On to Stillwell Ranch RV Park, about 12 miles outside Big Bend National Park. Here we find a remote campsite, set up our tent and camp gear before the sun goes down. Wally builds a fire, he likes a fire to sit around, and I pull out turkey slices, squares of prepared dressing, rosemary and dried cranberry biscuits, and jellied cranberry sauce, and, of course, some wine in a box, for our Thanksgiving feast.  A cold night, not a restful sleep even on an air mattress—my hips objected-- and the next morning a quick drive to the Stillwell headquarters for a bathroom stop. We are not exactly roughing it since bathrooms, showers, and a small store make up the headquarters site.  On the way back to our camping spot, we see a man walking the side of the road in the camping area, with jumper cables in hand.  We give him a lift to his camp to jump his car and then back to our camp to prep for a day of hiking. Only to have the truck not crank over so now it is my turn to seek help to jump our vehicle. 

Some choice expletives by the husband.  Nothing to it but drive the 40 miles back to Marathon. Luckily the garage is open and so we buy a new battery and get it installed by a young man whose toddler, dressed in a sweat shirt with dinosaur points running up the back and over the hood is riding his little hot wheels trike around the station.  The young man has on a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt so he and husband talk about the Cowboys game that we missed while out in the park. I am always amazed at the instant camaraderie of men who follow football—wherever they are, they can talk about the game.

Finally around 1:00 we are back at Big Bend to begin the hiking. Consulting the Park guide for an easy trail, I find one off a 7-mile dirt road to “Balancing Rock.”  As advertised, it is a fairly easy hike along a dry creek bed and in between hefts of boulders, until you climb up to the balancing rock—I am getting hot, the temp has gone from 45 to 73 and I am still dressed for the cold—plus I don’t like heights, so I don’t go all the way.  A four-some of retirees were coming down the steep incline to the top, one woman very careful about her footing since she had just had a fall.  Husband said the view was nice but not anything I couldn’t already see. I got a few pictures of the boulders and left it at that.

We decided to try another hike, taking the Ross Maxwell Loop about 20 miles further. The Park is so large, that you have to drive 20-30 minutes between trails.  I think that is one of the things I like so much about Big Bend, its immensity, the sense of space and openness, the ability to see great distances, and then to go down a trail either out into the vastness or in the recessed places along dry creek beds, dry gulches.  So off we go, but not too far; our legs are tired from the previous hike and it is getting close to sundown and we want to get back to our site before it is really dark.  I think that one of the reasons the Bid Bend area, and much of West Texas and into New Mexico look so vast and open is that the vegetation is short.  This sounds simplistic, but where we live in South Texas is also flat and home to various cattle ranches, but the mesquite trees grow to 20-30 feet, and live oaks and palm trees give it a more tropical feel.  In the Big Bend area, the vegetation is about 3 feet high, cactus, grasses, sage, maguey, the wispy strands of ocotillo swaying above the rest, the occasional flower strand of yucca punctuating the skyline, but generally the view is unobstructed by vegetation, is open to the hills and mountains that give outline to the great desert basins. As we were leaving the park in the late afternoon, husband commented on the purple of the mountains to the west where the sun was setting behind them.  He sarcastically said that people who have not come west don’t know the truth of the line in the song, “purple mountains majesty,” which reminded me of my view in the rearview mirror leaving Colorado. A quick semi-shower in the cold water, enough to knock some of the dust and stink off, then to camp for another night in the open.

Next morning we break camp, and head home, stopping at the Oasis Café in Marathon for breakfast.  It is a small establishment, a two-to-three woman operation.  The woman waiting tables warned us we would have to be patient because there were other tables and I guess just one cook and one grill. She was tall, weather-beaten, front teeth capped, a single braid of brown-gray hair out the back of her baseball cap.  She had a quirky sense of humor, fit for the quirky place that served visitors and residents, that nourished flies near the dusty windows.  But we had a tasty, welcome breakfast of huevos rancheros and enchiladas with eggs that would hold us for most of the 7-hour drive home.

So, another trip—short, fast, and breathtaking.