Sometimes things don’t work out as planned. We left White’s City, NM on June 29th with about a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us to reach Big Bend National Park in Texas. Dave became very concerned about the condition of the truck’s tires and since we’d be in remote locations the next couple of days, he finally made the decision that we needed to replace them immediately.
We stopped in Van Horn, TX, the closest “city” and were not able to find a shop with tires. Dave called around a bit with no luck and decided we’d need to backtrack to El Paso to reach a Discount Tire with the tires in stock. We were stuck in a strip-mall parking lot in El Paso for 2 hours. Dave had to disconnect the camper so the truck could be brought into the Discount Tire. Jack and I took care of the very confused doggies and hid inside the camper waiting for the A/C to cool it off (thank you generator!!).
The people at Discount Tire were fast and friendly, and meanwhile we decided to patronize The Little Shack – a delicious seafood/taco spot with a to-go option – for dinner. Then Jack and I stopped over to Fahrenheit 32 for some ice cream. All in all, our little strip-mall in El Paso did not disappoint!
Back on the road around 5:00, we now had 5 or 6 hours of driving ahead of us to reach Big Bend. The drive is a blur of frustration and exhaustion, and it happened mostly in the dark. We reached the entrance to Big Bend National Park around 11:30 pm, but Google was saying we still had another hour and a half. Yes, an hour and a half inside the park to reach the RV Village. There were so many deer, and raccoon-bears, and bug-bat-birds that our nerves were shot, but we finally pulled into the RV park around 1:00 am.
I got out with my phone/flashlight (as instructed by park staff when I called earlier) to find our name posted on a site. It was not there. I’d gone around the parking lot that was the “RV Park” twice, assaulted by the giant bugs that were attracted to my phone, and did not find a site with our name on it. There were about 20 sites total, only 4 or 5 were occupied, so we decided to pick a spot away from others so as not to disturb them and set up for the night. In the morning we’d talk with the rangers and sort everything out.
The next morning was hot, we were tired, and just done with the desert. There were vultures lurking in the trees around us as we moved over to our assigned spot. Our name-card had been safely placed in a folder in the Ranger’s office instead of on our site the night before. And then the power went out.
We made a quick, executive decision to skip the 2nd night in Big Bend, find a KOA halfway to our next location, and leave the desert behind us. So, we technically spent the night in Big Bend National Park, but I would not say that we visited the park. As we left, we also drove through Gaudalupe Mountains National Park.
Here is the sum total of the pictures I took for these days:
