Back at camp and what to do for lunch? We decided to forgo our pre-packaged, just-add-boiling-water meals and eat in the lodge's restaurant.
Just FYI: the gift shop/lobby/restaurant area of the lodge had a very unpleasant odor - it wasn't a natural gas smell, nor was it a broken sewer main kind of smell - maybe if you blended those two together? At any rate, we didn't ask and pressed on, because...food. We quickly got used to the smell.
The food was good. I had a turkey wrap and I think Todd had a burger. After lunch we hung around the lodge area for a while following the shade as best we could.
Finally, we decided to go for a drive.
We started off on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, a 30-mile drive that would have led us down to the Rio Grande River. I say would have because we didn't get to the river before we spotted smoke in the distance. Then we spotted a lot of smoke in the distance.
This was May 22nd, the day the Castolon Fire jumped the Rio Grande and started burning toward the Castolon Historic District in the park. The fire would burn 944 acres over 11 days, destroying several historic buildings in the process. Of course we didn't know that at time - we just saw smoke and some passing emergency vehicles.
We reached the Castolon Visitor Center area, which was closed for the season and deserted, and pulled in to watch the growing smoke. At that point we decided to turn around and go back.
Here's what that area looked like a short time later:
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| photo from nps.gov |
So we headed in the other direction toward the Rio Grande Village campground and the showers. On the way we stopped at the creepiest place I've ever been to. A short dirt road off the main park road leads to Dugout Wells - a small oasis with a windmill in the middle of the desert.
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| from Google Maps |
We were the only people there and it was eerily quiet at first. Once we were in among the bushes and trees the place seemed bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. We came upon a large palm tree surrounded by shrubs that had an extraordinary amount of unseen bees or large flies buzzing around it. Minutes later, from a different direction, we heard a bird or animal making a repeated weird, loud cry. It didn't sound like a cry of pain - it sounded like "I shouldn't exist in this world and when you see what I am it will melt your brain and I'm coming to get you." That was too much for me so we went back to the car and left.
We continued on to the campground with the showers. It was almost 4pm and the laundry room area between the store and the showers was full of people doing laundry. I picked a shower stall, got undressed and put in my $2 in quarters for my quick 5-minute shower and...nothing happened. The shower was broken. Ugh, drama.
So I got dressed again to go to the attached store and complain but of course they were now closed. I went back into the laundry room where there was a change machine. Luckily I had some bills but none of them would take. Finally some teenage girls took pity and made change for me. I went back in and chose a different stall and took my shower.
When Todd and I had both cleaned up we drove back to camp. We went back to the lodge area for internet service and shade, then ate something (I don't remember what) back at camp before turning in for the night.
What an eventful day.
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| Scenes from back at camp |
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| Spider web at camp |
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| All of these plants had multiple insects vying for position at the top |
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