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 Page 1:Off to the middle of nowhere |
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| We woke up to some light snow on the ground to motivate us to get the hell out. This was Ang's spring break in March '99. Our destination was Big Bend State Park, an area tucked into the bend in the Rio Grange in the southwest part of Texas. |
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We just saw this driving out of town on East Wash. Looks like that bungie cord is holding the whole damn thing together. |
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| I took this as we neared our destination of Big Bend National Park. Note the haze-filled sky. This, unfortunately, was the big drawback of the trip. Apparently a coal plant in Mexico is causing all sorts of air pollution in Texas. It seemed to be the Park's dirty little secret. Pretty strange to have a smog problem out in the middle of nowhere. |  |
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They got lotsa these, that's for sure. |
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| The sunsets weren't as great as I would have expected. |  |
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But pretty cool nonetheless. |
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| It was a severe drought when we were there, so the landscape was almost universally drab... |  |
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...so we took pictures of any hint of color. |
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| The Rio Grande is the only body of water big enough to make it through the desert. All of the streams were bone dry. That's Mexico on the right side of the river. |  |
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We were amazed how easy it really is to get across the border. You don't even need to swim whem the water is this low; you can just wade. The water is actually pretty high in this picture, however, compared to some sections of the river |
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| This is Luna's Jackal. You can't get there on pavement, that's for sure. |  |
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A jackal is the term for this kind of house. Luna was a guy that raised his family here near the turn of the century. The river is miles away. |
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| Pretty hard to imagine surviving for very long out here with modern technology, let alone 100 years ago. They also appear to have been a bit shorter back then. |
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A heart |
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| Some apparently wild horses ran just next to our campsite, which was right next to the Rio by the ruins of Johnson's Ranch. |  |
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A ranger told us later that these were probably horses from Mexico. Apparently a fair number of Mexicans graze their livestock in the park, and the border so vast there isn't much they can do about it. |
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| And here's what's left of a wall that used to be part of Johnson's Ranch. The peak in the center background was called Mule's Ears, we learned later. I thought it looked like two people playing chess. |
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