Rock Canyon @ MindSay

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you --- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.
                                                                                          E. Abbey

I left fairly early in the morning to drive down near Del Rio to go camping at Seminole Canyon.  It is a secluded little spot on the Texas-Mexico border near the Amistad National Evaporation Pond.  I arrived and checked into the camp grounds around noon and proceded to the area where I had decided to camp.  It has an impersive view of the surrounding country-side and was well away from where anyone else would be staying.  Of course when I arrived there was an elderly gentleman at my camping spot.  He was just there to have a quick lunch and enjoy the view and was going to be leaving shortly, so it was no big deal.  He offered to share his vienna sausages, fritos and cheese dip with me.  I declined and proceded  to break out my lunch of deer summer sausage, assorted cheeses, apples, grapes and home made bread.  I offerd the guy some of my eats, whch seemed to me alot better than his convienence store fare.  But he was happy with his junk food.  He apparently had recently retired and was running away from his kids.  We talked about his job and life in general over lunch and when he left he gave me some tangerines from an organic farmer near San Antonio that he had visited with a couple days earlier.  After lunch I set up camp and relaxed for a bit.

One of the main attractions of the park I was staying at is the Indian Pictographs in the rock shelters along the canyon walls.  They were painted by the Lower Pecos People who settled into the area about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.  The Lower Pecos people are belived to have began the rock art about 3,000 to 4,000 BP. 

In Seminole Canyon is one of the largest of theLower Pecos People's rock shelters, know as the Fate Bell Shelter.  It is covered with thousands of paintings, some of which are still buried under the 10 to 12 feet of ashes that covers the floor of the shelter.

Many of the rock shelters in the canyons were used only for ceremonial purposes and don't have the same arrangements as the Fate Bell Shelter.  One of the interesting things in the shelter is the large stone that was used as a butcher block for over ten thousand years by the inhabitant of the shelter.  It is a large block of limestone that has turned shiny and waxy from the fats of countless animals soaking into the stone.

There are also holes in other rocks that were used for grinding sotol roots and nuts.

Of  the countless paintings a couple that I found really interesting are, one of a what is supposed to be a screaming panther or mountain lion.  The lines coming out of the mouth are to represent the sound.  To me it looks kinda like a barfing monkey.

Another painting that I liked was the of a bear headed winged shaman and his attendents.

All of the paintings are thought to have been done by the local shamans during ceremonies that involved eating of Datura, Mescal Bean and Peyote.  This combination of alkaloides, allowed the shamans to enter the spirit world and allowed then to fly arround as well.  Many of the paintings have symbolism of door ways to the spiritworld, shamans, monsters and represetations of the sotol plant, which was an important food source to the local people.

On the way out of the canyon stands a cool sculpture by Bill Worrell called "The Maker of Peace", it was inspired by the ock painting that are found throughout the canyons.

After my hike a treked back to my campsite and watched the sun set before cooking supper and heading to bed, so that I would be ready to get up early the following morning for a day of adventure.

Advisement: Fordham

I: Spanish III Meade

II: Honors Trig/Pre-Calc Gregory

III: Honors English II Lustie

IV: AP Euro Doan

V: Chemistry Carlson

VI: Photography Graham

VII: Newspaper