Big Bend National Park

I was born in Dallas, TX. I went to pilot training in Wichita Falls, TX and I have spent quite a bit of time working in Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, TX. I have probably spent more time in the state of Texas than any other state. Other than the Hill Country outside of Austin, I generally considered Texas pretty flat. Our trip to Big Bend turned that assessment totally on its head. There are some of the most majestic mountains I have ever seen tucked away in this corner of our second largest state. They may not rival the Rockies for height, but they more than make up for it with just pure size and steepness. Many of the mountains look like some gigantic figure simply dropped a massive granite rock and then cleaved off the side leaving a shear wall. The whole effect of seeing these mountains rise up from the desert plains is quite mesmerizing.

Big Bend is among the more challenging of the parks to get to, with the closest city of any reasonable size being El Paso at nearly 5 hours away. But the uniqueness of the park makes the trek worthwhile. There is a little bit of everything; desert plains with innumerable cactus, badlands with a myriad of colors, huge canyons cut by the ever churning Rio Grande, the aforementioned mountains and even an alpine area where it is both cool and wet enough for Aspen to grow. It is also a bird watchers paradise, with more species of birds than any other park.

Ava, who is doing quite well with her recovery, is still “hobbled” by her crutches. This meant that for several hikes we split up, with either Carolyn or me hiking the hills with Hazel while the other parent took the slow trail with Ava. Funny thing is, even though we may have had to take a couple different paths, none of us felt as though we missed any part of the park. There is just that much to do, whether it be window framed views of the distant valleys, hiking into the canyons along the Rio Grande or just wandering along the roads and enjoying the scenery.

Our final fun event in Big Bend was a trip across the Rio Grande into Boquillas, Mexico. Believe it or not, The National Park Service in conjunction with Customs and Border Patrol runs a very small border crossing station out of Big Bend. Just like in the US, Mexico also sees this area as worthy of protection and maintains a large national park on its side of the river. The crossing allows scientists, naturalists, firemen, police and the odd tourist to cross back and forth much faster. They meet with their counterparts, help fight the occasional fires (which oddly don’t seem to care about man-made borders), share policing techniques and, in the case of the tourist, just spend money – on both sides of the border. The trip alone is worth it. After going through the customs house and getting all the “do’s and don’ts” from the officer, we walked down a short path to the river. From there we took a rowboat across the river. Then Hazel took a burro into town while Ava and I rode in a local truck and Carolyn walked. Boquillas is a sleepy little town with wonderful people and great food!