From weathered canyons to 4,000 year old paintings

There's a lot of history that you can see here,
At Seminole Canyon State park.

It's in extreme south-central Texas,
just a few miles from where the Pecos river drains into the Rio Grande…...

You'll see things like these fossils,

…..back from the days when the mid US was covered by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.


That it was back in the Cretaceous and Paleozoic era...whenever that was.

(P.S.  Finally I looked it up… that was between 66 and 144 million years ago. Wow!)



They say that as far back as 12,000 years, there was human habitation along the mid Rio Grande in south-central Texas.
For the religious folks, that's like 6 times further back than  when Jesus Christ walked through Israel.

Buffalo, elephants, and even camels  (yes, camels) lived here.

Then about 7,000 years ago, the climate suddenly changed; 
the pine, the juniper and the grasslands that we now see in northern New Mexico, 
disappeared from here. And so did all those big animals.
There is evidence here that those people fed off rabbit, deer and cactus-like plants.

This is what the surface looks like now:

Pretty flat.

But, there are deep gouges into the soft limestone, caused by the little rain that falls in the desert.
These drain into these canyons and erode them deep (with the additional help of the wind).

Right now, it's pretty green, from the recent rains that have fallen in the Spring.
In fact, our guide said that recently the rains filled this canyon to a depth of 10 feet!
Pretty amazing what a little rain can do here.

A few water puddles remain in the floor of those canyons form the recent rains. You've read of see "tinejas" saving many a cowboy in those Louis Lamour western novels

You can see that things can get hectic here, 
like these giant rocks that have fallen form the canyon walls.

There are paintings on the walls of the canyons that have been dated to 4,000 years old!
They say they are the "best" pictographs in North America.

And you can go see them, with a guide, to prevent damage to them,
twice a day in the late Fall/Winter/and early-mid Spring, but only once a day in the Summer because  of the heat.

Here is a "tourist", at the floor of the canyon, on the way to the pictographs.

On the left of the picture, do you see the overhang where water and wind has created "shelter" form the rain. That's where the pictographs are located. 
They are not in caves, just in "shelters", under the overhang, open to the regular air and wind.

In the pic below, you can appreciate how the rain and weather-effects darken the canyon walls, but not the area under the overhang. 

Here are some of those pics.

Can you see the "priest" or Shaman with his fancy robes?

Here is another guy, with 2 spear-like things.

It's the model that inspired the metal statue that looks over plains at the Visitor's Center.

The dots on the right are thought to represent peyote, on which they must have been under during their painting.
(P.S. I looked up what a peyote plant looks like on the Internet, and can say that I didn't see any during any of our hikes here.)

They say these paintings are 4,000 years old. OK, that's pretty old.
There are no pics of buffaloes here 'cause there haven't' been any here for 7,000 years.

(If you want to see ancient buffalo pictographs, just take a plane and see the caves in norther Spain. 
But if you are cheap like us, these pics will do just fine.)

Anyway….Are these bear paws?

Or, are they just hands?

And what the heck are these?

The original Texas deer blind? Maybe not.
They say there is an even more impressive shelter, where this canyon joins the Rio Grand.
There is a wall of 40 feet of pictographs, with a panther that is 9 feet long.

After a 3.5 mile hike, we are here looking across the water at that shelter. 

But, you have to get there in a Ranger's boat, and 
those tours were not running during our stay.

Good thing it was only 95 degrees!

Yes, this is a good park to see.
Come in the Fall. Winter, or Spring.

But, don't leave this trip till 20 years from now, 'cause things are deteriorating fast.

You might say, "That's a bunch of bull. 
How can something deteriorate in 40 years or so, when they've been already here for 4,000?"

Don't blame it on acid rain: there isn't any in this part of the country.
And, don't blame it on Mexican pollution; there's no population close by to generate any pollution.

Consider blaming it all on this:

the damming up of the Rio Grande to create Lake Amistad.

Who would have thought that the increased humidity from the lake
would cause the surface of the limestone to break away…. 
taking the paint of the pictographs with it?

See how the surfaces are flaking off, leaving the deeper, white, bare limestone?

Yes, get yourself here soon.
Meanwhile, there are lots of retirees and other clowns taking advantage of these sights,
while you stay home and work your fingers to the bone.

Don't miss out on seeing them.