West Texas delivers. Big dark skies! Space! Very few shops and no shopping malls.

Traffic getting less and less!

We left built up San Antonio and headed off to the hills, we’ll sort of! We headed off and as we drove the shopping strips and malls started to decrease, and towns got smaller and smaller. Traffic reduced too! Our first stop was Fort Clark Springs, it used to be a US military fort from around 1850 until just after WWII. Now it has residential homes, a motel, RV park and a golf course as well as the hot spring. It felt a bit strange to be honest, but it was only for 1 night. For us, this was a staging post to Big Bend NP.

The next stop was incredibly interesting, Seminole Canyon State Park. It is home to a great canyon, not too deep, and great pictographs, around 5000 years old, and still in good condition. They have their own campground, and it was a great space to experience big vistas and dark skies.

Unfortunately, Mark noticed we had another wheel stud broken (same wheel) and he decided to fix it himself, with me as his sidekick! It went well until it came to putting the wheel back on! It is very heavy and we could not put it on or lever it into position. I felt so helpless and after a while walked over to the toilet block. I noticed a man who looked young and healthy so asked him if he would help. Phew, him and his son were great and assisted Mark to put the wheel was back on!

The next day we drove on to the little town of Marathon. We parked up by Gage Gardens, a delightful garden, full of trees and cacti. This was only our second free night of parking since being in the USA. We indulged ourselves by going to the stylish, 1930’s, Gage Hotel and having a couple of cocktails. We then went into the microbrewery and had another drink or two whilst chatting with Steve, a local. He told us some of his life stories and really made us chuckle, but I can’t repeat them!

The next morning was the coldest we had experienced in Shaun. We had ice on the inside of the house windows! Lowest temperature inside too, 13oC, and outside it was      -10oC. Shaun was very sluggish, slow to start and the gearbox was so cold, finding gears was hard work! We parked facing the sun to let the engine get warm and finally, we got to Big Bend National Park, and it was everything we were hoping for. Mountains, desert big views, a real feeling of wilderness.

Our first campground was Rio Grande Village, for 3 nights, it was very close to the Rio Grande, which meant Mexico was just 200 metres away at that point. It was near the big bend the park is named after. We saw horses and cows grazing in the area, and were told these were ‘illegal immigrants’, they just make the way over the river for grazing and water. Every now again their owners come across and take them back. We were told there was a bobcat in the area, but unfortunately, we didn’t see it the whole time we were there. We did see plenty of roadrunners and a couple of Javelinas, a creature that looks like a wild hog. During our two days at this site, we spent one day visiting Mexico, a small village called Boquillas. This involved going through a port of exit on the USA side, a walk to the Rio Grande, 5 minutes, a boat crossing, 1 minute, pushed by a Mexican and then a donkey taxi  for 0.5 of a mile to the village. We had a cheeky margarita and beer and some tacos in a nice restaurant, catering to tourists. It felt like the rest of the villagers, including children as young as 2, were lining the street trying to sell us bracelets, pottery, embroidered clothes, and wire and bead ornaments. They had some great t-shirts too, ‘Make Boquillas Great Again’ and ‘Keep calm you are on the fun side of the wall’. At least they have a sense of humour! Getting back into the USA involved having our passports checked and a videocall with border control!

The next day we did a lovely hike to Langford Hot springs. The hike was great, we only saw a park ranger and a few other hikers, but the springs were incredibly busy. People were able to drive a dirt road to a different entry point and walk 0.5 of a mile to the springs. The springs were only small, and crowded, so we didn’t bother going in (and we had forgotten our swimming costumes and towels!) The springs used to be a holiday destination, from 1927 until the property was sold to Texas to be part of the National Park in the 1940’s.

We then moved to a different campground within the Big Bend National Park, Cottonwood, after a type of tree that grows around there. The drive to it was along the Ross Maxwell Scenic drive, and yes as we drove it the scenery got better and better. Such beautiful mountains, and the colours were so varied due to the minerals they contained, quite a few were volcanic in nature. We saw evidence of where there used to be ranches, they used to have sheep and goats, although looking at the terrain we were not sure how they would have survived, as most plants are cacti. The highlight of the drive was Santa Elena Canyon, where water, sand and gravity have carved out a gorge 1500 feet deep and is 8 miles long. At its narrowest the walls are only 30 feet wide. It was great to walk inside a ways and see the geology and flora.

So West Texas -desert scenery, surprisingly lush, with so many varieties of cacti and other plants. We really enjoy seeing the different types of vegetation and identifying it. It is amazing how people hundreds of years ago learnt by trial and error how to use what look like unfriendly plants! We also enjoyed seeing different types of birds and animals. The birds here are so colourful, Mexican blue jays, Eastern meadowlarks, Northen Cardinals ,Bluebirds and of course the funny Greater Roadrunners.

We are looking forward to seeing a bit more of West Texas before heading into New Mexico!