The spiderworts must have heard all the blooming noise the bluebonnets made. They’ve decided to start coming up. They’re a nice springtime delicacy. Purple flower and yellow stamens.

Woke up to lightning and thunder, way off in the distance. Checked the weather radar and sure enough a storm may touch us. May. You know how weather goes.

Had a metaphysical experience in Big Bend last week. On our first day in the park, we were driving around looking at the sights. There were four of us in the truck. I saw a display sign, the sort they have all throughout the park, and asked to stop. The driver obliged.

Let’s call it the mystery of the green rocks. We spotted them all over Big Bend last week as we drove in and out of the park and walked it’s hills.

There were doubts. There were fears. There was the mind grappling with the incomprehensible. Could I walk a long and winding path of approximately 13 miles that rose into the sky 3,000 feet. I was unable to imagine what it would be like. Then I did it.

The cemetery in the ghost town of Terlingua is a haunted place.

Went on a walk yesterday in the hills of Big Bend. The landscape where we walked was all ancient ash and lava flows, sculpted over 40 million years by the wind and rain.

It’s cold this morning by Texas standards. The temperature is in the 40s. The sky is clear and there’s hardly a breeze.

Boy, when mother nature decides to prune trees, she goes all in. I went to help a friend in Wimberley clear fallen limbs from the recent ice storm. I worked about four hours around three or four trees. I kept my chain saw humming and filled a 16-ft trailer with four foot high sides with branches.

Got out the old push mower and mowed a bit yesterday, then took a nice long walk over the hills and dales of our little town. Clocked in at a little over an hour for 3.32 miles. Gained about 135 feet of elevation.

Last year on my first trip to Red River and the Songwriter’s festival, we passed through San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado. The Church of the Station of the Cross was pointed out to me.

Woke to the sound of rain this morning. It’s still coming down, in a slow, measured pace. And it’s a cold rain, which makes little difference to the ground or the bluebonnets in the back pasture, and they are profuse.

Bought a book yesterday. It’s sure to keep me up nights. The Anatomy of a Paleozoic Basin: The Permian Basin, USA. I mean, we’re talking about a story that happens over the course of 540 million years.

My new schedule seems to be agreeing with me. Weekends are free of alarm clocks and the pressure of writing. Weekdays still find me at the keyboard before daylight, but I’m sleeping later and better so that’s a win.

It’s in the 30s. I know some of my readers will think, oh to be there, but to be fair, it’s still cold. So, it’s sort of a shared experience. Except no snow.

Home again. Home again. I love being on the road. I love being home. There is nothing quite like your own bed. But then again, there is nothing like sleeping on a trailer’s dining room table that folds into a bed, especially if you have a self-inflating mattress, which I do.

When I first started hiking, I was nervous. I felt as thought I’d kept myself active over the course of my life, but I had my doubts when it came to walking up and down mountains.

Changed our pace yesterday. We went underground. Carlsbad Caverns are right down the road. So, off we went.

Went for a walk to the far reaches of McKittrick Canyon yesterday in Guadalupe Mountains state park. The day was cool, the breezes constant and the beauty nearly overwhelming.

Watched the blood moon of a full lunar eclipse this morning. It was hanging in the clear skies over the Guadalupe Mountains. I tell you; I have fallen well and truly in love with West Texas.