Desert Rats!

Every time I go on a camping trip with my family I am reminded how much I truly love spending time outdoors with them with no other distractions.  No TV, no internet, no office work, no distractions, just fresh air, family time, and lots of outdoor adventures. This year we decided to step out of our neighborhood and venture down to Big Bend.  It was everything that we hoped it would be: remote, good for kids, vast, and beautiful!  It is a fun park with a lot of natural diversity, history, hiking, and off-roading.  We were able to spend a week there and get a pretty good taste for how awesome it was.

We left Friday and stopped at my brother's house to visit.  They made us delicious tacos and it was great to see them.  Grant and Pace sure enjoyed playing with the kitty toys.  The kitties were too timid to come meet us.  But we did get to see shadow.

We arrived just late enough on Saturday night to realize that the small mountain campground was full besides a less than desirable spot near the trash.  So we made our way down to the Rio Grande Village Campground.  It was a shady oasis in the desert, perfect for kids to run around and unfortunately a mosquito haven.  After just a half an hour it looked like Pace was suffering from a bad case of chicken pox (he must have been more allergic than the rest of us, because we were all getting bit but they swelled up on him more than the rest of us).  But we enjoyed ourselves after the purchase of a heavy duty bug repellent and citronella candle.  We even encountered our first javalina (looks like a furry pic, but is actually a member of the peccary family).

A javalina visiting our neighbor's camp

Since we are on the topic of javalina's, I will tell you about the night they really freaked me out.  I was making my way to the restrooms in the very dark (Big Bend is known for having the best night skies for a reason, they even turn off most of the restroom lights, which is awesome), when I realized I heard a large animal grunting and moving around to my left.  This scared me, because there are bear and mountain lions in the area.  My flashlight was very dim, but I was finally able to ensure that it was a javalina only to realize I was in the middle of a small herd(pack maybe?) of them.  It still made me a little nervous to be surrounded by them at night, but they were friendly enough.

Pace hiking to Boquillas Canyon

Enjoying the Rio Grande

Our  first full day we let Pace put on his hiking shoes and we hiked down into Bosquillas Canyon.  I had heard mixed reviews of it's beauty, but I am not sure why because we were blown away by the beautiful desert landscapes and amazing beauty of the canyon.  Pace loved playing in the sand and the river.  We were also serenaded by some Mexican's across the river and we made sure to give them a big round of applause.
That afternoon, because it was in the high 90ies and we wanted to escape the heat we did some off-roading to an old abandoned quicksilver mine.  We made sure not to touch the old bricks and such to avoid mercury poisoning.  It was a lot of fun to explore the place and look in some of the old mine shafts.

Yucca plants, we thought they were pretty cool desert plants, they are all over Big Bens

The mine

Our second day we went to Ernst Tinaja, which is a little out of the way, but are deep rock pools flash flood waters carved out.  They were much deeper than we expected.  Then we relaxed in the hot springs nearby.  Pace was really scared, and just sat by the edge most of the time, but Grant loved it.  It felt great even though it was so warm outside, really refreshing.  And we got to stick our feet over into the Rio Grand which was right next to the hot spring.  We then moved our camp up to the Chisos Basin.  It was nice to have the temperature get a little and actually want to use our sleeping bags (it still only got down in the 60ies).

Rock hopping on our way to Ernst Tinaja

Ernst Tinaja

The biggest of the pools

Happy to be out in the desert

Ruins of the old resort that used to be by the Hot Springs

He doesn't like being in the hot springs

This guy did (you can also see how close it was to the river

Our picnic in paradise

The next day was our mountain day.  We hiked the Lost Mine Trail, up to Lost Mine Peak.  The views were incredible, and I just love mountain hikes.  We saw out into the desert where we had been playing the previous days.  Then in the afternoon, we took Pace out of that pack and all hiked to Cattail falls at the base of the mountains.  It was a hot, but beautiful hike.  Then because it was Jake's birthday we went out to eat at the Chisos Mountain Lodge and had a date night stargazing, while the boys slept in the car.

along the Lost Mine Trail

We liked the rainbow colors in the rock

At the top

Pace didn't want to have his picture taken

The views from Cattail Falls trail head

Our oasis in the desert

Cattail Falls

It's hard to believe this desert hike led us to the Cattail Falls Oasis

On Wednesday we woke up before the sun (which is really not that early in Big Bend, it doesn't get light until almost 8 at this time of year), and went down to Santa Elena Canyon for the sunrise.  The water was high, so we had to do a little bushwhacking to get to a point where we could cross the creek crossing.  It was probably Pace's favorite hike of the whole trip (although Boquillas Canyon was a close second for him).  He loved that we could make "echos" the whole hike.  He loved the stairs in the steep parts and of course he loved the Rio Grande.  We had lunch at the old village/army post Castalon and learned about the history there.  Then we meandered up Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, checking out Tuff Canyon and Burro Mesa Pouroff.  Of course we stopped at all the exhibits while the boys took naps :)

We saw tons of road runners.  Pace loved chasing them. 

Our prarie dog friend on the way to Santa Elena Canyon

Echoing in Santa Elena

Enjoying throwing rocks in the river

At the end of the trail

A view from a distance of the canyon

Castalon

Old cotton farming equipment, or as Pace called it a "choo-choo"

Tuff Canyon

Top of Tuff Canyon

The Mule Ears

Burro Mesa Pouroff

Pace found a lizard who constantly kept coming back to this rock no matter how many times Pace bugged him.  Pace kept telling me he was going to say hi to the lizard.

Our last day of exploring we hiked grapevine hills and went to check out the ghost town of Terlingua, which had a cool cemetery, but we couldn't really classify it as a ghost town, because it was just a town with ruins in it.  We were a bit disappointed.  But our disappointment didn't last long because we discovered a not-on-the-map ghost town while driving old Maverick Road in the afternoon.  Terlingua Abaja, which was a farming community up until the 30ies.

A particularly rocky part of the trail

Enjoying life

Under Balanced Rock

Love this picture of Jake

Balanced rock from the other side

The next day we got up very early and drove home.  It was a long drive, but the family time at Big Bend was worth it. Sorry it was such a long post, but what can I say, camping with my family is awesome!

A creepy, BIG centipede we found.

Terlingua Cemetary

Luna's Jacal

Perigrine falcon perched on an ocotillo plant

The Chisos

The sunset through the window (right by our campsite)

He kept asking for the tent.  I guess he likes that better than his bed.