Saturday, February 18, 2017 - Monday, February 20, 2017
We left home Saturday about 9:00 am and spent most of the day driving west through Oklahoma on I40. This is the first day of a 2 week trip to south Texas. We turned south on I44 at Oklahoma City. We got to the Burkburnett/Wichita Falls, TX KOA at about 3:00 pm. It is a nice KOA right off the interstate. We were able to sit outside and watch farmers tilling their fields and birds flying around. It was a good driving day. We left the campsite on Sunday about 9:30 am and drove I44 to Midland, TX. We stayed at the Midland RV Park. It was okay, if a bit crowded, and right in the middle of town. On the drive we saw lots of oilfields and cottonfields. On Monday, we left about 8:15 am and drove I44 to southwest of Midland. We drove a farm to market road to Ft. Stockton where we stopped at a Wal-Mart to get supplies. We stopped at Alpine, TX to eat lunch then got on Hwy 181 that took us to the Big Bend Resort and Adventures where we are staying for 5 nights. We saw about 30 pronghorn between Ft. Stockton and Alpine. The RV park is nice. It has good restrooms, a gas station, and cafe. It does have pay showers, but that was okay since the cost to stay there was fairly cheap.
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| Sunset from our campsite |
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
After breakfast and cleaning up, we left the campground around 9:00am and drove to the Panther Junction Visitor Center in Big Bend National Park. We watched a video about the park and got information about hikes we would want to do. We then drove to the Rio Grand Village; stopping at the Rio Grande Overlook and the Canyon Overlook on the way.
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| View from Rio Grande Overlook |
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| View of Boquillas, Mexico from Canyon Overlook. |
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| Canyon Overlook. One of the craft sites. |
When we got to the Rio Grande Village area we hiked the Boquillas Canyon Trail along the river. We hiked on the US side and could look across and see the Mexican side and the Mexican town of Boquillas. Along the trail and at the overlooks were places where Mexicans from Boquillas, Mexico had left crafts for sale. The crafts had tags with a price and a container to put money in totally on the honor system. It is actually illegal for them to sell the goods in the US since they hadn't passed through customs to get here. We saw some men sitting in the shade on the Mexican side of the river with a canoe pulled up next to them. They probably brought the crafts over early in the morning and were waiting until late in the evening to pick everything up. We also saw a Mexican man come across the river in a canoe. He was standing in the shade by the trail singing songs as tourists walked by. We did give him some money.
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| Ancient holes made in the rocks by women grinding corn. |
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| Mike with the Rio Grande River and Mexico in the background. |
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| Canoe across the Rio Grande in Mexico. There are some men sitting in the shade that are not visible in this shot. |
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| Mary with Boquillas Canyon behind her |
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| Boquillas Canyon |
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| Mike and Mary at Boquillas Canyon |
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| Mike standing in front of a tree that had fuzzy yellow blossoms. |
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| The fuzzy, yellow blossoms |
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| By the sign after hiking the trail |
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| Mary by the same sign |
After hiking the Boquillas Canyon trail we drove to the Rio Grande Village campground and did a short hike. There is a campground there that has showers and full hookups, but is so far from everything else in the park that we didn't want to stay there. Big Bend NP is a big park. You have to do a lot of driving to really explore this national park.
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| View from the road on the way to Rio Grande Village Campground |
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| Cactus by trail |
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| Ocatillo Cactus |
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| Prickly Pear and Yucca |
After leaving the campground area we drove down a dirt rode to the historic hot springs on the Rio Grande River. We did another short hike past the old, abandoned resort area to the hot springs that are next to the river. Several people were sitting in the hot springs and swimming in the river at this point. We weren't interested in getting in the river at all but enjoyed seeing it. Next to the trail were some bluffs that contained petroglyphs that were a couple of thousand years old. Very interesting to look at.
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| One way road out to the hot springs area. It was very curvy and narrow. |
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| Building in the old resort |
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| White petroglyphs |
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| Red petroglyphs |
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| Rio Grande next to hot springs |
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| Hot Springs |
When we got back to camp, we had chicken brocolli casserole that had been in the crock pot all day. Ate it over rice and it was very good. It was a sunny, warm day. Had a great time today.
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| Sunset view from the campsite |
It has been clear and the moon is small so we had good star views tonight.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Hot day today. We drove to the Chisos Basin area today. We stopped at the visitor center at the Chisos Basin first. We had planned to hike the Lost Mine Trail today, but the parking lot at the trail head was full so we hiked the Windows Trail instead. It is a 4 1/2 mile trail. You hike down to the windows pour off then hike back up. At the end of the trail just before the windows pour off there are 5 series of steps that go up over rocks then back down. They are narrow and steep and some of the steps are not very deep. They also do not have any hand rails. Pretty precarious. Mike stopped after the third set of steps because he was feeling shaky and unsteady. Didn't want to fall. He sat by the trail while I went to the end. It was not much further. The view of the windows was almost as good where he stopped as it was at the end. Both are very pretty views.
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| View in the basin |
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| Another view |
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| Chollo Cactus |
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| Another Cactus |
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Cactus after blooming. Blooms once then dies. Blooms are yellow.
The previous picture is the cactus this grows out of. |
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| Part of the windows trail. |
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| View through the window where Mike stopped |
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| Mary in front of the window |
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| At the window pour off |
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| One set of the steps |
At the beginning of the trail we met a couple who are originally from Poland that now live in Ontario, Canada. We ate lunch with them at a place in the shade on the way back that had a bench to sit on. Very interesting couple. The 2 1/4 miles back was uphill all the way and it had gotten very hot. We really enjoyed this hike (other than the series of steps).
On the way back to camp we stopped to get a picture of purple prickly pear. They grow all over Big Bend and are very unique. Today was a very good day. Chisos Basin was our favorite part of Big Bend National Park.
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| Purple prickly pear |
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Our last day to tour Big Bend National Park.
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| Had to get a picture at the entrance sign |
We drove the Ross Maxwell scenic drive today. We went to the end of the paved road at Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande River. We hiked up to an overlook of the canyon. Chose not to go to the very top or down the steep stairs to the river. The trail got very narrow with steep drop offs. The canyon is very pretty. We would have enjoyed it if we could have taken a canoe up the canyon a ways. The views from the river bank were actually better than those from the overlook.
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| Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande River |
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| Santa Elena Canyon |
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| Mike in front of the canyon |
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| Mary in front of the canyon |
When we left the canyon, we stopped at a river access point and had a picnic lunch. We drove through Cottonwood Campground and stopped at several pullouts for the views. It was a good day for a drive. The temperatures got into the 90's so it was too hot to hike much. We stopped at the Mule Ear Overlook and the Solta Vista Overlook.
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| Trail by the river access picnic area |
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| View of bluff that contains Santa Elena Canyon |
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| Mule Ears |
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| View from Sotol Vista |
Between those overlooks we stopped at the Burro Mesa Pouroff Trail. We walked a short distance up the trail, but it had gotten too hot to walk all the way to the pouroff.
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| View from the Burro Mesa Pouroff Trail |
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| Another view from that trail |
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| Blooming Yucca |
We ate supper at the Rio Bravo restaurant in Terlingua. It was okay, but didn't really have much flavor. Not what I expected from an authenic Mexican restaurant.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Our last day in the Big Bend area. The owner of the campground suggested that we go to the Big Bend Ranch State Park, especially to the Barton Warnuck Visitors Center, so that is our destination today. On our way to the state park we stopped at the Terlingua Ghost Town. Not much to look at. The cemetery was kind of interesting. It had an information board explaining how Terlingua was a mercury mining town before world war II. Our first stop in the state park was at the visitors center. It had displays explaining the geologic history and development of the Big Bend area. We spent about an hour going through that exhibit. It was very good. When we went outside we walked up to an overlook then walked through the cactus garden.
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| View of Barton Warnuck Visitor Center and Cactus Garden from overlook |
When we left the visitors center we drove to a picnic area beside the highway. The ranger had told us that you can sometimes see big horn sheep on the bluffs across the highway from the picnic area, but we had no luck with that. Then we drove to the Hoodoo overlook. There is a trail there, but we had decided to do another trail instead. We headed back out of the park at this point. It was too far to drive all the way through the park to the town of Presidio. We were told that there wasn't much more of interest after the hoodoo area.
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| View of bluffs across from picnic area |
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| Mike eating lunch at the picnic area |
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| A hoodoo and the Rio Grande River |
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| Another hoodoo |
On our way out of the park we stopped at the Closed Canyon Trail. We hiked through the canyon almost to the end of the trail. We stopped when we got to a place where there was a 3 foot drop off.
We enjoyed this hike a lot. It was a good hike to do on a hot day because the canyon was completely shaded and had a breeze blowing through it.
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| Beginning of Closed Canyon |
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Mike at the beginning of the trail.
Lots of gravel to walk through. |
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| Closed Canyon |
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| Mary at the end of the trail |
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| Mary in the middle of the canyon |
We did stop on the way out of the park at a place where movies used to be filmed. They hype this spot a lot, but since all but one tiny structure had been torn down it wasn't very interesting.
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| View of Rio Grande River from the road |
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| Big Bend Bluebonnets |
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| Movie set areaWe drove past |
When we got back to camp Mike grilled hamburgers while I straightened the trailer and car to get ready for the trip out tomorrow. While grilling we visited with our neighbors, John and Marie, who are from Pennsylvania. Nice people.
We have really enjoyed this part of our trip. Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park are very interesting places. Made me more aware of how large Texas is.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Left camp about 9:15 this morning. We drove back through the park going through Persimmon Gap so we saw pretty much all of the areas of Big Bend National Park. The only thing we wish we would have visited was the fossil exhibit. We drove past it on the way out of the park. We didn't realize where it was or we would have gone there our first day in the park. We stopped in Marathon for gas and ate at the gas station grill. We both had the tacos and they were very good. Way better than the Rio Bravo restaurant. We went back through Ft. Stockton so that we could get supplies at WalMart. We drove from Ft. Stockton to Junction where we spent the night at the North Llano River RV park. It is a nice RV park right on the North Llano River.
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| North Llano River next to RV park |
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| Mike setting up chairs so we can enjoy the views |
In the morning will start the next section of our trip when we get to San Antonio.
