Cat's Musings

I found my heart in Big Bend National Park

For some extra immersion, try listening to the brilliant The Legend of Big Bend by Montopolis, an amazing band out of Austin.

A little over a week ago, I detailed my first ever camping trip as an adult and the utter comedy of errors it had become. The school year that followed that summer (my second year) was the worst year of my life. I was beginning to resent that I still lived in my hometown despite turning 30 in less than a year. Almost my entire schedule was awful: I was teaching a new prep (which is now what I specialize in, and is my favorite subject to teach) and my old prep classes were in full on revolt. I wrote more referrals that year than I have in my life.

Plus, I was dealing with very negative intrusive thoughts. I was in the early interview process for a truck driving job. I knew I was hitting a breaking point that September when I discovered a lump on my back. I reached out to a doctor and, on a whim, I also reached out to a therapist. One of the many great pieces of guidance she gave me was to seek out activities to do. She pointed out how fondly I talked about my camping trip - why not try something bigger like I had originally planned?

I got home and planned to make an honest try of it again. I looked for nearby national parks and found Big Bend. It was further west than I had ever been, and was apparently one of the most remote parks in the US. I scheduled this for the beginning of my Thanksgiving break now nearly ten years ago.

The Chisos Mining Company - old housing for the mines from the Quicksilver veins redone as a hotel. Great price, friendly people, and very quiet at the time of my visit.

I arranged my stay at the Chisos Mining Company Motel at Terlingua, Texas. It was one of the cheapest and simplest accommodations I could find. Looking at their website, the same single room I rented for around $50 a night is now $109. Just a bed, a room, and a shower. And $109 is still such a good price. Fuck inflation.

I had never seen mountains before. You've seen how flat where I grew up is. I'd never been west of San Antonio, so I stopped to take scenic pictures at Kerrville, Fredericksburg, and scenic stops every ten or so miles as elevation surged up and down with drama I had never seen before. Every sight was more beautiful than the last. I had a very bad camera phone at the time, so I stopped at a Walmart in a random city and bought a cheap digital camera, the same one that took the pictures you'll find in this blogpost. I've somehow stopped off in this city every time I've driven out to West Texas, yet I cannot remember its name.

I arrived first in Alpine, Texas. It's an interesting town

Alpine Texas, as seen from Sul Ross University

I nearly went to Sul Ross University and sometimes lament that I did not. That intensified when I realized I could have spent four years in what had to be the most beautiful place under the sky.

Shortly past Alpine, my Ford Fiesta crested a mountain - my first mountain! - and I lost cell service. Luckily, I had downloaded offline maps onto my phone, but I hadn't known that would happen. About an hour and a half later I pulled into dusty town that looked right out of a movie. Sand danced in the wind in front of the only visible building: a gas station. This gas station had a small general store and a diner. This place would be my favorite slice of civilization for the next four days.

I pulled down my phone, remembered it had no service, and went inside. A dust storm blew in not long after, and I watched it from the window while I ate a surprisingly good burrito. Once the squall had cleared, I returned to my car and continued my travels. The sun was beginning to set. I could see more color than I had ever seen in my life as the sun painted the landscape in an ethereal orange glow. Further into Terlingua I could see a few more businesses, but I took a right down the narrow road toward my motel. There were a handful of rental lodges arranged around the area, interspersed with partly collapsed houses, clearly old ruins.

One such example of the many ruins that dot the area

Some old shops were on the side of the road, including a handful of touristy stops in the Terlingua Ghost Town. It was starting to get dark, so I pulled over to a hotel in the ghost town to ask for directions as I had no idea where I was going by now and the night was pitch black beyond my headlights. I was at a crawl when I managed to see the sign from above just off to the right of the road.

The front office was closed, but they luckily had procedures for after hours check in. I got my key, found my single bed motel room and bedded down for the night.

The next morning, I was greeted with the beauty of the limitless sky and, with it, the tapestry of color painted across the heavens as the dawn rose.

Sunrise in the Chihuahua Desert.

Seriously, this picture does it no justice. The sky yawns above you, and the lack of man-made ambient light allows the morning to bloom in immaculate color. The world is completely quiet aside from the wind blowing over the desert. After I watched the sunrise, I went to the gas station where they were serving a breakfast buffet. I filled up on a hearty breakfast and got ready to drive to the park.

This post is getting very long though, so I think I'll stop there for now. I plan to come back to continue my love letter to Big Bend at some point.

Thank you for reading, if you made it this far~

This series has a Part 2 that you can read here.

#BigBendNP #adventure #nature