We are not sure how this happens – but it seems to happen all the time – here we are again- chasing the sunset- running down a forgotten state highway- heading to a state park that closes at 4:45 pm…and we are 90 miles away. Eventually we have to make the decision, do we call and make sure there isn’t a gate code that we need to know if we are late…or just ‘wing it’ and hope we make it in time or no gate code. “come on, get moving, there might be a great sunset snap to be had or an open ranger station!” 
The thing about forgotten state highways is the juxtaposition of state highways. The first one will tell you the road is in bad condition and the second will tell you to go 75 miles per hour. Over and over they battle each other for importance.
Today, we are chasing sunsets in West Texas near the old town of Comstock, on Hwy. 90. In the days before interstates – like I-10, this is the road that took you west from the east coast to California.
Why Comstock? Pictographs!
Some of the oldest pictographs in North America can be found at the Seminole Canyon State Park near Del Rio, Texas along the Mexican border.
There are two major locations for the pictographs: one being Fate Bell in a ranger guided tour & the other being Panther Cave. The later is visible across the Canyon or with a boat you can get up close ..,you will need to bring your private boat. While these are two major sites, there are about a dozen sites that run from the park to the Rio Grande. In a nutshell, any place along the canyon that had a large shelter / rock overhang made by by thousands of years of erosion was also a place where natives lived. Many of these sites have been raided over the years by ‘black market hobby archaeologists’ who rent deer leases in order to track and raid artifact sites. 
Our guides to Fate Bell were two volunteers named Greg and Bob. On weekends, they and over a dozen other folks give the rangers and break and go out into the canyon with Yahoos like us and spin the spell of the pictographs. According to them, its all about shamans, life, death and rebirth…and the ‘rabbit ear clan.’ 
We first got interested in pictographs when we traveled The Gibb River Road in the Outback in a 4-by. These ancient wall paintings are part worship & part textbook. And we’ve seen this pattern in Australia, France, and now west Texas. Check out an older post on cave paintings when we were in France last year:
…and our cell phone service warns us that we are now entering Mexico.
In other news, we redecorated Traveler Blues in a more relaxing bohemian style and we now have a 3 qt Insta-Pot that fits nicely in the sink. Party on… 
