Day 13 - The River Road Trip, Take 1

This day began with me getting up in the morning 5:30am for sunrise pictures in Big Bend. I went to Sotol Vista. It looked like an interesting sunrise position, but the sun did not do much. Below are a few pictures from there:

Next on our agenda was to drive the river road in Big Bend Ranch State Park. This is a drive on TX 170 from Lajitas to Presidio. A couple of people, we have met on the way, highly recommended it. It runs along the Rio Grande through the mountains.

You may or may not know, Max is a bit spoiled. When he goes for a car ride, he has to have the window open so he can stick his head out the window. He does this even at 60 mph.

When I get back from sunrise pictures, Vicki and I eat breakfast and prepare for the drive. The plan was to go to Presidio, eat, grocery shop and return. Of course we would stop on the way and I would take some pictures. We take off around 11:30pm and get to the outskirts of Lajitas when Vicki gets a phone call which comes through the car. As Vicki begins to answer the phone, I immediately start to row the window up. Vicki begins to yell for me to roll the window down, Max's collar is stuck. I begin the roll the window down and attempt to hangup on whoever is calling. I think Vicki did this. Well the person calls back who I hang up on. For all you pet lovers out there, you can imagine how traumatic this was.

Vicki is trying to get Max unstuck and he bites her. Vicki begins to bleed, getting blood all over the place. Max cries in pain, Vicki is yelling to pull over. I get the car pulled over and Vicki gets to Max, who cries every time he is touched. Things calm down and bit and we start to look for a Vet. Vicki is looking on her phone but the cell phone service is horrible. We are stopped at the Lajitas Town Hall, and I go in to see if there is someone who can help me. When I say we need to find a Vet quickly she opens the phonebook up to find the name of the local vet. I make a snide comment about the phonebook being old fashion. She does not laugh. She finds the number and writes it down, saying that this is not an emergency care facility. When I get to the car, Vicki has talked to the vet, who the same person whose number I had.

The vet said he was at lunch and would be back in about an hour. He said his office was the first building on the left, when you enter the Ghost Town in Terlingua. We are about 10 minutes away and drove directly there. When we get to the first building on the left, it has some sign on it about hotel rooms and a small travel trailer with Josephine on it in big letters. We take a closer look at the building and it has Rio Vet Services on it. It must be the place. We get there about 20 after 12 and have to wait 40 grueling minutes, not knowing whether Max has been maimed for life or if he would have to be put to death and I caused it. Boy was I feeling guilty.

Vicki was able to get Max out of the car on a leash. He was limping quite a bit but he would try to use his front leg. He would whine if you touched him between his front legs. He could not lay down with his head between his paws. He was able to figure out he could go through the planter to get down the steps in less pain.

The doctor finally arrives on time at 1pm, thank heavens!!! We are not sure if he went to a vet school but Vicki saw the diploma from Texas A&M Vet School on the wall. He was your stereo-typical country vet. His office was full of old trinkets. Pretty sure there was no x-ray machine. He had a beautiful painting of an owl that his wife did. <more>

He spent about 5 minutes checking out Max, said nothing was broken, but Max would be sore for awhile. He put together some concoction to help with sore muscles. I asked how much we owed him and he thought about it for a while and said $20. I asked if he took credit cards (how stupid to even think that). I had exactly $20 in my wallet. He was very nice and we talked to him for a few minutes and then he was off to do taxes. He had multiple jobs that kept him busy.

We went back to the travel trailer and took a nap. I, of course, could not sit in the travel trailer for very long and went back to BBNP for more picture taking.

These are of the Santa Elena Canyon area. I did not leave myself enough time to everything I wanted to do that evening.