Day 23: Marathon, TX to Fort Stockton, TX

Stops:

Big Bend NP

We woke up in the morning with the electricity back on. A quick shower and we were rolling down the road towards Big Bend NP. We passed up another Immigration checkpoint.  We'll have to deal with them on the way out.

The storm from last night had passed with the sun breaking through the clouds. It was going to be a beautiful day. 

Big Bend is full of wildlife at dawn.  We saw turkey vultures, a western coachwhip snake (non-venomous), a pack of javelinas, road runners, rabbits, and many species of birds. We even saw some cows trying to illegally cross from Mexico to the US.

Yes, the Rio Grande river is a natural border between the US and Mexico which would explain the high concentration of US Border Patrol agents.

The Chisos Mountains dominate the backdrop to the park, but you can also see the canyon walls of Mexico which were carved out by the Rio Grande. The crack in the canyon walls is where the Rio Grande forks. The area is known as the Santa Elena Canyon.  The left side is Mexico and the right side is the US. 

We wanted to hike the right side, but the storms of the previous night flooded the trailhead making it impassable for at least a few days.

Just outside of the park is the Terlingua Ghost Town. When you come upon it, the first thing you see is the cemetery followed by the ruins of houses. Terlingua was a once a mining town.

The Window Trail, which starts off by the Chisos Mountain campground, leads you to a crack in the rock which overlooks the canyon floor.  The rock was almost glasslike, thanks to the running water that was once there. Some of the rocks look like stacked thin layers stuck together.

Here, we encountered monarch butterflies, very loud cicadas, dragonflies, and mule deer. There were sightings of a small black bear, but we didn't come upon it. BTW, every region of Big Bend is covered by at least one mountain lion.

The trail also has large agave plants. For comparison, you can see how tall one is. Everything's bigger in Texas, even the centipedes

The Boquilles Canyon is near the Rio Grand Village in Big Bend. You can see houses in Mexico from there and it makes for a beautiful place to watch the sun set. On our way there we spotted a rattlesnake next to the road. Did you know that the coachwhip snake actually eats rattlesnakes?

Time to leave the park and head out to Fort Stockton, TX.  We finally came across that immigration checkpoint that I mentioned earlier.  With 3 agents checking out Moby and a drug sniffing dog, we carried a short little conversation before being allowed to continue.  Should be the last one we need to deal with.