Crossing Borders

It is my baby's senior year. He turns eighteen in twelve days. I am in uncharted territory here. We are crossing borders. I've been thinking I wanted to do something special for his senior spring break and we decided to visit Big Bend National Park. Ryan has wanted to go there for years and this was a good chance to do it before people go growing up on us. 

• We talked about it. How are we going to do this trip? The idea was that we always wanted to hike out and not come back for several days. Pulling that off without torturing or killing anyone is much more involved. How much water will we need? How much food? How do you keep food from going bad? Our awesome friend, Shaylyn, is always game for our ideas that not many other people would go along with and she agreed to come. Things are always a little more fun when she's around. 
•  We read about it. How have other people done this trip? There are lots of backpacking people out there willing to share their ideas and tell you how to do things the right way. I am all for learning from other people's mistakes and going with what works. Having miserable kids and eating Ramen noodles wasn't what I had in mind.
• We ordered stuff. Ryan bought a new backpack, a fold up camp shovel, a book about survival (!!), a new knife/multi tool and I got a book called Hiking Big Bend.
• We planned it out. I turned my oven on to it's dehydrator mode. A week later, after dehydrating everything in the house, day and night...I finished and packed up a weeks worth of meals for six people. Snacks, breakfast, lunch and dinner were all labeled in baggies to be re-hydrated as needed.  I was shocked by the way things looked and thought the whole thing was super cool. Everyone was happy with what we ate. Dried blueberries are great for energy on the trail and dried strawberries were the overall favorite.....yummmm.

Shaylyn, Rivers and Maggie at Fort Davis

Day 1- We drove all day to west Texas and Fort Davis State Park.

 Ryan planned for us to visit the McDonald Observatory that is just a few

 minutes from the park. A cold front blew in that night and the wind was
brutal. We looked at stars and tried to listen to what was being said.
Mostly we were just freezing so we retreated back to our tent at the
 park and wondered if we knew what we were doing at all,
hoping morning would bring relief.

Day 2- Fort Davis is a cavalry fort built in 1854. Ryan plans historical tours 

into everything. It works well with homeschooling and I have 

learned to enjoy learning about all of the things we see too. This day

is still windy and cold. We have now decided that Big Bend is further

south and the weather will surely be better when we get there. So,

we drive into the park, get a permit, and set out on our first hike in

to camp. As we set up our camp we looked up to see, in the not 

so far distance, the town of Boquillas, Mexico. We cooked a meal 

and tried to figure out different ways to keep the wind from ripping 

our tent to shreds with us in it. We put big rocks on the corners, 

opened the windows to keep the wind from catching it so much, and

went to sleep praying for the wind to stop. By midnight it was still

and we slept like rocks. 

• 

  Me and my boy looking up at the sand hill. It's biiiig.
  
  

  Day 3- Big Bend is beautiful and despite the weather we were so excited to
  wake up in this place. We drank coffee and ate breakfast as we looked out
  over Mexico and packed up our camp to move on. We laughed about the
  night and set out to find the trail we wanted to hike. The trail followed the
  Rio Grande. There is a huge sand hill and canyon at the end. Shaylyn, Ryan
  and the kids all climbed the hill. I didn't want to have that much dirt in my
  shoes, so I stayed with our packs.

Day 4- Our anniversary. We celebrated 19 years! We didn't do anything special. We slept in the desert, rock climbed in Santa Elana Canyon and had some pretty awesome sweet potato soup that I made from all dehydrated ingredients before hiking into "bear country"....ya know, the usual. I loved it.

Campsite CO-1 !!!!

Day 5- This was the day of our most challenging hike. We were headed up into the Chisos Mountains for three days. Given the total lack of water in these mountains, we had to pack everything we needed in with us. We parked in the basin at 5,000 feet and hiked up to our camp at 7,200 feet. It's a five mile hike while gaining 2,200 feet in elevation. At some points we were stopping every 100 yards to catch our breath. Need to lose weight? Have I got a plan for you! It was tough. Six people, a gallon a day each, for three days, means hauling 18 gallons of water. Day one was going up and day three was coming down, so we cut it down to 13 gallons. Either way, water is heavy. I told Ryan he owed me a steak and a margarita as soon as we got off the mountain. We dragged ourselves into camp, set up, ate supper and went to bed with the sun.

The South Rim

Day 6- Ryan plans things. He planned a 5 mile hike to the rim on this day. The "rim" should be self explanatory...if you are paying attention. I was not. I've told you of my little issue about heights. One dang cliff after another, I'm telling you. If I didn't have children walking freely with no fear of the edge it may not bother me. That's not the case. TC pretended to hang off the edge and made faces like he was holding on for his life. We ate lunch and laid on the rocks in the sun before we hiked back. At camp we rested and talked about fitting one more hike into the day. We decided to go for it and set out for another 5 mile hike to Emory Peak. That's right....peak. It was pure rock climbing the last 150 feet to the top. I was 20 feet from the top and decided to stop. I was more mad that I couldn't make my legs steady under me than anything. Watching Ryan and the kids makes them go weak every time. They loved it and the views, they say, were amazing. We hiked back to camp barely beating the sunset, cooked a big hot meal, and ate as many calories as we could fit into our bellies. Everyone played cards by lantern-light as I tried to warm up from waiting too long to get bundled up. Hearing footsteps in the dark was unnerving until a park ranger called out asking for our permit. It was 10:30 pm and five miles from anything. I don't want his job.

Emory Peak

Day 7- We packed up camp and headed back to the basin deciding to take a different trail to get there. I thought it would be a nice thing to volunteer to walk the extra mile to get the truck after leaving everyone at the basin store eating ice cream. I got lost after I was given bad directions by a well meaning couple and walked another 2.5-3 miles before I found the parking lot. I don't wanna talk about it. haha. Ryan somehow realized I had taken the wrong trail and was running down the trails after me asking people if they had seen a short blond girl with a big pack on her back. Memories....sometimes they write themselves.

I am so proud of these kids. Watch out world!

After coming down from the mountain top we decided that the drive-in campsite we had planned for our last night was no longer an interest to us. We were all tired from 25-30 miles of hiking over the last week. We needed to shower to say the least. It was an hour round trip to the shower in the park so we decided to use the time to go to a hotel in Fort Stockton. An indoor pool and hot tub, washer and dryer, and a steak house just down the street? SOLD. Ryan made good on his promise. Sweet potato, broccoli, sirloin....AND I don't have to cook? Yes, please.
Day 8- All of us enjoyed sleeping in a little bit. We had been waking up with the sun for a week so it wasn't too late. We noticed TC had left the room and went down the hall to find him eating waffles at a table by himself, hunched over a plate, with wild hair, like a caveman. When we walked into the room he looked up at us with a crazy look in his eye like we were invading his fresh kill. It was hilarious. We ate breakfast, drank coffee, and laid around till 11am watching a reality show about trucker repossessions and laughing hysterically. 



We had a great time. We saw great sights. We slept in the desert. We slept in the mountains. We prayed for the people in Boquillas, Mexico. We crossed borders. We spent time as a family. We unplugged. We made memories. We want to go back and take everyone we know. You should go. Cross some borders and get  a little lost.