We spent this weekend in Big Bend National Park. The scenery began being amazing as we drove to the park, and mainly because of how remote the place is. There's rural, and then there's rural. Driving west on I10 from San Antonio, we realized that we were seeing no signs of humanity at all. This continued throughout the drive to the park. Not only were there no towns or businesses, but there were no houses at all. Oftentimes, there weren't even any other cars on the interstate, and when we started timing it, we went for 20 minutes without seeing a house or a car or anything other than desert scenery.
Desert scenery is so unique and beautiful. It made me think two things. First, that I love having the chance to see it!! And second, that I could never live here. But we sure can appreciate it!
After driving through all the scenery and into the park, we walked around a bit at a really scenic picnic spot, and continued on to the Rio Grande River.
A naturalist in Big Bend checked our passports and approved this next adventure, but it's a move that my mom, as she reads this, is going to think is a bad choice (sorry, Mom!). We found a nice Mexican man down at the Rio Grande who paddled us across the river to Mexico.
I was surprised how beautiful the Rio Grande was! I'd pictured the border between the U.S. and Mexico to be all sandy desert, and the Rio Grande as deep and brown. However, it was so scenic! And very windy!
We arrived close to a small town in Mexico of about 200 people. Like Big Bend, it was a very rural town, with lots of sand and wind, dirt roads, and a lot more donkeys and horses than vehicles. We rode into town on burros. The day immediately became one of the kids' favorite days of our trip.
For $5 per person, we got our two mile burro ride and also a tour of the town. After our guide understood that we really didn't want to see the bars in town with our four kids, he took us around to see the school, the church, the houses, and the grocery store. It was awesome. I love seeing other countries and cultures, people and languages, and I love that our kids are having the opportunity to see it, too!
After we arrived back in the U.S. and cleared immigration over the telephone, we continued exploring Big Bend park. A short hike brought us to the hot springs in the park, very close to where we'd re-entered the U.S. We've swum in springs before, but never in a hot spring, and it was fantastic, scenic, and relaxing. Char and I were able to jump from the hot springs into the Rio Grande and swim around in the river. It had quite a strong current, so we weren't able to let our kids in the river, but they thoroughly enjoyed the hot springs.
It was an absolutely perfect day!
While in Big Bend, we also did some hiking. Again, the whole area is fantastically beautiful!
We had a fun rock-throwing contest to see who could throw rocks across the river into Mexico. Then we explored a little creek, with the area entirely to ourselves. Big Bend is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, so it is very easy to find secluded areas in nature where our kids could run and yell and not bother anyone.
Big Bend National Park is now one of my favorite places ever, and I highly recommend going there!! Thanks for Sheila and Kate for recommending it to us! We hope that your week is going well, too, and that you're also able to be out in the beauty God created in this world. We hope you have a great week!
2 comments:
What a great adventure!!! And an amazing education for your children. Making us want to hit the road again... soon!
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