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It's Man Versus Buzzard!
The campsite.
A room with one helluva view!
After a half hour of backtracking out of the Devil's River Natural Area, we hit the blacktop and continued our journey south on highway 277. We were nearing the junction with I-90, with the city of Del Rio visible in the distance, when I saw a large Black Vulture on the roadside. Now in Texas this is a common scene, but this particular vulture was hopping towards a rattlesnake carcass. Wanting a look at the rattler before the black bird got to it, I braked hard, hung a U-turn, and headed the Blazer directly at the vulture, honking the horn. It was Blazer against Buzzard, and the latter gave way and slowly flapped away. My companions, napping at the time of my discovery, were now wide awake and wondering if I had taken leave of my senses.
Hopping out of the Blazer, we examined the three foot Western Diamondback (Crotalus atrox), killed on the road and apparently thrown well onto the road shoulder by the impact. Unblemished in spite of its manner of demise, Ken wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the cooler to be skinned later, and we left the circling vulture to look for another meal as we moved on.
Late afternoon found us pulling into Seminole Canyon State Park, our base of operations for the coming week. Our campsite was situated on top of a small rise, with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. There was a concrete pad with picnic table, a water spigot, and best of all, a bathroom complete with showers a few hundred feet away. The wind atop the rise was quite fierce, and as it turns out, Ken and I both neglected to bring tent stakes, which made it difficult to keep the tents in one place, a problem that would plague us for most of the trip.
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