Marfa, Tex., is about 1,400 miles from my home. So there and back is 2,800 miles, plus 500 or so miles for road-hunting side excusions. That adds up to around 3,400 miles total.

I had two questions before I left. One, would my little 4-cylinder 1996 Toyota RAV survive the trip, and two, would I survive the trip?

Guess what? The car and I both made it -- both a bit worse for the wear, but the entire trip was accomplished in three-and-a-half long days (and nights).

Why did I want to go to Marfa? Merely to see and photo desert box turtles, Terrapene ornata luteola. A decade earlier, Kenny Wray and I had traveled a roadway near Marfa during a rainstorm and had encountered numbers of desert box turtles. I had wondered over the subsequent years whether they were still present, and hoped to find out.



I crossed the Pecos River, the dividing line between the ornate box turtle (to the east) and the more westerly desert subspecies I sought. Only a couple of hundred miles were now between me and my destination. Three hours later I rolled in to Marfa, to be greeted at motel check-in by darkening and lowering clouds. Moments later, back on the road, I was enveloped in the first of several hellacious thunder storms containing road-obliterating rain.

The road I chose to drive was already awash, and the temperature was about 65 F. There were also acres of shallow standing water on the bordering prairie (now pastures) through which the roadway ran. A half mile up the road, there in the downpour, sat an adult female box turtle. Two miles further was another. Then on my return, I saw a beautiful male. Three more female box turtles followed, two on the second run and one on my final run of the day.

The next day, during more severe thunderstorms and temperatures in the low to mid-60s, 1.12 additional box turtles were found. Some were drinking from roadedge puddles, others were foraging for insects in the tall roadedge grasses. At about 5 PM, the sun broke through the heavy storm clouds. By dark the roads were again nearly dry and what water had been standing on the prairie had soaked completely in.

It was dark, I was cold, wet, hungry, and happy to have learned that this box turtle population still seemed secure. A night’s sleep, an attempt to see the eerie “Marfa Lights” (they were very active) and I’d be heading back to Florida before dawn.

More photos under the jump...