Taking the RV to Big Bend National Park

The Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park

Our friends didn't think we’d go on Monday, because the weather had been so bad here in New Mexico. But we had already left Las Cruces for Big Bend in Texas before the weather soured, and were clueless until our return today. Passing through El Paso, we could hardly see the nearby Franklin Mountains, which were a ghostly outline through the swirling sand. The wind whipped across the border from Juarez, occasionally limiting the visibility to a few hundred feet.

So by virtue of our RV trip, we missed most of a big howler. Good thing. We had headed east on I-10 to Van Horn, and then south through Valentine, Marfa, Alpine, and Marathon, with gorgeous weather nearly the whole time. We saw a family of javelinas by the roadside, but by the time I could stop and grab my camera, they had escaped deep into the chaparral. Same luck with the antelope we saw. There were lots of free-range cattle, and Nancy had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting a bull that had wandered onto the highway. He had trouble with his footing on the asphalt, but he found his way to safety. As we started back this morning, we saw five vultures perched on a wire fence and looking at a dead animal—like personal-injury lawyers checking out a potential client, I thought.

We met interesting people at the RV park in Marathon. A retired couple, for example—she a former prosecutor, he a former police detective. Back in the 1990s, they had just been back from their honeymoon about a week when she saw him on live television in a shootout with a man who had just murdered his girlfriend. Our companions were both fascinating; we could have listened to them reminisce all night.

Ocotillo in bloom

Our RV in Marathon, Texas

Cholla with nest (cactus wren, I think)

RV park grounds, Marathon, Texas

Big Bend National Park