Big Bend National Park

Trailside Shopping Ops

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / border / Cottonwood Campground / coyotes / Mexican souvenirs / nature trail / Rio Grande River / roadrunners / sunset / Texas / travel by

Cottonwood campground in Big Bend National Park, Texas, has many usual campground attractions and way more.  We watched coyotes trot casually across our backyard.  Roadrunners scurried a few steps, cranked their tails up and down, scurried, cranked, scurried, cranked. Then a neighbor alerted us of spectacular nature trail sunsets–and shopping.  Not just any shopping, illicit border infiltration shopping! Before we got to the nature trail to peruse the wares, we discovered another shopping outlet on a scenic overlook.  As we took in the view, Steve noticed a man across the Rio Grande who climbed into a boat and rowed our […]

Rowboat to Mexico

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / Boquillas / caves / donkeys / ferry / guide / Mexican restaurants / Mexico / Port of Entry / Shopping / travel by

Red flags lofted at the suggestion of a side trip to Mexico, so I asked the Information Desk staffer in Big Bend National Park. “You are safer here than in your home town,” she claimed.  (Apparently she considers the Mexican village of Boquillas part of Big Bend.) The next surprise was the Port of Entry, a nice official building on a dirt path leading to the Rio Grande River–no road, no bridge, no Immigration officials, just a friendly Parks employee who prompted us to check and see if our passports were expired or we’d picked up another family member’s by […]

How Do These Holes Happen?

 in camping / Snowbirding / Texas / Wildlife/animals  tagged Big Bend National Park / camping / Ernst Tinajas / fox / hike / hydrologic holes / pond / rock formations / snowbird / trail / travel by

I hadn’t expected anything like this when we hiked to one of the highlights recommended in Big Bend National Park.  Tinaja is Spanish for pond, so I’d assumed oasis which would naturally be a big draw in arid Big Bend.  The formations were even cooler though, especially when a fox trotted into the canyon and left a deposit in my path.  (Apparently he was delivering a message: get outta my yard!) On seeing the tinajas, the holes’ symmetry made me wonder if people had somehow bored them.  But who would have taken so much trouble, and why? A month later […]