I was lucky enough to have been born in Texas and I have been immensely proud of that fact my entire life. Even though the summers are hotter than Hades and the only way to survive is to spend them submerged in a river… even though the winter weather fluctuates so much that we sometimes experience multiple seasonal changes within a single week, I love this state. Even though I have to drive for hours before I can cross the state line and even though a lot of words are “fightin’ words,” I love this state with all my heart! When I die, I want my heart to beat its final beat in Texas.

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It is because of this vast love for state that I can’t understand what took me so long to get to Big Bend National Park. My first trip to Big Bend wasn’t until December 2015. The second was in January 2017. I thoroughly enjoyed both trips. This place is deeply incredible… magical perhaps.

Big Bend Nat’l Park Hiking Recap

I stayed a week, RV camping with my two best friends—one of which happens to also be my sister. That’s the two of us pictured above, having a bit of a duel about whose rock is bigger… of course, I won. Day hiking by day and RV camping by night is really the best of both worlds. You get all the benefits of wild exploration and a warm shower/soft bed. Don’t misunderstand me, though. I also love to rough it.

We took a day hike nearly every day. We hiked The Window, Balanced Rock, Ernst Tinaja and a short trip to soak in the hot springs. We also hiked Closed Canyon in the Big Bend State Park. We re-created the 30-mile 4×4 drive we accidentally ventured on last year. This time; however, we did it by way of daylight. It was beautiful to see everything we missed last trip in the dark. We ventured to Marfa to try and see the mystery lights. We did see one strange set of lights. I don’t even know what it was. It was bizarre though. The rest of the lights we saw, I’m convinced, were just headlights off in the distance.

We also took a day trip to visit my second cousin, Franky, who owns a ranch just outside of Study Butte. Looking back, we should have scheduled more time for this trip. I did not know that once our tires left the pavement, we’d still have to drive an hour just to get to his camp. We arrived around 1 p.m. He and his friends fed us chicken soup and then he gave us a grand tour of the place on his ATV. Talk about a maze of dirt roads. Generally speaking, I have a pretty good sense of direction. However, I was lost most of this day. Franky even had to follow us on our way out for about 30 minutes to make sure we didn’t make any wrong turns. Surely enough, right where he suspected we’d turn wrong, we did. 

Enjoy these beautiful images of Big Bend National Park.

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