Big Bend National Park

It was nothing short of a miracle that we left NC “on time” in a new tow vehicle and with the same 14-year-old adventure cat, Lynx.

The cat had been minutes away from surgery to remove bladder stones before it was determined that the surgery would not have been successful. For now, she will just live with her stones until her behavior indicates that she is too uncomfortable.

Also, after finding out that our Ford needed its second expensive repair (both recall items on other models), we decided to buy a new truck. We were happy to find a RAM, during the national truck shortage, that had several features we liked. Notably, a 50-gallon fuel tank and the fact that it was not a Ford.

Our 2022 route began the same as 2021, heading west on I-20. Our loose goal was to make it all the way to the Pacific. Then we had many, many hours in Texas to look at the coast-to-coast rain/snow forecast for New Year’s. At the last moment possible, we decided to turn south and head for a small pocket of perfect weather at Big Bend National Park.

In the remote southwestern tip of Texas, Big Bend NP is never going to be on anyone’s way. It is a destination in itself. With limited cell service and other necessities like groceries and fuel, we figured it was the perfect place to spend a few of Michael’s vacation days.

Surprisingly, there is no boondocking in all the vast land we drove through to get to the park so we stayed at Road Runner Travelers RV Park in Terlingua. If you drive from North Carolina to Big Bend National Park in 3 days, you will feel like a Road Runner.

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Big Bend NP is named for the big bend in the Rio Grande where the river changes course (south to north flow). The park has three sections, with their own visitor centers and campgrounds, with quite a lot of driving between. We spent 3 days in the park, without even making it to any of the backcountry.

We first explored the Chisos Basin area, a couple of thousand miles higher in elevation than the rest of the park’s desert landscape.

The next day we drove the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to the Santa Elena Canyon on the southwest side of the park.

We noticed the first day that sunset is the prettiest time to be in the park since the mountains turn pink/purple/orange so we packed dinner and stayed every evening.

On our third and last day, we drove to the Rio Grande Village area on the eastern side of the park. A unique feature of this area (which we did not do) is a river/border crossing by foot or rowboat to visit the Mexican village of Boquillas.

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There is also an interesting dinosaur fossil exhibit on the east side of the park. We learned that Big Bend was once covered by a shallow sea that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. It is also one of the best places in North America for scientists to study the demise of the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals because of when the rocks and mountains were formed.

On Sunday, we had a long drive out of the deep west Texas hole we had gotten ourselves into. Our Big Bend detour seems to have inspired a couple of other detours so now we’ll just take our time getting to the west coast.