Texas - Alpine to Alamo via San Antonio - Days 2-4

Texas is a big state!  Now that we're in Alamo, at the very southern tip of Texas, we've driven about 1200 miles!

Our days sort of blurred together, but we drove from Tucson to Alpine Texas in one day.  Alpine is a small town, a college town; Sul Ross University is there.  Neither of us had ever heard of the school before, but there are several campuses in a couple of different cities. The next morning we were up 'twitching' seeking out the 'scaled quail'.  The twitch was successful - we found them at the local cemetery.  We ended this day in San Antonio.  Unfortunately, we spent too much time exploring along the way.  We arrived early evening, and both of us were too exhausted to head to the River Walk for exploring.  We'll just have to make a specific trip to explore the city.  But if you've followed this blog, you'll remember that we're not to keen on cities.  So, we'll keep the city on the return to list, but, more than likely, the smaller towns will be seen first!

The drive was  mostly on long, straight, mostly empty roads.

And mostly flat!  A few hills, but nothing like the elevations we've been traveling!  I happened to look over at our GPS to check it, and we were 1 foot above sea level.
The number of freight trains have been too many to count.  Most of them are really, really long with 3-4 engines pushing and pulling.  This is only about one third of the length of this train.

We got off of the main interstate and definitely preferred these highways pictured here.  Most even have a shoulder should we decide to pull off for a photo. They have also been in very good condition!

This is the Pecos River, the first river we've crossed with any significant amount of water flowing through it.
We've passed through several funky towns, or at least ones that seem to have a personality.

These metal sculpted dinosaurs are in front of a store in Sanderson.

This sign was in Marathon - a town that had a really nice vibe.  A bit run down and really small, but what shops and business were there seemed to be a going thing and of a nice quality.  Well, at least from the outside there was fresh paint and new signs!

And then there have been many towns where this sort of building was the norm! There have even been one or two where it was hard to see if anyone still lived there.


One never knows what you'll see driving down country roads.

We didn't stop for this photo, and the sign was facing the other direction.  But it's some sort of tethered weather system.

We arrived into Alamo, from San Antonio around noon.  We stopped at one of the birding sites and got a personal tour around the park.  Both of the guys we talked with are avid birders and helped Tom get several checked off.

The Airbnb that we are staying in while in Alamo is located 7 miles from the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge Center, another one of our destinations. We spent most of the day there today, doing a bird 'walk' with two volunteers.  Most of the time it was just Tom and the two guides (the ones in the blue shirts).  This other couple joined them for just a short while.  I was lagging behind capturing images of some cool critters from the insect world.

Texas has a large number of spiders of all shapes and sizes, from what I noticed today. This one was the biggest that I saw, at 3+ inches from tippy toe to tippy toe - of which this one is missing the two right front legs.

I think this is the top of it.

There seemed to be lots of mating going on in the insect world today.

And these two dragonflies..... a beautiful teal blue and purple pair.

And then I found this Katydid sitting on the top of a branch.

It has a very intricate design on it's back.

We're back to our typical long birding day.  Up before daybreak, a quick breakfast and teas to go.  Lunch ready in the cooler, and all  the photo gear in the car.  Birding for several early morning hours before we move on to find other targets in new locations.  We have lunch somewhere along the way, then the day ends with us back at the house for dinner and showers, then several hours of sorting, labeling, blogging and getting to bed in time to get up and do it again the next day.

I'll be back in a day or so with some new locations.   

The bird goal is 35-40.  Between yesterday and today 18 have been ticked off of the list!