Driving the RV myself from Las Cruces, New Mexico to the beautiful Davis Mountain State Park in the Texas mountains was exciting, scary, educational with a feeling of accomplishment!
As it was my very first day of driving for an extended time I experienced a real variety of driving challenges, especially once we reached El Paso! Most of the landscape looked like this photo but as we got closer to the city of 700,000 people the 2 lane highway turned into four lanes each way and suddenly there was traffic and buildings everywhere! I was doing well with it all til we came upon the 4 year I-10 reconstruction project, not so good for a novice RV driver. Slowly lanes were being merged into a narrow, no-shoulder-only-concrete-barrier overpass to get through the construction and it went on for miles!! With no other option than to hold tight and "keep on truckin'" we did make it with my hands gripping the wheel. But then there came the feeling of....I DID IT! and I now knew I could probably tackle other interesting moments that were to come.
Eventually we turned south off I-10 onto TX 118, a typical 2 lane road up through the foothills and on to the park. It was my second big challenge of the day...navigating our 52' length on narrow roads up a windy mountain pass, beautiful and very little traffic. Altogether I had driven a total of 253 miles.
We had two nights at the park with time to visit the nearby Fort Davis, an Indian Wars' frontier military post from 1854 to 1891. It was located here to protect immigrants, mail coaches, and freight wagons on the Trans-Pecos portion of the Chihuahua Trail. Besides the remains of former buildings at the post the most interesting display was in the Post Hospital with its state-of-the-art-medicine of the nineteenth century.
But, with reservations set at Big Bend National Park we needed to get back on the road early Monday morning for the next segment and more practice for me, adding another 150 miles to my log.
The park is extensive and one of the only national parks to have such a diverse landscape which includes, forested mountains, massive canyons, vast desert, and the ever-changing Rio Grande River. It most definitely is a wild corner of the United States and one I'd been looking forward to finally seeing. Amazingly, the change in elevation is also huge...from 1800' along the Rio Grande to 8000' in the Chisos Mountains.
I had reserved 5 nights at the NP Rio Grande Village Campground, but when we saw the weather prediction of freezing temps for the days we'd be there we decided to call the concessionaire with the only hook up sites inside the park. Lucky for us, the weather had caused others to cancel and a campsite was available for three nights. So glad we did that, as temps dropped into the low teens those nights. We did move just a mile down the road to our original site for the last two nights. It all worked well.
Our first afternoon we took a hike down along the river and came upon a small little collection of handmade items for sale. The river separates the US from Mexico and is very narrow at this point. There was a jug to pay for the things set out, so I purchased a decorated walking stick and off we went.
We were at the eastern end of the park so it meant driving each day to see that beautiful landscape and to hike different areas. Though the days were sooooo cold and sometimes cloudy, we did get some lovely sunny afternoons and spectacular views.
One hike took us down to an abandoned homestead
while other trails required crossing a stream. I quickly learned the ground was pure mud and not good when trying to take a shortcut.
From the top of the Chisos Mountains with excellent views, to the steep and beautiful hike up the Santa Elena Canyon trail, is was fantastic.
While we were there I was reading one of my favorite authors, Nevada Barr, who writes murder mysteries always set in a National Park. So, this time my book of choice was
Borderline
The only thing better than hiking the canyon trail would have been to raft through the narrows as the main character does, but the river was too low plus a little too cold for me.
After leaving the canyon we decided to take the shorter route to visit the little town of Terlingua, another location in the book. But the downside of the shorter road was the gravel/dirt surface for almost 20 miles. And, the SAAB isn't one of those high clearance vehicles that usually take these roads. Several times we held our breath as we came to narrow twists or potholes almost the size of the car itself but my careful driver did a great job! I think in the hour we drove we only saw two other cars coming in the opposite direction...not always a good sign.
But it was worth it to see this little ghost own just a few miles outside of the park. The discovery of cinnabar in the mid 1800s brought miners to the area creating a city of 2,000 people at one time.
There's not much there now other than the trading post with a good supply of beer and the restaurant and saloon next door, The Starlight Theater & Restaurant.
We were too early for dinner or any entertainment at the Starlight but we picked up some beer and went to sit in the shade with a varied mix of visitors and locals.
The block ruins of the original structures are spread out around the hillside and seems that many of them are now being reclaimed and turned into homes. Called the Beverly Hills of the greater Metropolitan Terlingua area, it's an interesting place. As often happens, a walk through the local cemetery told quite a story. If we hadn't been an hour and a half from our campground we definitely would have stayed on. Next time, I think I'd book a campsite closer to this side of the park for a night or two and also on the other side, its such a huge park to see. Lots of driving each day.
Our last day the weather was warm once again and we wanted one last Big Bend adventure, visiting Boquillas, MX by crossing the Rio Grande. An absolute MUST if you ever get to the park! There is a new US Immigration border crossing office where you make a call to a nearby Border Patrol office who looks at your passport via a screen then approves your passport. Only one officer in the office but he is a National Park employee and doesn't really deal with the passport control.
Once though the office, we walked a short trail to the river where a small rowboat came across to pick us up and take us to Mexico! From there it's a 10 minute donkey ride into the little town of Boquillas. We'd planned breakfast there which was delicious with a guitar player nearby and a view back of the river..
Once you reach the Mexican side of the river, for some reason you must have a local guide with you at all times. A bit strange but ok. We checked into the Mexican Border office, got our Passports stamped and went to eat and see the town. Little shops were set up along both side of the street with handmade items...this was my purchase. !
After a wonderful visit, we were on the donkey for our ride back to the river when a Mexican officer came running down the hill with my iphone!!!! I'd left it in the immigration control office as we'd checked out!
Oh, well...it was time to get back in the RV and travel some more. Again, I took the wheel leaving the beautiful Big Bend NP and this time heading NE for an overnight at Canyons RV Park, Sanderson, Texas. As you can see it wasn't high season for tourist in January! We had the park to ourselves.
For months I'd been meaning to try a geocache and we finally found one that evening just down the street at the little city garden. They'd used natural stones with drawings and an info card to tell the history of the town.
From there we drove on the next morning to the darling town of Bastrop, just east of Austin. We stayed at the Bastrop State Park, a pretty and grassy site but a little too close to the freeway. Stopped at Buckees Gas Station on our way...what an experience!!! An enormous station with at least 25+ gas pumps and a store, which I thought was a major grocery store...oh, how wrong I was! It was instead an enormous store filled with nothing but sugary snacks/junk food of every kind and souvenirs! Crazy! People pull up and fill up their cars then just leave them in the gas station while they go inside and do some shopping. It took forever for us to get a long enough space to pull in for gas. Only in Texas, I'd say...
The town itself was quaint, historic and fun to visit but the weather was still pretty chilly. It sure seemed that cold front after cold front just kept coming through. We had hopes for more sunshine as we went further east.
It had only been two and a half weeks since we'd been at Big Bend NP in Texas and now we were all settled in near my sister, Emily, in the cute little town of Safety Harbor, FL. We always return to the great little Clearwater RV Park just a couple of miles from her home so it a perfect location for us. This year we booked early enough we had a standard site, not in the overflow. It is high season in February so prices double and no Passport America discount offered, but, the location is so good. Close enough for Emmy to drop by on her way home from work or for us to scoot over for dinners at night. Plus we are very close to Tampa and all it offers.
Another visit we never miss is a day at the Dali Museum in St. Pete. This year the special exhibit in cooperation with the Royal Academy of Arts was titled, Dali/Duchamp. It was a fantastic exhibition of their relationship and the influence it made on their individual art. "Two dissimilar 20th century artists who shared similar artistic interests" the perfect description... displaying works we'd never seen before, including Dali paintings and sculptures and Duchamp's assemblages, also photographs by Dali and their personal correspondence. So interesting! This is now the third such exhibit we've seen at the museum, always a unique look into this artist's relationships with his contemporaries. And of course the museum itself is a piece of art we never tire of seeing.
