Today’s adventure in the Lone Star State took us to Big Bend National Park. The park encompasses portions of the lush Chihuahuan desert, the Chisos mountains, several canyons, and the Rio Grande River! Big Bend’s name comes from the U-shape the Rio Grande takes as it carves the Southwestern border of Texas. Mexico is a stone’s throw across the river. For this reason there are lots of warnings about picking up hitchhikers, buying things from people on or near the border, and crossing into Mexico itself. There are also Border Control checkpoints on all northbound roads, usually more than 50 miles from the actual border.

Our day began with breakfast at our semi-sketchy motel. It was the usual continental breakfast with some egg and sausage products to nuke and a waffle maker. Promptly at 9:00, the official close of (free) breakfast, the less-than-hospitable innkeeper came out and announced curtly, “Breakfast is over. Don’t eat anything else,” and quickly began whisking the food away. We’ve had a quite few hotel/motel breakfasts and have never encountered anything like this. We are looking forward to hearing it again tomorrow and will make sure we are still at breakfast at 9!

Once we got to the park we realized that, like everything in Texas, it is huge. We followed the ranger’s suggestion and took the scenic road to the western side of the park. Roadrunners trotted on and off the roadway and we stopped the car to let another tarantula cross the road (photo by Billy). The desert here is more lush than most (it gets up to 10 inches a year!) and the plant life is a vibrant green.

The green spiky plants you see here are closely related to the pineapple.

We thought about taking the hike to the Burro Mesa Pouroff but the trailhead was crawling with loud obnoxious people. At one point, a family was arming and disarming their car alarm over and over and over again. BEEP. BEEP-BEEP. BEEP. BEEP-BEEP. For fun. While one of their kids had an epic meltdown. We opted for the peaceful scenic drive in the car instead. We took a photo of the trailhead though. Here it is:

Apparently, as we learned from some very loud bystanders, this trail is bordered by some very aggressive grass that is just as prickly as cactus. It sticks into your skin with little barbs. Sounds inviting, doesn’t it?

The next stop on the scenic tour was Tuff Canyon, a very deep desert wash caused by millions of years of flash flooding. The canyon is carved from petrified soft volcanic ash (called volcanic tuff). In some places you can see lava rocks “trapped” in the white ash.

The canyon walls rise about 30-50 feet off the canyon floor.

After another 30-40 minutes of driving through the desert (it makes up 80% of the park), we made it to Castalon, an abandoned ranch and farm from the 1960s. It had some historic structures there including the oldest adobe house in the park (the Alvino House).

Not sure what this structure was/is, but it’s pretty!

Finally, we made it to the Santa Elena viewpoint/trailhead. A short trail took us along the shore of the Rio Grande River and up a steep bank through the reeds. As we walked the shady trail, we were warned by several hikers coming from the opposite direction that there was a rattlesnake on the trail ahead. We were pretty psyched! A snake, finally!

Lots of people were on this trail and none of them seemed to have any volume control (Billy excluded).

The snake was in a tight rocky crevice on the side of a narrow switchback trail leading up to the Rio Grande viewpoint. The rangers asked that hikers take turns warning others of its presence so they could go around and avoid it. We had our turn, too…for a long time. Billy amused himself by taking lots of photos. Here’s his favorite. We didn’t get to hear it rattle, but it did move its head, slightly. Most people were pretty freaked out, and we heard lots of interesting “theories” as people filed past. My favorite was the guy that said, “That snake needs heat to move. He’s not going anywhere. Not today, at least.” It was about 80 degrees at the point he said that. I guess the snake didn’t believe him, since he was gone by the time we took the trail back down.

The trail was really pretty. Unfortunately, the ambiance of the place was completely ruined by people acting like animals on the trail ahead. They were screaming on top of their lungs to hear echoes half a mile down the path. It went on for the entire hike. Truly obnoxious. The Rio Grande passed silently beneath us. The Mexican side looked like a lush green oasis. Bright green grass and verdant reeds swayed and beckoned. It appears that Mexico does not have its version of Big Bend on its side of the river.

The cliffs at Santa Elena Canyon were 1,500 feet high. The trail had all kinds of desert plants to look at like cacti. Today, it also had Billy!

A view from the end of the trail looking up the Rio Grande.

We ended our day by driving 13 miles on a gravel/dirt/pothole-filled road and successfully getting through Border Control. It will be a miracle if Dr. Benny (my car) doesn’t need new shocks at the end of this trip! Tomorrow we have a leisurely day driving to San Antonio. Looking forward to seeing it! Adiós for now!