Big Bend National Park has been a part of my life for a long time. Kathy spent a couple of summers in the park working with the University of Texas at Dallas digging up dinosaurs, and we spent spring break there once with Evan and a school chum.
The breathtaking vistas, stark desert environment and just plain vastness of the park draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, yet you can still find yourself alone. It's just that big.
At over 1200 square miles, Big Bend isn't the biggest park in the US. Not even in the lower 48. But it is home to the largest number of birds, bats, cactus, reptiles, plants and butterflies of any U.S. National Park. And while 275,000 visitors each year sounds like a lot, the Park is actually one of the least visited. It's not difficult to feel you've got the park to yourself.
At what scenery! Take the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive starting near the Panther Junction Headquarters and you are in for some of the best views anywhere. Along the way, you'll stop are overlooks with stunning looks at mesas, vast open deserts, and spectacular canyons. You'll spend more time parking the car than you will driving.
You can, of course, hike the park. There are trails in abundance. It all depends on how much time you have. I was a little tight on schedule this trip, so I only spent a day there. No where near enough, but I'd been before and had a pretty good idea what I wanted to see.
And that brings me to the sad part of this tale. One of my fondest memories of the parks is ice cream. When we made that spring break trip we experienced one of those "only in the desert" moments. The first night we made camp, the temp got down to the 30's. That's pretty chilly when your sleeping in a tent.
Then the next day, Kathy led us on a trek to the Window, and really cool feature in the park. What I didn't know at the onset was she planned to hike across Chisos basin to get there. That's about a 3 mile hike, and the temp on the floor of the basin got up to over 110 degrees.
Yep over 80 degree change in temp in one day. That's the desert.
Anyway, after the hike and some fun time at the Window, we decided to head further south, down to Castolon, where the old store was. By this time, I was thinking "Air Conditioning and Cold Water" and that pushed me on.
About half way there we caught up with the Schwan's truck. Many of you know that Schwan's is a grocery supply company that delivers their goods in uniquely painted (refrigerated) trucks. What you may not know is one of the things they are most known for is - you guessed it- ice cream.
Perfect, I though. We'll get to the store just in time for some ice cream. And that's what we did. There's nothing better when you're hot, tired and sweaty than that cold, creamy goodness.
And the store was something else. Also known as La Harmonia, it's been a staple of the region since before the Park came into being. And looked it. Old hardwood floors, an old fashioned ice box and quirky decorations made you feel like you'd walked back in time when you stepped across the threshold.
So, when I finally made my way back to Big Bend, one of my goals was to finish my day with an ice cream under the shady pergola at the store. What I didn't expect to find was a burned out husk.
Yep, after over 90 years, and a whole lot of history, the store was no more. Now, I got different stories when I asked what happened. Either a lightning strike started a fire in Mexico that jumped the river and burned over 700 acres of the park, including the store, or the good citizens of Santa Elena, Mexico just across the Rio Grande and their habit of burning their trash were responsible. It doesn't really matter. The old store was gone.
I haven't heard yet whether the store will be rebuilt, and the NPS have set up a temporary store (yes it has ice cream) as well as some new interpretive exhibits, but it's just not the same. I sure hope everything comes back. I'm keeping track.
This isn't to say you shouldn't go there. Oh, no. A trip to the Park isn't the same without going to Castolon, and you need to go to Santa Elena Canyon about 8 miles further on where you can walk right up to the river over shadowed by the enormous peaks of the pass. It's just incredible.
There's so much more to the park. From all of the mountains, to the contrasts between stark desert and lush succulent cactus groves. From the hilarious antics of the paisanos (roadrunners) and the eagles soaring over head. From the dizzying heights at Elephant Tusk to the depths of the many canyons. And don't forget the dinosaurs! They have a new exhibit of some of those fossils Kathy helped find. I didn't make it to that, but I have an excuse to go back (like I needed one.)
You can't do it in a day, but you sure can do a lot.
That's it for now. I've got a lot more adventures ahead. I'm currently in San Felipe, TX, about to make my way out of Texas for the rest of the winter and spring. I'll be trekking through the Southeast for a few months. Can't wait to get the next chapter started.
I've got a whole lot more of Texas to write about though, so stay tuned!
Later, Folks.
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