(Originally posted by Sandra on Facebook on January 26, 2026)

Wow, what a journey we have been on; from Marfa and all of its quirkiness, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Davis Mountains, the incredible night sky, and now Big Bend National Park.

For many years, we have heard that BB was fantastic and we must go. I have never been further west of Laredo along the Texas border. This area of Texas is so vastly different. We live in East Texas Piney woods. We’ve seen the Hill Country, the South Texas beaches, and vastness west of Fort Worth and the Panhandle. I don’t know what took us to get here. Well, actually, I do; it was time and distance. As far as time— Tom officially retired in December, so time is less of an issue at this point. YAY! Distance— that hasn’t really changed, but it certainly helps to have more time. From our home, it is equally as far to Big Bend as it is to drive Atlanta, Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Monterey, Mexico.

As we drove into the park, we were in awe of the majestic and breathtaking landscape. The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive was absolutely stunning and a nice warm 75 degrees!

Chisos Mountains along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive

As we were making our way south toward the river side campground, we stopped at many of the pullouts along the way. Once arriving at the small (20-site) Cottonwood Campground, we completed the simple setup and had a quick dinner. It was cloudy and threatening rain, but we set out in hopes of a decent sunset. After a couple of scenic overlooks, we reached the Sotol Vista Overlook, where we enjoyed a lovely sunset. We were not the only ones to have this idea, but Mother Nature showed up and put on a show for all of us. The takeaway: Never give up on a sunset. Before we turned in for the night, we stepped out into the much cooler air to stargaze in the dark skies.

Nestled among the soon to be missing cottonwoods at Cottonwood Campground

The following day, we drove the very short distance to the Santa Elena Canyon Trail. Because of our close proximity to the trailhead, we were the second car in the parking lot. Essentially, we had the trail to ourselves. We crossed a dry creek bed leading up and into the canyon. Once climbing 150 ft elevation on a nicely maintained trail, we arrived at the mouth of the canyon where the Rio Grande River separates the USA from Mexico. The 1500 ft walls loomed over us as we continued about a mile into the canyon. Words cannot describe the silence and the grandeur displayed in front of us.

Driving the 8 miles back to the campground, we both noticed a limb crashing down a short distance away. Our thought was that it was awfully close to the campground. We hoped it wasn’t near our trailer. A bit nervous, we pulled into the campground to see several vehicles in front of and just beyond our site. Deep breath in and hold!!! The Park Rangers were cutting down dead cottonwood trees in the campground, two of which just so happened to be between our site and the next. We spoke to the host, who seemed unalarmed. The park rangers told us that we had nothing to worry about. They knew exactly what they were doing. However, we did not have that confidence. We told them we preferred to move the trailer before they cut down the second tree. We quickly hitched and moved to the day camping site to enjoy our brunch, tamale egg tacos, before moving on to our next camping location.

On our way out of the park, we did a couple of interesting hikes. The first was the Lower Burro Mesa Pour-Off Trail, where we met a nice couple from Belgium (A Flaneur’s Quest) traveling North America in their camper van. Then we did the Sam Nail Ranch Trail, which had remnants of his home and a windmill which drew water from the mesa for his cattle and orchard in 1916.

With the ice storms looming over Texas, we moved further west along the US border to the Maverick RV Ranch, which is part of Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua. We needed to wait out the rain and below-freezing temps heading this way.

Into Big Bend

West to Big Bend