I’m sitting here pondering the day’s events after wading through Terlingua Creek carrying my chair, snack and a couple ACBs to a spot where I butchered a rattle snake a couple years ago, which I ate for dinner. The spot is at the base of a rocky volcanic cliff and when a farming and mining community was nearby an open pit well was at the end of this butte (or maybe it’s a bluff or messa). This is the only shade for miles. I need it to take refuge from the oppressive, sweltering and smothering heat here in March. It’s too hot to be in the sun after 10am to 6pm or so (a lot like OC last weekend).
    I need to rethink my S.O.P. for driving on unpaved roads that require me to use 4WD, do a little planning so that my day trips mileage don’t exceed the amount of gas I have since the nearest gas station is 50-plus miles away, and relax, sip a cold one and enjoy a pastry made from spelt grain flour, eggs from happy free range chickens, and topped with frosting and filled with éclair cream (the real stuff not white marshmellow goo). I bought the pastry at the flea market last Sunday close to where I bought the barbacola (cheek meat) I made tacos from at Spring Break and put the leftovers in last night’s chili. Very zesty green chili sauce came with the cheek meat, but the container’s lid was bulging. I thought maybe the pressure expanded since I was now at a higher elevation in Big Bend N.P., Tex., than at Spring Break in S. Padre Island on the Gulf of Mexico. I opened the lid to release the pressure, replaced it, but within moments the lid was bulging again! That stuff was not going into my stomach, make it bulge too and spoil my evening. The gasforming bacteria in it were having a party!  No thanks, out the door with it. The havelinas can eat it. Their stomachs can handle it.
    The snack is lunch since I didn’t stop for my “brunch meal” of whole grains on this moving day from Johnson’s Ranch campsites on River Road, a high clearance 4WD required road, to Terlingua Abaja on the Creek of the same name and about five miles from St. Elena Canyon, one of my favorite kayaking, sunrise and walking spots where I see big coyotes and bobcats.  
I had selected Johnson’s Ranch camp site by looking at a map of the park last winter.  It appeared it was located on a neck of land, where I could put the kayak in on one side, float down the Rio Grande to the other side, and still be close to the site. The dense thorny cypress and other plants made getting to the river impossible though. This place is the essence of remoteness amidst this arid and barren desert, which is what I like. The sites are down the hill towards the river, but I elected to park my nest at the top of the hill where the ranch house had once stood which had a 360-degree panoramic view that included distant Mexico, the river, Chisos Mountains and lots and lots of desert.
    The Creek water is delightfully cool on this blue sky 100-degree day after I’d been driving and doing moving chores all day.  As soon as the shade advances to shallow water I’m putting my chair in it and soaking my feat. I’ve decided my S.O.P. for driving 4WD will be changed to anything not absolutely secured will be on the floor, so it can’t fall. I thought I’d done a good job. Going to Johnson’s Ranch everything had been thoroughly shaken, rattled, and scrambled, but nothing had fallen and broken. This time my laptop computer and deep cell battery hit the floor. That I didn’t expect. I saw them when I opened the door to check on the nest’s condition. I expected a disarray of the stuff (shells, air plants, rocks, and cactus skeletons) I’d collected, arranged and glued to the walls. The computer had been on the bunk, about 4 feet above the floor wrapped in the bed sheet to hold it there, and the battery was along the wall on the bottom shelf of an onion crate I put shelves in, and use for a bookcase and night stand. I didn’t expect either to get loose, but sharp turns, steep inclines and declines of hills, and going through sand pits obviously put things in the nest in motion like I hadn’t imagined. It must be like a ship in the waves in an ocean storm.  The battery is fine, but the computer has scars. The battery must’ve fallen first, then the lap top. What if the battery had fallen on the laptop! I haven’t fired it up yet. The wires to inverter (needed to convert the battery’s power so it can be used by the computer) and battery were all pulled loose, too. Hopefully it’s still working. I’ll know tonight when I hook them all together.
    If It Works, do it til it wears out!!! (more photos http://picasaweb.google.com/o.c.fotoguy2009/ -  all can be purchased).