Big Bend National Park – East
Our final weekend in the area, I made sure to score one of the few back-country camping sites in Big Bend National Park (park #79 for me) that would fit the trailer. The NPS doesn’t make it easy by ignoring the existence of internet and telephone all together. The only way to snag one of these spots is to show up at the Visitor’s Center and talk to a Ranger. All fine and dandy, but it is an hour drive (give or take) from the park entrance and you must show up within a day of when you plan to start your stay; you can’t book the site to start your camping two days from now; tonight or tomorrow only. Once booked, you can keep it for 14 days though, so there is no guarantee when the site will become available or when it will be snatched right back up. A total crap-shoot, but I had a plan…
I called late Thursday afternoon to confirm if there were any sites available. After a bit of convincing about the plant and greenhouse gases produced during my 2 hour round trip drive, the Ranger finally told me that one site was available. I knew that it would still be available in the morning (barring anyone standing there in front of the Ranger when I hung up) so drove out first thing Friday morning – arriving before the Visitor’s Center opened – and booked that spot for our three nights we wanted to stay.
Whew! It took some effort but we got our spot of peace and quiet in the park. A little over 1 mile down a tight gravel road that dead ended another half mile further down, we had no traffic, or company but the one other trailer at the end of the road. It didn’t take long for us to get out and start the exploring. Already late in the day, we decided to forego the trip into Boquillas until the following day. Instead we hiked the Bosquillas Canyon that looks over the Rio Grande River into Bosquillas, Mexico. While not as epic as Santa Elena Canyon, it was still worth the efforts.
The next morning we woke early to travel into Bosquillas, which turned out to be a much shorter visit then we anticipated. Instead of heading back to the trailer, we went for a little drive… about 50 miles on 4WD-required roads through the center of the park. Way out here is the old and abandoned Mariscal Mine, as well as some spectacular views of the desert landscape. We did not make it back to the trailer until just before sunset.
During our final day we opted to do nothing. Literally nothing. Instead of tackling a trail, or go soaking in the nearby hot-springs, we both stayed at home and relaxed (no pics, sorry). It’s a rare occurrence that we do such a thing, and it was needed.
Tuesday morning called for a 5:30 wake up time. We already had everything packed away, so it was just the not-so-simple task of hitching up the truck to the trailer, and even-harder-task of getting Kerri out of bed and into the truck. We were on the road by 6:15 and headed North to Fort Stockton where we would spend the work day at a city park before starting our multi day after-hours-only drive to Austin.
