Sunday, February 4 – We got an early start this morning by heading up to the Visitor Center to get a picture of the sunrise at the Maker of Peace, a sculpture as a monumental tribute to the Desert Archaic people, whose pictographs adorn the canyon walls. It was a little chilly at 42 degrees, and we weren't dressed warm enough to stand out too long waiting for the perfect shot. We got our photo and returned quickly to the RV to warm up.
After letting things warm up a bit, we headed out to ride our bikes on the Rio Grande trail. Our goal was the Panther Cave Pictograph site. The trail is about four miles out to an area near where the Seminole Canyon meets the Rio Grande River.
Parts of the trail is very easy for biking.
Some a bit more challenging.
An immense pictograph panel spans the back wall of the rock shelter that's visible across the canyon and includes a panther image nine feet long. The pictographs are on the other side of the canyon and binoculars are nice to have in order to see them up close. For a fee, we could have taken a boat ride for an up-close-and-personal look at the pictographs.
We were lucky enough to see the boat just leaving the Panther Cave dock.
Panther Cave.
We spent 1½ hours at Panther Cave Site climbing among the rocks and along the canyon edge taking pictures and viewing the pictographs. It was a very enjoyable time! Riding the bike to this location was a plus, especially because it was getting warm. The temperature reached 85 degrees this afternoon! We never expected “beach” weather when we planned this Southwest Texas trip for early February.
With the zoom lens on our simple Sony camera, we were able to see pretty clearly the pictographs about 1,000 feet across the water. Amazing!
The panther is about 9 feet long.
Other pictographs.
Paul walking along the ledge. In the background is the canyon water merging into the Rio Grande River.
We then locked are bikes together and hiked out to the point where the canyon meets the Rio Grande River. This is the US/Mexico international border. The area is now the Amistad International Reservoir, a joint venture between Mexico and the United States to control flooding on the Rio Grande. We sat on a couple nice size rocks to enjoy the beautiful scenery and had a snack and a little water before heading back.
The trip back was a breeze on our bikes. We did notice that we had a gradual uphill route, but we made it without a problem. Sure glad we chose the bike option today! The view of the surrounding grasslands and distance mountains was spectacular! It was also nice that we had only seen one other person for about one minute on the entire adventure. What a great day!
We then returned to the RV and enjoyed the awesome weather for the remainder of the day. Paul did pack away a few things. Tomorrow we head further Southwest to Big Bend National Park. Again, we will be way out in the wilds West of the Pecos River. We are told that we will have no cell phone service, and WIFI is sketchy.
Bella enjoyed Seminole as much as we did.
What a hunter…lol
A little reminder to those thinking about spending time in this area. There is absolutely NO CELL PHONE SERVICE. If you need to make a phone call, you must drive about 40 miles to Del Rio, Texas. There is very limited WiFi service near the bathrooms, but if several people are trying to use it you may have problems. The WIFI is only for phone data, you won’t be surfing the Internet on your computer. We hope to stop in Marathon, Texas , to try our Verizon service to make a couple phone calls and upload a post, if possible. We'll need to fill up the truck too, because gas stations are few and far between.
This area is a spectacular area to visit so stop back and enjoy our adventures! A special thanks to Erin and Mui of Two To Travel’s Phaeton Journeys. They did a great job on their blog of featuring the highlights of the park. We used their recommendations and had a blast.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!
