Big Bend, Part 2
The last two times I've tried to go camping, I've been rained out. For reasons I won't go into here, I am convinced the Universe had my best interests at heart on both occasions, but I have to admit, it left me a little gun shy when I decided to make campground reservations for Big Bend. I needn't have worried, though; all campsites were well and truly booked up by the time I looked into it. So we decided to do lazy camping and booked an RV in Terlingua through AirBnB.
It was described as "Full of charm!" so I didn't expect much. That's the kind of thing you say about something that probably is actually lacking in charm, or other marketable attributes. But since we planned to spend as much time as possible hiking and not much time relaxing in a resort-quality home away from home, I thought the price made it a great idea.
Lil' Hobo, full of charm.
Surprisingly, it actually was full of charm! It looked like it hadn't moved in many years and never would again.
The Shade Shack is a little ol' place where we can get together...
The inside was tiny, or cozy would be the proper marketing word, but that was expected. What wasn't expected was how much it had been built out around the RV. There was an outside restroom with a flushable toilet and a sink with running water. There was a well-shaded patio outside the front door, facing the sunrise, with a chaise-lounge and a table made from an industrial spool. There was what our host referred to as the "Shade Shack," a covered deck with a dining area, coffee service, and a daybed for napping. There was a bench and a fire pit, perfect for cuddling and stargazing, and all around, in every direction, were beautiful mountain views. The quiet and isolation were perfect.
Our front yard.
"Havalina, walking in the breeze on the plains of old Sedona, Arizona, among the trees." This javelina skunk pig peccary seemed only to vaguely suspect we were there until he made eye contact with my beautiful traveling companion, then ran like she'd shot at him. Later, 15 or 20 of them scattered out of the underbrush at once when she sneezed.
The only downside was the nearly 50 miles of road, including almost 5 miles of rocky, dusty dirt road that was not kind to my small Japanese sedan, that lay between our haven and the park. The cost and the remoteness and charm of our little home base made that drive entirely worth it, though. We shared our space with javelinas (why, oh why, do we not commonly call these things skunk pigs? I would love that, dearly), deer, daredevil rabbits who preferred to cross the road in front of our car at the last possible second, and an optimistic woodpecker who persistently worked for a couple of days on a creosote-soaked power line pole. We did not, despite our host's helpful suggestions on killing rattlesnakes with rocks, walking sticks, or the shovel that was leaning against the Shade Shack, see anything even remotely dangerous or threatening. We saw signage about bears and mountain lions that advised making yourself as large as possible, which my beautiful traveling companion said she would accomplish by hiding behind me, since I'm large, then make her escape when the bear or mountain lion was busy eating me. Something even larger than I was rustling around in the dark nearby on our second night while we watched the stars and talked. We never saw what it was, but I got the feeling it was more interested in eavesdropping on us than killing and eating us.
One of my many favorite things about adventuring with my beautiful traveling companion was that she was entirely on board with my preference for spontaneity. We entered the park with lunch, snacks, lots of water, and no clear plans. We wandered our first day to Santa Elena Canyon.
We went not knowing what to expect. We approached the cliff wall from afar wondering what that gap was, then deciding it was an optical illusion with no gap after all. Then it opened up before us, and we laughed to realize this was the place in the photo she had found on the internet and linked to when she posted on Facebook that we were going to Big Bend. We didn't even know that was Mexico at the top of the cliff on the left, but it was entertaining to hear a mom threaten her kid with, "If you don't stop, I'm going to throw you over to the Mexico side and leave you there!" I want to travel with my son more, but I have to admit, traveling kid-free has its advantages.
Hi, cutie!
We found the trail that went up the rocks to the right and followed it to see what we would see. It was short but gorgeous, much like my beautiful traveling companion. It was an easy walk, with a slightly steep upward climb at the beginning and an easy decline for a mile or so down into the canyon where it ended at the water's edge. The scale of the natural environment was hard to grasp, with fallen rocks that looked from afar to be large, but when we came at last upon them were absolutely massive. I couldn't help imagine them falling from the clifftops and wondering if giant objects fall in slow motion like they do in the movies. Everywhere I looked, people seemed to be so tiny and inconsequential.
The Rio Grande was shallow here, with a few canoes and kayaks and waders. A friend told me that when they came on some earlier date, they couldn't hike the trail because the water was too high.
We strolled slowly down, stopping frequently to marvel at our surroundings and take pictures. My beautiful traveling companion has something of a selfie addiction, so we have lots of pictures of us with various natural wonders in the background. We stopped and ate lunch on the way down, people watching as much as nature watching, and we drank plenty of water. The hike back up felt longer than the hike down, and I recalled the pair of kids we'd passed on our way in when they were coming out. Another hiker asked them, "How was it?" One kid replied, shoulders slumped, "It was fun. But it makes you tired." I was really surprised how long it took us to go maybe a mile or a mile and a half and back, but when you have no plans, no goals, no schedules, and no deadlines, you can take as long as feels right at the time. And it definitely felt right.
I wonder why it's called Mule Ears...
On the way to Santa Elena, we saw signs for several different trails, so after leaving the canyon, we picked one of these for our next stop. Mule Ears sounded the most whimsical, so that's what we chose. Here, though only a few minutes away, the terrain felt different. It was a mountainous desert, dry and dusty and rocky but still somehow covered in vegetation. This trail was something like 3 miles, so we approached it with a little more determination and a little less strolling. We walked and talked and talked and walked, marveling at how our perspective on the mountain landscape slowly changed as we wound our way along the trail.
My beautiful traveling companion laughed at me and called me her old man when I yawned on the trail, but after we made it back to the car, we were both spent and ready to return to our little sanctuary to make dinner, watch the sun set, and stare at the star-filled sky. If shooting stars bring luck, looking up at that broad, dark, light-filled expanse made us the luckiest people on earth at that moment in time.
If you're going to West Texas, spring is a good choice.
The next day, we parked at Los Chisos Basin Visitors Center and headed out on The Window trail. We didn't know what the Window would be. I speculated that it would be a rock formation we could look through. My beautiful traveling companion theorized that the Window was metaphorical, that the journey itself was a window into ourselves. So we spent a fair amount of the hike joking about that. "Is that the window?" "Is THAT the window?" "There better be a GD window somewhere, or I'm writing an angry letter!"
We saw a rock that might have been a bear if you squinted at it right; we saw a pugilistic red beetle willing to take on all comers; we saw and chatted with lots of cheerful and friendly folks; and we saw many sights that elicited no more eloquent a response than a breathless, "Wow..." And at the end of the line, we did indeed find the Window.
Lots of opportunity here for kids to really freak out their parents.
The sudden opening in the rock walls all around us and the precipitous drop to the desert floor below were exhilarating to finally find at the end of the trail. The stone floor we stood on was polished to an almost metallic shine, either from the passage of many feet or from the flow of unimaginable volumes of water over inconceivable stretches of time. I got as close as I dared. My photo doesn't really capture the majesty of the view. It was majestic, though. Trust me. Really majestic. Most majestic view ever. People say my views are always the most majestic, believe me. I know majestic. Nobody knows majestic like me.
My favorite photo of the Window, though, is the one of my beautiful traveling companion peering through it. I don't know why. She's just adorable. Isn't she adorable? I mean look at her. Really.
As close as she was willing to get. She's sensible as well as beautiful.
OK, maybe I've wandered off my travelogue here and into more personal territory. This is a good place, though, to talk about how happy I am. We're nearly 8 months into this relationship, which isn't long, but it's long enough to be getting a little tired of each other and running out of things to say and getting comfortable enough to let irritation show through and get into a few fights now and then. But we didn't. We spent 11 hours driving there (because I missed a turn and sent us on a little bit of a backtrack) and 9 hours driving home again. We lived together, we hiked together, we spent virtually every single minute together. We talked almost non-stop, and when there were finally long, tired silences on the afternoon hikes back, they were comfortable silences. We held hands and touched each other affectionately almost continuously. I was not sure what to expect, but the entire trip, she was a joy to be around, with humor and adventurousness and enthusiasm and love. I could not have expected it to go nearly as well as it did. We truly enjoyed each other's company.
It was only a 5-mile round trip to the Window and back, but by the time we'd done it, taking our time and enjoying every inch, we were done. On the way down, we looked for lewd shapes in the rock formations. We noticed a rock high on the ridge that looked like the Virgin Mary kneeling as she prayed for us. All around us, the looming stone walls showed us again how small we are, what tiny little things we are, scurrying across the surface of the earth. We joked, and laughed and smiled and chatted with all the people we passed. On the way back up again in the afternoon, we only had energy to note that Mary was still up there, praying for our safe return. We took our time, and the day was close enough to gone that we decided to head back to our home base for a shower and dinner, then more star gazing.
The next day, we were back on the road for home. It felt so good to get away, to focus on each other, to contemplate the larger world around us and our place in it. The inconveniences of travel were inconsequential. The simplicity of the pleasures was refreshing. And writing about it is an effective way to relive it, to remember and refine the thoughts and emotions it brought up, to reinforce the determination to do it all again some day soon. The destination will be different, but the journey is ongoing.
