Tuesday, February 4th – Sunday, February 9th

We arrived on Tuesday and were greeted with the warmest weather we have encountered on this entire trip- 76 degrees and full sunshine. But, by 7:00pm that evening, we were on high alert for a winter storm watch bringing in high winds, snow, sleet and rain and temperatures in the 30s. We had been staying ahead of the storm since Ft. Davis, but when we say the de-icer trucks along highway 118, we knew it was likely to be upon us in Terlingua. The next day we had snow! Somebody throw us a bone here!

The library in Terlingua is actually shared; it’s both the public Big Bend library and serves the students in the Terlingua School District. We called ahead and spoke with Ellen, the librarian. She advised us that we’d have to check in with the school office, hand over my driver’s license for her to hold onto while we used the library. We were given visitor lanyards and off we went next door. This library became our home for the next 4 days or so. Each morning we’d wake up, walk or bike to the library (less than a mile from our RV park) and get going on our studies. Ben asked me to take a picture of this typewriter- it lead us to a pretty cool conversation about the QWERT layout for letters- Ben figured out that the most used letters were placed apart from each other to avoid the keys from bunching up. We also spent some time on the swingset and playground outside. The Big Bend Library is on the Terlingua School (K-12) campus. About 120 kiddos go to school here. There’s no bus service, so parents drive their kiddos in each day- most are paid by the district per mile to do so and almost all the kids receive breakfast and lunch from the school district as well. All the fields are outside too.

Thursday evening we headed out to Ghost town to find Starlight Theater Restaurant and Saloon. It was a former movie theatre and had really great high ceilings, a place for a stage and a that rustic feel that comes from any small town in the West. What was so shocking to us was the sheer number of people we saw. Having gotten used to hardly seeing anyone since we left Disneyland, it was fun to see locals, travelers and retirees all in the same place listening to some great live acoustic blue grass and enjoying dinner. Izzy tried antelope for the first time! Ben and I had the brisket, it was divine! We also bought a CD from the duo singing that evening, Air Loom.

On Friday afternoon we headed into Big Bend National Park. We found out when we drove up to the park ranger kiosk that dogs weren’t allowed anywhere our vehicle could also not go. So dirt roads with Riggs were fine, but no trails. We made the decision to double back and drop him off at the camper and made a promise to take him out for a long run/walk the next morning before our Saturday hikes. A bummer for him, but understandable considering the preservation efforts in effect with our national parks. Having heard good things from other hikers about the trail, we set off for the Window Trail in the Chisos Mountains. It was outstanding. We saw huge rock formations and beautiful trees among the desert plants. Izzy saw a roadrunner and birds and even a black bear! (see captioned photo below). By the time we got to the end of the trail, it was crystal clear why the trail is called the Window Trail. See for yourself. The elevation gain was about 1000 feet and the round trip was about 5 miles.

We also saw a black bear. For real. Izzy is walking by it in this picture below. It was definitely unnerving, but the bear just kept on munching his grass and sticks and hikers kept walking by, so we measured the odds that we could outrun the other hikers and kept on going!

Saturday, February 8th-

As promised, Riggs got a huge 5 mile run on Saturday before we headed back to Big Bend NP. Ben and Clark took Riggs into Terlingua back country to do a few mountain biking trails.

Saturday evening for dinner, we decided we were going to check out the Long Draw Pizza, a restaurant in (OUT of!) town. Locals warned us that the pizza could take upwards of 45 minutes to bake. Funny enough, our pizza came very quickly and we had to end our Jenga and Connect4 games early. We all ordered mediums so we’d have dinner for Saturday evening. The location of the restaurant was really far away though. We thought we’d passed it a few times, but came up on it right in front of this huge mesa. We snapped a few photos!

For Saturday’s Big Bend visit, we decided to do two hikes; first was the Grapevine Hills Trail followed by the Hotsprings Trail.

#1 Grapevine Hills Trail was the trail that takes you up the hillside to where Balanced Rock is located. It’s only 2 miles round trip with a small incline.

In usual fashion, Izzy decided to run the last half mile.

#2- Boquillas Hot Springs was incredible. It’s along the Rio Grande river creating the international boarder between Texas and Mexico – the kiddos, Clark and I literally swam the 20 yards across the shallow water, through the current, and touched Mexico! There were a few locals who were drinking the water (note that there was a ton of algae growing, people soaking from all over the US, and mud, etc) but they swear by its medicinal qualities. The park ranger at the Chisos Basin visitor’s center advised us not to take the truck to the parking lot by the springs, advising that we were to wide to fit through. After walking it, we disagreed- we totally could have made it! You’ll see a few pictures from our trip back; a really nice fella from Kentucky, who was there at the springs to take pictures of the SPECTACULAR FULL MOON, gave us a ride in the back of his truck. The kiddos loved it about as much as they loved swimming in the hot springs and the river.

Limoges Leftovers: Because of the snow, we weren’t able to receive a book we’d ordered from Amazon Prime by the time we left on Sunday. We called Annette at the Paisano Village RV Park & Inn and asked her to donate it to the school for us. I think there might just be a kiddo who likes a Wrinkle in Time in Terlingua.