Belly down the not-so steep side of the hill. Belly was tired I tell you!


This was a fun little way to get our blood pumping first thing in the morning. Then we went back to the RV, loaded up our stuff, and headed north to our next camping destination:

Fort Davis Mountains State Park