THE JOY OF CAMPING WITH YOUR PETS

This past weekend Donna and I went camping at Big Bend Ranch State Park. We had intended to take our elderly dog Mookie (who suffers from kidney and heart disease) along so we could kayak with him on the Rio Grande. At the last minute, we also decided to take “Mama” who is either a Jack Russel Terrier, a Rat Terrier or a blend of Terrier and something else. We don’t know because she showed up one day and had her puppies in our landscaping. We raised the puppies and kept her.

Anyway, American Whitewater had the CFS at 500 and one description of the section where we would be suggested that you could paddle upstream easily. Based on that we lugged our big kayaks along on the trip.

Well, it took almost seven hours to get to the park and it rained almost the entire time. When we got to our campsite we saw that the river was roiling as well as very, very muddy. There was no way we could paddle upstream, especially not with dogs in the kayaks. So much for that. Later we ran into some canoers who told us that the river had briefly gotten up to 5000 CFS because of all the rain that had fallen. It seems the Rio Grande rises and falls pretty rapidly.

The river conditions were disappointing enough, but we also had to contend with gale force winds while trying to set up our tent, a tent that attaches to our truck. No sooner had we gotten one part of the tent up and started working on the other part, the wind would knock everything down. We were finally able to get the tent up but decided we had it facing the wrong direction, so we detached it from the truck, turned it around and tried to set it up again.

It was just not working—the wind was too strong. Fortunately, Donna has a set of NRS tie downs that she brings with her everywhere (despite the fact that I always ask “why do you drag those things along?”). The tie-downs came in very, very handy. We used them to attach the tent to the wooden poles that provided shelter to the picnic table at the tent site.  From a distance the camp site looked pretty good.

But when you take a close-up look you can see what we had to go through.

This view shows you how everything was twisted. Some of our tent pools are slightly bent now.

The process of setting up the tent wound up taking us more than two hours, so by the time we were ready to eat it was dark and freezing cold. We bundled the dogs up in their winter coats and, in just about total darkness, sat and ate our chili (which was, by the way, delicious).

We were finally able to crawl into the truck to go to sleep. Fortunately, Donna had purchased some “survival blankets” that reflect 80% of radiated body heat back to you. For a while, at least, we were quite warm.

Unfortunately, Mookie has to pee a lot because of his kidney condition. He let me know that he had to go around two in the morning so I got up, put on my shoes and took him out. He did a long, long pee. The trouble was, it seems, that I took too long to get my shoes on and he couldn’t hold off entirely so he peed a bit in the tent. We had to get up, pull off the sheet we had covering the survival blankets, remove the peed-on survival blanket, turn over my air mattress and put another sheet over the air mattresses. We did all of this in the really cold weather.

What fun.

After breakfast we decided to take a ride to the Sauceda Ranger Station where the views are supposed to be spectacular. To get there you have to drive on a 27 mile drive on a gravel road which is rough and not well maintained in areas. We figured—how bad can it be? Well, Mama let us know how bad it was. After about ten miles she puked on a towel in the back seat. WE took out the towel and put down another one. After 17 miles she puked again—a BIG puke.  

More fun. 

We gave up and turned around so we could hike on the Hoodoos Trail. The hoodoos are called the Stonehenge of West Texas – a gathering of isolated, knobby rock spires overlooking the banks of the Rio Grande.

The trail to get to the hoodoos is easy, but for a dog like Mookie it would be pretty tough. So we put him in a buggy and wheeled him down the trail.

After the Hoodoos we went back to our campsite for dinner. While dinner, filet mignon steaks, was cooking, Donna put up her Bluetooth speakers and we listened to music and danced around. Once again it was almost dark when we were getting ready to eat. Just as we were about to sit down a very nice young couple, Robert and Brandi, showed up (probably attracted to our site by the music). We invited them to hang out and they did, but first they went to their campsite to get their dinner. They also brought a bottle of wine (which I blog about in my other blog) and some chocolate bars. The picture below gives you an idea of how cold it was while Brandi was making their dinner.

Robert and Brandi were planning to move to South America to spread the idea of permaculture, a system of agricultural and social design principles centered on simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. You meet the most interesting people on camping trips, that’s for sure.

We decided to cut the trip short and return home the next day. The only problem we had was driving through constant rain and, sometimes, heavy fog. But at least we had no more peeing or puking. It’s funny how you learn to appreciate the little things in life.

Below are some pictures of the park and our campsite.

Campsite View - 1

Campsite View - 2

This is a picture of the Rio Grande from up high on Route 170.

If you have not been to the Big Bend Ranch State Park, I highly recommend it if only to see the night sky. The stars are incredible. Several people have told us that the State Park is better than the National Park.

Be sure to visit my YouTube channel: Greg's INTO (I'm Not Too Old) Channel

Go here to read my blog about the wine Brandi and Robert gave us on this trip.

http://thetexaswinesnob.blogspot.com/