Big Bend National Park

I have been to more than half a dozen national parks in the West: Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Rocky Mountain to name a few. These annual summer camping trips no doubt inspired my childhood dream of becoming a forest ranger (I signed up to be a Junior Ranger at nearly every park) and later, in high school, to participate in an outdoor program where I led camping and backpacking trips for middle school students while teaching them wilderness skills and ethics. With the amount of gear I own sometimes I think I could be a model for REI.

Big Bend had somehow fallen to the bottom of the list, or perhaps in all honesty, was never on it. For one thing, the weather gets so hot there during the summer that the south side of the park pretty much shuts down. Maybe I didn't think Texas was capable of holding the same kind of breathtaking beauty I had found in Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming. I certainly didn't think the state had mountains, and still, the highest peak is only 8,000 feet, nothing compared to the fourteeners of Colorado. But my perspective has changed; the park was beautiful and I can't remember the last time I could see stars all the way to the horizon. We camped at Chisos Basin, the only campground in the park nestled in the "mountains" and took day hikes. It's more than worth a repeat visit, next time maybe to backpack and kayak the Rio Grande (if there's still enough water).

Somewhere in the Middle of West Texas...

Little Pinky, where my mom and I stayed

there's a small quirky artist town called Marfa. To some, this town is known as just another place the hipsters flock to because it's the latest cool thing to do in a long list of trends soon to be forgotten. I'll admit, I did see a lot of them. As for me, I had no idea Marfa existed until my parents took a trip there a few years ago. And thus far, my adventurous free spirit has drawn me to some pretty interesting places...

I think it's my art school sensibility that made me find Marfa equally enticing and pleasantly amusing. Where I went to school, the definition of competitive sports was a recreational soccer team named The Black Lungs because everyone on the team was a smoker and a "cheerleading" squad named Rah Booty which was in reality a mixture of SNL-style improv and dance routines remarkably similar to Dance Dance Revolution. So the people and the energy of the town weren't all that shocking to me. I've seen as strange, if not stranger things having spent four years surrounded by these kinds of people, for in many ways, from a creative standpoint, they are part of my tribe.

Of course Marfa isn't all it's cracked up to be; as far as small towns go, it's pretty typical. But the quirks are in the details. We got to town around six in the evening and after a short happy hour we had a little trouble finding somewhere to eat, partly because it was late and partly because everything in town seems to open and close when they please. Maybe they're open. Maybe they're not. This restaurant is open this day, but not this day. They're usually open until this time but sometimes close early or stay open later... After a while I think this would be irritating, but in the short time we were there, it was just another thing I found amusing. The next morning we found Marfa Burrito, the kind of restaurant you wouldn't set foot in unless someone told you about it, but oh man was the food good. Ramona, the Hispanic woman who owns/runs the place doesn't speak English, so you're limited in what you order by the amount of Spanish you speak unless there's grandchild or a border patrol agent to help you.

We stayed in a trailer park/campground called El Cosmico. Looking around, I found that I couldn't stop laughing and smiling. The compound of vintage trailers, teepees, and safari tents shares a fence with the headquarters of the local border patrol. We rented Little Pinky, a small trailer painted a color I like to call Barbie pink. Pinky is just big enough for two people, though if you're over six feet tall you wouldn't be able to stand up straight. Off the deck is a shower and flush toilet, so it can feel more like "glamping" than camping.

From left to right: Kozy Coach, Vagabond, Branstrator

Royal Mansion, Spartan Mansion

yurt

teepees

Vagabond, Kozy Coach

Wagons to haul your stuff from the parking lot

Food Shark food truck