Additional Big Bend Pictures

All pictures below are made by Janko or Rebecca.

 Feeding Rick at the famous Buc-ees some 120 Mi from Houston - Good food but no place to sit and it was raining!

 Boquittos Canyon in the evening sun. The wall on the right is Mexico.

 Gossip on a road stop

 The camp site in Chicos Basin with 'the Window' on the left and our tents in the right bottom corner. It was pretty quite as the picture was taken mid day and many RV's had left to tour for the day and campers moved to other camp sites as rain was expected that day.

 Just Cute.

 The Kids after the walk up St Elena's canyon (Rick - Jannes - Ana)

 The 'Donkey's ears'

The Rio Grande was not so Grande but does have a huge riverbed. The wall on the left  (as well as anything on the left bank of teh river) again is Mexico.

Big Bend National Park

Last week we went to Big Bend with Friends. Big Bend is a national park in South Texas, on the Rio Grande which is the border with Mexico. The Park is over 600 miles from Houston. It is actually worth to look this one p on a Map to get some idea!

Big Bend National Park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, which includes more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals. The park covers 801,163 acres (3,242 km²). 

For us the trip to the park was just as much part of the journey as it would provide opportunity to see some more of the very empty lone star state (Texas). On the way out we went via the I-10 (see also older post on Sonora Caverns), driving a whole lot of Miles through emptiness and through not very worldly towns like Sonora, Fort Stockton and Marathon (Pop 800!)

We did see an occasional Ranch with this being one of the much nicer ones!

Rick clearly was saving most of his energy for things to come. As you can also see the car was packed so full that Rick had to sit right next to his diaper supply for the week!

The first few nights we spend at altitude in the Chisos Basin. Due to the altitude daytime temperatures of 35 C went down to 6 - 8 C at night. Despite the cold at night, one very wet second night and the visit of a skunk to our tent on several occasions (which kept Eelco awake) we clearly had a blast.

We managed to unpack almost everything we brought on the first day. We brought all the right things and felt spoiled camping for a change with such huge tents (standing height) and all the furniture & tools. The kids loved it all and felt right at home. Halfway through the week we moved it all to the Rio Grande Village site which is more in the dessert and much warmer. There we also used the little baby pool. 

One of our first walks with the whole gang on the window view trail in Chicos Basin.

Rick tried to keep his eyes open for everything but had to give in occasionally...

Janko and I doing a Rain dance (to avert the rain) with the boys and without success. Any tips for next time?

This windmill still drives the pump of an old abandoned ranch in the park.

Our Caravan on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive with Eelco's new car and the Blue Van as Jannes calls it, which despite being called de Blue Van is actually green apparently. (also according to Jannes)

Santa Elena Canyon with the cliff on the Right being in the USA and the on the Left in Mexico.

Pirate Rick and his happy mom. Rick refused to wear most of his own sun hats but did not mind wearing my bandana. It kept on dropping over his eyes and then as soon as you would move it up and he could see with 2 eyes again he would be smiling big time - guess he thought it was a good game of peek-a-boo.

On one of the colder nights Rick asleep in his own sleeping bag (one night he even wore a hat). Once we had moved to the desert camp site Rick spend the night in onesies on top of his sleeping bag - sleepcrawling through the entire tent. Hilarious!

Rick saw that Ana (at 13 months) and Jannes (2.5) could feed themselves to a large extend and tried some self service (with just a spoon and no food around though!)

2 lone, lonesome cowboys, on a long long way from home (free after Lucky Luke) overlooking the Rio Grande with Mexico in the background

So maybe not so lonely and very happy in Boquitos Canyon on the last evening in the park.

On the way back we took the US HW 90 which was if possible even more deserted then the I-10. After some 400 Miles we ended up in San Antonio that evening where the annual Fiesta as taking place. Rick and Ana where clearly looking back at an amazing holiday!

Big Bend Flora & Fauna

PS This is a quiz - if you get all names of the species correct with the pictures you win a prize -;)

Caverns of Sonora

On our way to Big Bend National Park (see next post) we made an overnight stop in a motel in Sonora (mid Texas, along the I-10 which is the Highway from Florida to California along which we also live).

The brochure we found in the motel promised us the following: "The Caverns of Sonora is recognized as the most beautiful cave in Texas and one of the most beautiful show caves in the world. National Speleological Society co-founder, Bill Stephenson said, after seeing Caverns of Sonora for the first time, “Its beauty cannot be exaggerated, even by Texans.” As we could use a break from the driving we undertook a detour to the Caverns. Of course everything is bigger and better in Texas,.....well in this case it was (is)!

The caves are covered every mm with formations and we walked for 2 Miles through the caves and saw endless formations.

As the caves are very narrow Rick needed to be in a front carrier provided with the tour, it clearly gave him prime seating and he appeared mighty interested.

There where sudden big color differences everywhere as well as many very long straw type formations - these ones where about  1- 1.5m long.

Jannes (2.5) also loved it, despite being a little scared. He kept on talking about the house for the dinosaurs most of the week!

Some of the formations had your imagination spinning into overdrive. What the caves are best known for are these fish tale or butterfly type formations as below.

Rig Explosion

Most of you will likely have read or seen something about the exploded and sunk drilling rig here in the Gulf of Mexico.

For us the news came as quite a shock as we are fully aware we work in a dangerous industry but events like this one is not something we would expect to happen considering the safety measures in place and the reputable and experienced companies working this business in this location. The incident should not have happened at all and the only ‘positive’ take away from this is to see that in an incident like this which would have happened in a matter of seconds still > 90% of the people could be evacuated. The 11 lives likely lost are however still 11 too many!

The incident was caused by a blow out, what caused the blow out however and what caused all the associated safety mechanism to fail is not clear yet.

For those of you interested in the workings of it all I will try to explain….

A blow out is a situation in which control of the well is lost and fluids (oil and/or gas) are coming up the well and actually reach the surface commonly igniting creating explosions & fires. This used to be common in the early days of the oil industry when these where called gushers (think of the cartoons with Oil spilling out of a well fountain style). With the much higher pressures involved in modern day wells the consequences of blow outs these days are much much more severe.

The Rig was drilling in wat is considered deepwater in the offshore industry. Pretty new and advanced stuff, but by now however that is no longer as ‘frontier’ for the Gulf of Mexico especially considering the water & well depth in this location.

The well being drilled was not a production well meaning that it was being drilled now but would be completed such that it could be abandoned temporarily (up to a couple of years) untill it would be accessed again and hooked up to some infrastructure to produce from it. This means it is likely that there where not a whole lot of other wells already drilled in the same formation & reservoir and so there would have been quite some uncertainty about what could be encountered during drilling. This is a ‘normal’ drilling risk and one for which the appropriate measures, systems and specialists are in place to manage that risk.

All wells these days have what is called a BOP (blow out preventor) which is a major valve sitting at the surface on top of the well (in this case on the seabed in 1700m water depth). The well is being drilled through this valve (so it sits around the well hole as some kind of collar) and can be closed in case of loss of control of the well to prevent a blow out. This then creates the opportunity to regain control of the well – open the BOP and continue (with some rework likely).

A blow out is caused if the pressure downhole (at the botom of the well) is larger then expected and hence the pressure control from the top is inadequate. This pressure control is exercised by means of the drilling fluid (Mud) and hence loss of well (pressure) control can be caused by not managing this process correctly or because there is an unexpected gas pocket somewhere or a hole in the formation through which the fluid (mud) leaks away. This happens all the time during drilling operations resulting in what is called ‘kicks’. Drilling personnel use these ‘kicks’ to steer the drilling process and actually sometimes use them to their advantage to expedite the drilling process. Being able to evaluate the size of the kick is of course very important and special well control personnel is on board to guide the process and remain on the safe side.

In this case the well was nearly complete and the reservoir with the hydrocarbons had been reached. The BOP was not closed when the blow out occurred so somehow the major safety mechanism failed . There is a lot of speculation already going around here as to why in which I do not want to take part. Statistically it was unlikely an equipment failure but who knows….There is no readily available sensible explanation

Initially it was thought that the drilling riser (the part of the drillstring from the rig to the seabed – a huge steel tube)which was still connected to the well at the seabed and had buckled such that it was stopping the well from flowing (just like your garden hose can sometimes do) and hence limiting the spill. However since it has become apparent that Oil is still flowing from the well. All available vessels and equipment and specialists have now been activated to try and close that BOP after all. For that some equipment to work the BOP which would have sat at the Rig now needs to be provided and re-connected to that BOP (either on the seabed or remote) such that it can actually be operated.

So all of us are now keeping our fingers crossed that this will work and that the spill can be contained. We are also all of course also thinking of the lives lost and the curious as to the outcomes of the investigations.

Trial walk

We are soon going to Big Bent State park in South Texas so we bought a backpack for Rick to sit in,.....today it was time for a trial walk. As you can see off to a good start!

Rick's weekend Routine

Gooooooood Morning, this is Rick at 7.30am. Happy with sleep wrinkles

Doing a mid morning beauty sleep in between all skype shows with the grand parents

Finally by the end of the morning it is time for a shower

Play time!

Moving play time to the bathroom when dad comes home from touch rugby or because mom needs to tidy her walk in closet -;)

Sunday Brunch with the Girlfriend and the In-laws

At his Sunday best, charming away....

Sleepover Pics

These are some pictures from Rick's sleepover 10 days ago at Karen & Michiel's

Rick being duly entertained by Tomas (and Ruari)

PJ Party! Clearly no lack of attention.

Stemmen vanuit het Buitenland

This is just for the Dutchies amongst you so I will proceed in Dutch.

Normaal gesproken probeer ik politieke statements hier te vermijden, maar aangezien er een aantal erg domme mensen in Nederland wel erg aan popularitiet winnen en me dat het schaamrood op de kaken bezorgt over het Nederlander zijn bij deze een oproep aan alle Nederlanders in het buitenland om toch echt je kiesrecht te gebruiken. Deadline voor inschrijving om te mogen stemmen is 27 April.

Je kunt het registratie formulier hier vinden:

http://www.denhaag.nl/home/bewoners/loket/to/Kiesrecht-voor-Nederlanders-in-het-buitenland.htm

Heli Skiing - never again!

Eelco will never in this lifetime be allowed to go helicopter skiing again. Last Saturday local time there was an accident with a heli-skiing group in Kamchatka and 10 out of the 18 people in the group died when the helicopter and skiers / boarders waiting besides it were buried under an avalanche.

The group was traveling with the same organization Eelco went with in 2008 (a German travel organization). Details are limited but it appears the guides Eelco had on his trip where involved and the pictures show a similar helicopter as on Eelco's trip (it may even be the same).

Based on Eelco's verdict it could not be for lack of experience or care that this has happened and so he expects this to be a 'freak' accident. Nevertheless - He is not ever again going heli skiing! We feel so blessed, over and over again, to be together, happy & healthy, and have Rick. We would not want to jeopardize that. Our thoughts are with the families of the people involved in the accident.

Easter Dresses

Here in the US fancy dresses for Easter are clearly a big 'Must'. Rick got his share not by wearing one but by having 3 girls over all in the most pretty dresses....At first he was a little overwhelmed. Even his mom had brushed up for the occasion.

But soon enough Rick could appreciate the pretty ladies.

Rick, Sophia, Mees & Brianna