Next morning was time to pack up and head to Big Bend. The Prof trekked up to the front desk to fetch us some coffee, and then we took our last shower for the next few days. After getting the boys dressed and packed up, we headed to Porter’s, the local grocery store, and I filled our cart. The boys begged for quarters and each of them got a small plastic capsule of “space putty,” whatever that is. They spent the entire ride to Big Bend playing with it, shaping it and making up stories.
We headed down 118 South, through the small picturesque town of Alpine, Texas, then across some plains dotted with scrubby low trees, green tufts of grasses, and the occasional isolated house, most of them with their own windmill out front. Buttes and small hills rose out of the landscape, here and there. Dirt roads peeled off the main road, most with a ramshackle gate declaring the entrance to the “Silver Dollar Ranch” or “East Rim Ranch” or whatever. We passed a strange border check many miles from the border – we drove right through it, though we would be stopped on the way back in.
The road became more roller coaster like – ups and downs. The boys saw butts in every hill formation – look, there’s a butt! Look, another butt! That one’s a BIG butt! Liam said that mountains were his second favorite habitat after the jungle, because you can climb and then see everything below you. We will see if he maintains this attitude when we start our first hike. The boys hadn’t touched a screen in hours and they seemed content to look out the window and chat to each other.
We arrived at Big Bend at about midday. We were staying at the Chisos Basin campground, which Craig called Cheetos Basin. We drove around surveying the various empty spots, and settled on campsite 40 – it had a picnic table with a canopy for sun cover, and an ample bear box where I set up our temporary pantry. We let the boys range around the campground while we set things up. Later, they told us stories of climbing big rocks and Craig getting stuck, and having to problem solve how to get him down.
After a lunch of PB&J, Cheez-its, fruit and chocolate milk, we piled into the car and headed for a drive around the park. First stop – the Visitor’s Center, where we paid for our campsite and got some maps and picked up a few essentials at the little shop. We then packed into the car and headed toward the Hot Springs, a natural hot spring near the Rio Grande. Most of the drive was paved, but the last bit was gravel road – one definitely needs a 4WD to truly enjoy this place, as much of the fun stuff is at the end of a nearly impassable gravel road.
We hopped out of the car and head toward a cluster of palm trees – a caricature of an oasis in the desert.
Stalks of what looked like corn – but probably were not corn – separated the path from the Rio Grande, which was rushing along just the other side of us. To the left were sheer sedimentary cliffs, the layers jutting up at a 45 degree angle from the earth, thrust up by some magnificent force and eroding at apparently different speeds. My city boy, Jack, stuck close by, ever watchful for scorpions and tarantulas, while Craig and Liam ran ahead with their father. We wandered along the river on an uneven path and eventually found the hot springs, completely subsumed by the rushing Rio Grande. Liam had carried his swimsuit the whole way down, but his hopes were dashed at the sight of the swirling, muddy rapids below. We turned and headed back to the car, stopping at one point to watch as a group of horse-mounted shepherds herded a flock of lowing, belled sheep along the Mexico side of the river. A tiny rabbit darted across our path, and later a pretty decent sized lizard. Nary a scary desert creature in sight yet – except these giant, fat, ropy centipedes, which are everywhere.
Back in the car once more, we drove around the park to the Boquillas Crossing, which was closed. When it is not closed, you can catch a rowboat across the river to Boquillas del Carmen in Mexico, and eat lunch at a little café there. We had our passports just in case, but alas, no Mexican adventures for us. Instead, we pulled up at the Boquillas overlook and took some photos of the little town a stone’s throw away.
After taking a turn around another campsite, our next stop was to take a nearly impassable gravel road about four miles up to the Ernst Tinaja backcountry campground, where we caught the trailhead for the Ernst Tinaja trail up to a natural well. There were a large number of puddles – at one point, I made the Prof walk through one to be sure we wouldn’t be swamped as we drove through.
Once we made it to the end of the track, we parked our old Pilot – which was crusted with mud and feeling feisty. We walked along a largely dry riverbed, boys leaping from rock to rock, occasionally falling with a spectacular splash (or glop, into thick, sucking mud). At one point, Craig put his hand on a cactus, and after I pulled the tiny orange tines out with my fingernails, he kept on going like a trooper, talking all the while about his “orange pokes.” Liam and the Prof were up ahead for most of this hike. I wore sandals, not realizing we were doing a hike-hike, and ended up slipping and sliding somewhat. Eventually, we made it into a sheer canyon, and a few hundred yards in the mouth of the canyon was the natural well.
Then we headed back, slipping and sliding again. Jack took a full in dive right into a bush, and we all held our breath until he leaped up unscathed and we realized it was NOT a cactus. The boys leaped from rock to rock, and we washed our muddy shoes in the stream, and eventually we piled our muddy selves into the muddy car and boogied home. It was 7:00 pm by the time we finally got back to the paved road, after splashing puddles. We saw the rain and lightning over our campsite from the drive home, and I wondered how on earth I would be able to make sloppy joes and potatoes roasted in foil packets for dinner in a thunderstorm.
The rain was just starting when we pulled into our campsite. We shooed the kids into the tent to get pjs on and stay dry, and the Prof set up the campstove while I pulled out the ingredients. I switched the menu to chicken fajitas, as they were simpler and quicker, and got two pans heating up – one for chicken strips and one for strips of peppers and onions. All of a sudden, the wind whipped up, and a gale began. Raining sideways, and hard – lightning everywhere. I blocked the wind with my body to keep the fire from going out, and kept cooking. The kids stayed in the tent whooping and hollering at each thunder clap, while I obsessively checked the flames to make sure they hadn’t blown out. Finally, dinner was cooked, right about when the rain started to slack off. The kids stumbled out of the tent and ate fajitas standing up. It was 9:15 pm and so bright it looked like 6pm out there, and we ate standing under a rain-washed sky.
The rain started up again not long after, so rather than wash the dishes we wiped them out and put them in the bear box, and then got into dry pajamas and crawled into the tent. We own cots that bunk, so Craig and Liam shared bunk beds, and Jack, the Prof and I slept on our Therma Rests on the tent floor. I use the term “slept” loosely. The gale returned, it thundered and lightning’d and poured, and although the tent stayed mostly dry (just a few drips here and there), our oldest son had numerous anxiety attacks, leaping up to a standing position in a panic, scrabbling to get out of the tent. He did this at least seven times, and every time I had to talk him down and tuck him back in. I patted his back and it felt like a man’s back – broad shouldered, strong and muscular. What a strange age he is, man and not man at all.
Would that Jack’s panic attacks were the only excitement of the night, but unfortunately at about 2am the Prof woke up covered in warm vomit. Craig threw up four times through the night, and once in the morning. He was fine thereafter, so who knows, but we prayed that it wasn’t a tummy bug that would spread. Meantime, we were in a small tent with five people and a not insignificant amount of puke, and so I fumbled out to get some paper towels while the Prof cleaned everything up as best he could. At one point, trying to locate a trash bag for the paper towels, I tucked the car keys under my armpit and set the alarm off. It was almost comical – I mashed the button ten times before realizing I was mashing the button on the WRONG key, and meanwhile I saw a light go on in every tent around me and every single car flashed and beeped once – everyone was worried it was their car and they re-set them just in case. Finally I got the thing to stop wailing, we got the kid cleaned up and a bucket by his head, and we settled down for five minutes before Jack leapt up in a panic.
We passed the night with little sleep and lots of kid-needs, but the sun did eventually come. We slurped down surprisingly decent instant coffee, washed every pot and plate from the night before, I hand washed Craig’s pillow and pillow case and scrubbed the tent floor and the cot, and we slathered everyone and everything in hand sanitizer. Hopeful that would do the trick, we let Craig have sips of water and made some bacon and Southwest style scrambled eggs and honeydew melon for breakfast, our wet washed things drip drying on rocks all around the campsite.
The boys made friends with a couple of kids from Fort Worth – Titus (9) and Stella (6). They ranged around the campground all morning. My favorite part of tent camping is the little community that forms – you sometimes get to know your tent camping neighbors better than the neighbors you live beside. The kids can run wild and no adults complain, because generally everyone is of a like mind (at least with regards to kids free ranging). Craig kept down his water, and eventually a powdered donut, and felt well enough to go range around himself. At around midday, we piled back in the car for another adventure.
We headed toward Santa Elana canyon, looking forward to a hike through it. Unfortunately, the river was so high, we were unable to do the short hike through the canyon, as the trail was washed out. But we took some pictures. Craig threw up one more time so we decided to spend most of the time in the car on a scenic drive. The rock formations were all different colors. The AC was nice.
We came back and chilled under the shade. It was warmer, but the breeze was lovely. Craig slept in the car for a couple of hours, while the kids ran around, and the Prof and I sat in camp chairs and just looked around at the massive scale of the mountains we were nestled beneath. Titus and Stella were out on their own adventures, and the boys began complaining they were bo-ored. So I shifted our snoozing Craig into the Prof’s lap, and then the big boys and I drove down the street to get ice creams from the local shop. They got Jolly Rancher push pops, and I got one of those chocolate chip cookie and vanilla ice cream sandwiches. We piled back in the car with our ice creams, and drove a mile or so up to the Lost Mine trailhead. The Lost Mine trail is 4 miles there and back, and we did just a small portion of it – about one mile up, and one mile back down. It was a pretty gentle grade up, but given we are above 5,000 feet and we’re used to sea level, all of us had to stop periodically to gulp air. As Liam said – “it feels like I just can’t breathe deep enough.” There was a sign at the beginning of the hike warning to be on the lookout for mountain lions and bears, and so of course Jack was stressed about them the whole way. The cicadas were whirring, and he was convinced the sound was a rattlesnake’s rattle. That kid inherited my jumpiness for sure.
We took pictures at various points, trying and failing to capture the scale of what we were seeing. I tried a couple of times to take pictures of the boys, but they wanted me in it and insisted on a selfie. 😉 Jack found a smooth, solid stick that had been shucked of bark and branches, and from that point until we left, he was doing ninja sword moves and making noises. He almost whacked me in the face a couple of times. I made him leave it behind when we left.
Once we reached a vista about a mile up the trail (our turnaround point), Liam surveyed the stunning scene and said, breathlessly, “this was worth it.” Indeed it was – a really special moment with my two biggest guys.
We headed back down and piled in the car. Back at the campsite, the Prof had gotten a thermarest out of the tent and laid it on the concrete patio where our picnic table was, and Craig was lolling on it, awake but lazy and lounging. Titus and Stella still weren’t around yet, so Jack and Liam headed over to their rock and chatted together, while the Prof and I puttered around getting dinner together. I punctuated dinner prep with some push ups, pulses, step ups, and stretches – trying not to lose my strength I’ve earned from working with a trainer, and hopeful that tonight’s sleep would not be the back-knotting misadventure that last night’s was.
Tonight’s menu was sloppy joes, asparagus folded into a foil packet with some oil and then sealed up and placed on hot coals, quartered new potatoes + minced onions + a pat of butter cooked the same way, and for dessert – stovetop cake! It was more like a cobbler/cake/dumping hybrid. I put a can of cherry pie filling in a deep pot, and added a smidge of water to it and mixed it up. Then I dumped half a box of yellow Duncan Hines cake mix on top, spread around evenly. I lopped off 3 tablespoon sized hunks of spreadable butter (the only kind we have here), and plopped them around the top. Then I put it on the campstove on high, with the sloppy joe pan on top (sloppy joes were cooked, this just kept it warm while the potatoes finished cooing). Once I saw steam coming out, I turned it to low for 10 minutes, and then turned off the heat and left it another 15 minutes, leaving the pan on top. Afterwards, the big reveal – voila! Something vaguely resembling cake/cobbler! It tasted good, too. There were just a couple of pockets of powder left, but it was mostly mixed pretty well, a good texture/consistency, and it tasted great.
Craig ate nothing. I had to practically sit on Liam to get him to eat anything, so desperate was he to run and play with Titus and Stella. They ate their vegetables, some of their potatoes, and a decent amount of sloppy joe, and then off they went while the Prof and I cleaned up. The kids gathered a few more children from the camp – eventually there were about 10-15 all ranging around. At one point, Liam came back to get something and said to me “I am having an absowute bwast!!” They all ended up at a neighboring campsite playing some sort of card game, and having, as Liam noted, an absolute blast. Jack came down to ask if they could take some candy from the “sheriff” – eventually we figured out it was the ranger, and we thanked them for asking us and then said yes. He passed out blow pops to everybody, and each one of my sons brought “one for me.” I’m not sure if they actually sweetly wanted me to have one, or if they cleverly figured out that I wouldn’t want it and they’d get two. In any case, I collected “mine,” and now I have three for them to eat later on.
A little after nine, we gathered our feral boys, forced them to say good night to their friends (the cruelty!), and took them all to the bathroom to attempt to wash some of the stickier parts of them with a washcloth. We brushed teeth, put on pjs, and everyone went to bed. This night was much more reasonable – right when we went to bed, the wind picked up, but it died down pretty quickly. We left all of the windows unzipped and a breeze moved the air around somewhat. At the elevation of over 5,000 feet, it was quite cool at night – in the 60s. Very reasonable weather for sleeping. Jack still woke up once or twice, hollering some nonsense, and at one point he (sleepwalking) absolutely insisted that my rear end was his pillow. So I had to let him fall asleep with his head on my butt for a while, and then eventually I snuck his pillow over and traded spots with it. He also panicked at one point about being in his sleeping bag – like it was a maw swallowing him up. Luckily, he had a loose blanket and it wasn’t cold, so he crawled under that. If we’d had bourbon, I would have made him drink some and chill the heck out. THIS CHILD. I pity his future college roommate/significant other.
Being awaked multiple times, while annoying, did allow me to do some stargazing through the windows. The stars were, predictably, stunning. If I hadn’t been in a tent full of people that I’d have to step on to get up, I would have stepped outside, flipped open a camp chair, and stared for a while. It was all in all a much better night’s sleep, which would make the next day much more pleasant for all.