One afternoon we drove towards Brownsville, TX and visited Resaca De La Palma State Park. The temperature was in the eighties, and most of the hiking was in full sun. This made the narrated tram ride even more welcoming. Kelly, the park ranger was fantastic. It’s always a blessing when you meet someone who is really into their carrier. It could be a short order cook, bank teller, border patrol agent, it could be anyone. The excitement for life and doing the next right thing is all around us, and should be acknowledged.
Kelly began talking about the park in generalities, the bird habitat and such, but she really came alive when asked questions. We asked about the piles of animal pooh on the trails. “That’s Nilgai droppings. They always go in the same spot; it’s sort of a texting center were the animals will communicate with each other.” Right away I liked how Kelly shared information.
There is a lot of vultures in Texas, and they do a wonderful duty cleaning up animal carcass. Kelly had done a deep dive on vultures and relayed a story of a practice in India that was good for the cows, but was detrimental to the vultures. The end result was vultures dying, cow carcass’ rotting and becoming diseased, and causing human death. It goes to show you should not mess with God’s design to terribly much.
The tram drove forward as Kelly shared her love with nature. The tram was electric and very quiet. It was a very peaceful ride, only the gravel crunching under the tires was heard. We stopped alongside a golden grass field, Kelly asked, “What do you hear?” The answer was, “Nothing.” I liked the quiet, but Kelly did not. The state had planted a grass that grew so thick it choked out everything else, and no animals or birds fed off this particular kind of grass. It was pretty, but worked against supporting animals.
BTW – A Resaca is a type of oxbow lake that can be found in the southern half of Cameron County, Texas. The Resaca’s constitute former channels of the Rio Grande and are naturally cut off from the river, having no inlet or outlet. The Resaca’s in this state park would fill naturally by flooding or rain water. The Resaca’s in Estero Grande State Park next to where we wintered were filled by pumping water from the Rio Grande.
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Living In Eternity 