8 January ‘09
Thursday
We’ve been at the Falcon State Park for the last two spectacular days. As an example, we awoke to the sun coming through the front windows this morning and thoroughly enjoyed the day as the temperature rose to 82 degrees. We are sitting in an amazing area… the campground is on the banks of a HUGE reservoir and at the other side of the dam flows the continuing waters of the Rio Grande. With the weather, the water, and the natural fauna this area is a bird haven. This morning we drove up to Roma to visit the National Bird Society branch and viewing area. The viewing platform sits high above the Rio Grande and gives a great over-view of the birding grounds below. We were hoping to get some information from them as to the “perfect” location for us to view the birds and get a good paddle in. They did have a suggestion for us and we took it… Back up river we found the location they were talking about. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name, but it was such a small community that you wouldn’t find it on the map anyway. We were told to drive down this paved road for about a mile, watch out for 3 or 4 “topes” (huge bumps in the road…), and continue down a narrow dirt road that begins at “the Cumquat tree”. At the end of this roadway you will find a little park (boy they weren’t kidding about being little..). This is actually a state park but you wouldn’t know it by the advertizing… Anyway, way back in the heavy and dense foliage sits a 5th wheel trailer and the host to this park. They have semi cleared out an area, set up a dozen or so feeding areas, and give a large variety of birds a place to be viewed by people like us and fed at the same time. We saw so many birds of varying colors and sizes and it gave us the “need” to get out on the water to see more.
Well we inflated the kayak and set out up stream. The water looked absolutely flat, but once we got out there we quickly noticed that we had a heck of a current going against us. There is a 30 acre island about 200 yards upstream from where we put in, and our goal was to paddle around it and take in all the bird sightings and sounds. By the time we had reached half way around this island we had to turn around and let the current take us… It wasn’t dangerous, but it was surprising in its strength. After we returned to our starting place (the park), we pulled out our “lawn chairs” and sat on the bank for awhile to just enjoy the area and the warmth of the day.
About 20 minutes later an older Ford pickup came down the dirt road, parked back from us a little and just sat there. After about 5 minutes we heard a small boat coming up the river from behind some trees on our left. It just so happened that there were 5 young men in this boat and they immediately pulled up to “our” bank and unloaded 4 (we didn't take pictures of this...). These 4 men quickly made their way to the pickup and left the area “IMMEDIATELY”… what a surprise…. We decided we had better move on as well, so pulling up stakes (and kayak) we headed back to our campground and got ready to paddle the reservoir. We had a good 2 hours of daylight left and enjoyed every minute of it, including watching the sunset while paddling back to the car.
