Day Seven

Sunday, 09-05-04

Once again we rose in the dark. I remember some distinct confusion trying to read the GPS but after turning around in the middle of the highway we found the road out of town.

This road and the length of the day was uninterrupted by the necessity to think about what was to come or even where we were. We both remember the morning for a remarkable feeling of isolation and at the same time a complete connectedness with the old trail. For thirty miles we followed the Middle Fork of the Concho River and hugged the old Butterfield road through uneven prairie and early morning light. Our shadows reached out ahead of us pulling us along history’s road amid an amazing display of wildlife and natural beauty.

The road was blacktop at first and the greatest hazard was the occasional herd of deer that seem to bolt up from the side of the road and race along to a heart-thumping sprint and then cross the road right in front of us.

Then we had to chase a flock of small dark turkeys from the road, maybe 30 in all. Continually we saw hawks and vultures resting in the morning light and even when the road turned to gravel our passage was eased by the light rain that fell the night before.

The riding was easy and it felt good to be retracing a portion of the original route. When we hit 163 we headed south.

Just out of San Angelo we passed Concho Station, N31° 25.612'W100° 42.321' but in the early light surrounded as we were by the high brush along the roadside there wasn’t much chance to note it from the road. I did note as we weaved among the mud puddles that my front fork was starting to squeak. A closer inspection revealed that the seal was leaking. We discussed it but decided there was nothing to do about it on a Sunday anyway. The Mail Road stayed on the north side of the Pecos for a hundred plus miles it seems until reaching Popes Crossing.

163 took us to Barnhart and then over to Big Lake. The next Station was Llano Estacado Station but even Greene did not encourage us to look for that one. It is located about 12 miles west of Styles approximately N31° 20.331' W101° 47.618' but no direct route and the location is two miles off the nearest gravel road. West of Styles the Butterfield crossed some of the most famous Oil fields in Texas but the east west way is not well defined and there are lots of confusing roads up there that lead nowhere.

We headed up 385 to Crane hoping to connect with some adobe ruins at Castle Gap. We made it back to the park but there was a gate. The road through Castle Gap is on private land now and is eroded into a wide wash because Billy Pool dug the whole thing up looking for Spanish Gold.

Greene says there was no station there but still it was clear the road had passed through Castle Gap.

Horsehead Crossing Station , N31° 14.130' W102° 29.018' was southwest from here on the Pecos river but through roads were nonexistent so we headed west to Grandfalls and then south to touch back up with the trail but Emigrant’s Crossing, N31° 23.215' W103° 1.584' was still 10 miles away down on the Pecos. Horsehead to Emigrant’s was nearly 60 miles. One of the longest runs on the Butterfield.

We elected to go on to Monahans and then to Pecos. Here we got gas but there were no stops north to Arno. Still paralleling the trail we met with another interesting parallel. At Arno there was no gas. At Orla, still no gas and the next stop was 60 miles away. Sixty miles across desert. We had some discussion. There was nothing out there and on a previous trip we had seen what it looked like from the other side and commented on just how desolate it must have been to cross the white level plain.

Heading further north to look for Pope’s Crossing N31° 54.196' W103° 55.095' seemed pointless since it was inundated by Red Bluff Lake. Forward was our only choice. We calculated our remaining gas and road off into the shimmering heat 20 miles to the Delaware Spring Station on 652. Of course, there would be nothing there but in another 20 miles we would hit 180 to Whites City.

It was a great ride. There was an absence of traffic. The heat was only in the tolerable high 90’s and we had the exquisite air conditioning of the open road. As long as we didn’t run out of gas we would be fine. We achieved the Delaware Spring Station location N31° 53.115' W104° 19.293' and it seemed quite reasonable to simply wave as we crossed the Delaware River. Stopping for a photo session seemed a little imprudent. Especially considering my fuel light had already begun to blink. I wondered just how far I could go after that but it seemed like it should be at least 40 miles. Shouldn’t it? That ought to get me to White City.

White City was not a scheduled stop on the Butterfield but this seemed less important as the sun beat us about the head andshoulders like a brazed flat iron. All I could think was that even getting to Highway 180 would seem like some kind of victory and offered an assurance of civilization. Not real civilization but I knew there would be tourists headed north to White City.

White City was famous for one thing. It was the closest town to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It had little to offer other than an overpriced motel and the only thing that seemed to matter to me at the moment, gasoline.

Then off in the distance I could see the glimmer of distant traffic snaking along the highway and my attention was drawn south to this magnificent view of El Capitan. This seemed to matter even more than gasoline. I imagined the early traveler seeing it off in the distance and thinking how impossible it would be to surmount its ragged peak.

The Butterfield went left here but there was only one way for us to go and that was right...towards the gasoline. White City seemed challenge enough for me at the moment.

Sixteen miles later we were in Whites City. There was a single gas station that only took credit cards. It was all we needed to feel like we had won the lottery.

It was only 3:30 but we were more than ready for a cold beer and some accommodations. Luckily for us there was also a room. We spent some time doing laundry and decided to go to Carlsbad and view the acclaimed bat emergence. Our timing couldn’t have been better. We had just enough time to get clean and head up the hill in the fading light of a well traveled day.

Ah, the bats. Actually, Paul and I will both admit that sitting with 300 humans exuding 300 different kinds deodorants in the twilight was less than spectacular. There is a kind of old testament babble that arises among the pilgrims at times like this. A din of incomprehensible nattering that is made more depressing by the few words one might actually understand. Whether it is a casual conversation on someone’s cell phone behind you or the mind numbing inanity of complaints fueled by boredom and impatience it all points like a shining spotlight at the regrettable nature of our fellow species.

Yet here we were in the magic of a fading evening waiting for the bats to emerge. The bats are Mexican Free-tailed and spend there summers here sleeping in the cavern’s during the day and feasting on the incredible abundance of the desert night. Last time I was here it was the wrong time and the bats had already departed for their winter home. I really felt so lucky to be here again and at a time when I could witness this singular event.

We waited. Of course, there is no telling how the bats might choose to exit on any given night. We were prepped by the Park Ranger to expect hundreds of thousands of bats. However, the intensity of their egress was subject to whim. Sometime they rushed out in an audible whoosh of bat wings as the creatures of the night blackened the sky in their haste to feed. Other nights though they merely trickle out. Perhaps a hundred at a time filling the sky not like a cloud of premature darkness but more like a rivulette of buzzy activity flowing off over the horizon. We got the rivulette. We enjoyed it and then joined our own little river of people heading back down the mountain headlight to headlight until we were back at our motel room.

We’d made over 300 miles again this day and it felt well made and well earned.

Continue to Day Eight