Big Bend - See ya!

Daybreak!!! I can't remember being this excited about it. Well, maybe the time we camped at Furnace Creek campground... in Death Valley... in September. We set a new camp-tear down record that day.

I must mention that, sometime during the night, a vehicle showed up at the campground. At this point, I'm not sure if other humans nearby are a good thing or a bad thing. I waited to see if they were going to set up camp but
fell asleep before I saw any movement. When morning came, we discovered it was a pickup truck with a couple of bird watchers. I immediately lost interest and went about getting everyone rolling.


Gear stowed, we headed to the camp store for fuel, ice, and much needed laundry. As we washed clothes, we got some junk food for breakfast at the attached store. The clerk seemed downright shocked that anyone had camped there. That should have been a clue for us that we had somehow missed something.

I could almost see a lion creeping up on me!

Laundry done, before we bade a fast farewell to Rio Grande Village, I decided to indulge Azoica and walked with her to go see the Rio Grande. We walked about a mile before I called it quits. I've seen it many times before and this was not the time, place, or temperature to go see it. Especially when I know there's mountain lions about and the landscape looked right out of the movie "Ghost and the Darkness"!

Can you see the Rio Grande? Me neither.

Done with our river search, we headed to the Visitor Center to get our National Parks passports stamped. On the way, we saw a Rio Grande Overlook area and went to check it out. This is about as close as we were getting to seeing the river this trip. Azoica and Indi-Mac were the only ones tough enough to brave the heat. I settled for looking at the picture they took. The rest of us stayed in the non-existent shade drinking ice water. It was hot enough to melt asphalt - literally. Dennis' kickstand sank in the asphalt again, it was that hot.


Once we arrived at the Visitor Center, the ranger there seemed surprised we camped at Rio Grande Village (I'm starting to feel stupid by now) and recommended we take a look at Chisos Basin, 10 miles to the right (west) of the Visitor Center (we camped 20 miles east). I had originally chosen the campground based on laundry availability. Well, we decided to leave the girls at the Center doing Junior Ranger activities and ride the van over to Chisos and take a look. 

What a difference 10 miles make! The Basin campground is at a much higher elevation - hence much cooler - and with gorgeous scenery and awesome twisties to ride through. Granted, I would probably hurt myself trying to ride those hairpin turns but they did look awesome. For my safety's sake, it's probably a very good thing we were in the van this time. Next time....

I knew there was a mountain lion somewhere!!!

Well, not only was the drive half as long, the temperature much cooler, and the scenery much better, but they had full services there! There's even a lodge with attached restaurant! Even the secondary Visitor Center was great.


And there were quite a few people camping there, too. No deserted campground here! What makes this infinitely more ironic is that when we stopped in Van Horn the night before Big Bend, a local told us about Chisos and I completely forgot.


Lesson learned: When a local gives you advice, TAKE IT!