How Green is My Valley

I live in "The Valley" as this part of the Rio Grande River area is called. No, I'm not one of those "valley girls" from California, even though I lived in California for three years. I live in the "Tip of Texas," about as far south as you can go in Texas. I have been to the mouth of the Rio Grande River where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Last week I was almost to the head waters of the Rio Grande. The river starts in the Colorado mountains and we saw the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico, near Taos. It's a raging river at that point, full of rapids.

It's interesting to see the changes the river makes in it's make-up as well as what it has done to the land around it. There is a deep gorge that the river runs through at the beginning of it's way down through the state of New Mexico. Just like we humans, that change our nature as we progress through our lives.

I enjoyed driving along a good portion of this river and I could often spot its placement in the desert wilderness by the green trees surrounding the river. Many times, I could not see the river but I knew it was there by the evidence... the trees. Just like we humans, when we display the evidence of our actions even though others may not see our actions.

We also saw the Rio Grande as it surrounded a national park in Texas, Big Bend. Then we drove along a large portion of the river as we made our way back home. Back home to the Rio Grande River Valley. The road trip to New Mexico and western Texas was quite an experience. Yes, I found out that you can truthfully, legally, go 80 miles an hour in western Texas. It was not a myth as I thought. I found out that there are places in Texas that you can travel 55 miles and meet only seven vehicles during that drive (in the middle of the day). And two of those vehicles were the UPS and Fed-Ex trucks... hubby said they should combine their services out there!

I found out there is a LOT of open land with out any houses or people for miles in this country. I found out that there are a LOT of different kinds of cactus in the desert. I found out there are a LOT of miles of country with the roadside fence posts being the taller than most of the living vegetation. And the fence posts look even taller due to turkey vultures setting on them waiting for road kill. After about a week in what I would call brown terrain.... desert, mountains, grasses & roads... it was awesome to me to see trees and greenery again!

I was born and raised in Wisconsin where you can rarely go a mile without seeing a lake, pond or creek, and of course all kinds of trees and evergreens. So, it's quite different for me to experience the opposite. As much as I enjoyed seeing and experiencing new things.... a scorpion in the bathtub that I didn't want to touch, stars in the night sky so bright you felt like you could touch them, seeing so many different kinds of cactus which you should not touch, tall mountains I wish I could touch the tops.... it was wonderful to come back to the green valley where I live.

The different shades of green in the valley's fields of crops, grasses in the yards, palm tree fronds, and flowering bushes are a treat for sore eyes. It's good to be home!