Our motor voyage draws to completion.  We pray for a fair wind to bring us home tomorrow afternoon.  This final pause in the greening mountains of the East reaquaints us with the moist climate of home.  What a contrast to the dry lands of west Texas. 

Our travel took us west from Seminole Canyon to pause at Marathon.  From there we made the 160 mile run to the airport to pick up Laurie who joined us to tour Big Bend National Park and the Davis Mountains.  Already rains had begun to gather across eastern Texas bringing a burst of foliage and flooding, but in the west came only clouds.  These highlighted the abrupt and strange mountains that interrupt the deserts of the Big Bend region. 

Little has changed there in the decade since our last visit.  Long distances separate oases where springs and streams provide comfort for small parcels of civilization.  The road south from Marathon threads between the rocks and then climbs the base of the Chisos towers.  We did not stop at the visitor center at "the junction" and instead began the long descent to the mouth of Boquilas Canyon on the Rio Grande River.  There stands the village of sorts at the southeastern edge of the park. 

We found one of the best campsites vacant and wiggled our rig under and between the sweet mesquite trees at the edge of the flood plain.  They were lime green in fresh foliage providing modest shade in a place famous for being very warm.  We settled into to four nights of "dry camping." 

From there we explored the desert, hiked to the entrance of the great canyon into which disappears the river, bathed in hot spring baths adjacent to the border stream, climbed among the high Chisos on a warm and windy day to escape the desert heat, and crossed by rowboat into Mexico for a taste of one of its remote villages.  We walked in the evening to a lookout on a tongue of high rock that pushed the river out and back around it so that we seemed to be within rather than looking into the state of Mexico.  The sun set illuminating the wall of Sierra del Carmen mountains that traversed the boundary only slit by the great river that disappeared within them.  Moths and bats took to the air as it darkened beneath us.  We retreated only as darkness fell upon us.

Then we retreated westward to the town of Terlingua at the western edge of the park to stay another four nights but with such niceties as water and electricity other than we could carry.  There was also cell phone and internet communication that sometimes seem important.

From there we continued our explorations of the Big Bend from another great canyon from which this time the Rio Grande flowed to great beds of volcanic ash, green mountain canyons, and the spires of the Chisos.  Anne and I sought the Colima Warbler in the high mountains, but this bird arrives only in the spring and we failed to find it on our first climb in search of it on April 9.  Luck was with us when we repeated the climb on the 11th and Anne texted Laurie of our success.  Upon our return she provided both of us with Colima Warbler T-shirts.  Hurray.

The one disappointment was that the park was unusually dry.  This contributed, we believe, to the delay in the arrival of the birds.  In the desert even the cacti were wilted.  They were happy in the mountains but the trees were stressed and the wildflowers and wildlife were much diminished.

Our  expedition then headed north to Alpine and then Fort Davis.  The first eighty miles of that trek were across much barren desert, a place where we did not want to experience problems.  We did not and simply enjoyed the wonderful if austere scenery.

Arriving at Fort Davis we were told how joyfully wet it was.  The stream was flowing this spring.  We were told it was so wet the Montezuma Quail were not coming into the observation station.

"What?" we said.  That was to be our last "life bird" of the expediton.  The naturalists assured us the birds were there, but it might be difficult to find them.  We worked at it hard, walking all about the park on the first evening and next day and driving and walking about more in that evening.  On the second day we took a drive into more habitat and made a long hike across another place known for this bird.  We saw other birds and a mountain lion, but no quail.  Returning to camp we were becoming anxious and depressed.  We had planned on more time there but plans had changed and we were running out of time.  That evening we again walked the length of the park and at one end encountered a flock of this nemesis bird.  We watched the strange-headed birds bobbing through the tall grass and celebrated. 

Meanwhile sadness had interrupted our journey.  Laurie was scheduled to fly home and Anne bought a ticket for the same day.  I drove them both to the airport and returned alone to Fort Davis deciding I did not want to make the 300 mile round trip again to pick up Anne a few days later.  She, meanwhile, barely made it home that day.  Severe weather in Dallas and Houston had stalled her at Midland Airport.

I enjoyed two more days at in the Davis Mountains.  Then I broke camp, hooked together the rig, drove to near Midland, and made camp all by myself.  That was an adventure without crew.  All went well and I met Anne at the airport that evening.  We dined out, celebrating our anniversary in advance.  The next day was a day of rest and preparation for our return East.

From Midland we reached Little Rock AR where we slept in a Cracker Barrel Restarant parking lot.  Then we went on to Hendersonville TN to make a quick visit to the Davidsons and arrived here to witness the "greening up the mountains."  Today we ventured into the Grayson HIghlands where the trees remain bare.  Here the leaves are half out.  Everything is moist and many small birds are arriving from the tropics to deliver sparks of color and song among the great trees of the eastern forest. 

Though warm here, tomorrow we cross a line into a region where the temperatures are twenty degrees cooler.  Not sure we are ready for that, but we are ready to return to our home and to see friends and family.  We will miss the travel but enjoy the home fire.  So it goes.