Life in the Bend

We arrived in the Big Bend region of Texas just over a week ago. We’re camped at the Stillwell Store & RV park which is a long way from anywhere.

Today we needed secure internet acess so we drove 30 miles to a picnic area before we could get a signal on our Verizon aircard. Yesterday we went grocery shopping to Alpine and it was a 150 mile round trip. I’ll never complain about having to go to Sainsburys again!
Alpine is a friendly little town, with no parking restrictions! Park where you like as long as you’re not blocking the way and the kerb isn’t painted, red, blue or yellow and for free! How different is that than at home!

We took a walk around the town and stopped at the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University on the way home. Stagecoach and Soldier Exhibit.

There was also a Trappings of Texas exhibition which consisted of paintings, jewellery, sculptures, bronzes, handcrafted ropes, saddles and much more, some of the saddles were beautiful and very expensive, I think the one below was $22,000.00. Isn't it gorgeous?

Museum of the Big Bend is a small but very interesting museum.

The Stillwell Store & RV park is the home of the legendary west Texas Ranch Woman Hallie Crawford Stillwell and is still home to her descendents. Hallie Crawford met Roy Stillwell and fell in love, Hallie was 20 Roy was 40 her parents objected so they ran away to Alpine and got married. Pretty daring stuff for 1918! The rest is history and the stuff of legends.

Roy and Hallie

Hallie’s Hall of Fame is a museum about her life and achievements and is well worth a visit. Hallie was a school teacher, a rancher, a Justice of the Peace and an author, she wrote two books about her life, ‘I’ll Gather My Geese’ about her early years and ‘My Goose is Cooked’ which tells about her life after Roy’s death in 1948, she died two months shy of her 100th birthday.

Hallie Stillwell outside Hallie's Hall of Fame Museum

We are about 10 miles from the Persimmon Gap entrance to Big Bend National Park, note I said the entrance, we average between 100 – 150 miles a day depending on where we hike just driving round the park.

We took a hike into Santa Elena canyon on the west side of the park, it’s only a short hike, but very pretty, the Rio Grande river flows through the canyon and is the border between the USA and Mexico.

Looking into Santa Elena Canyon US on the right, Mexico on the left.

Looking out of Santa Elena Canyon into Big Bend National Park, the Chisos Mountains are in the far distance.

On a partly cloudy windy day we hiked into Dog Canyon, so called because some early pioneers found a dog guarding a fully laden wagon but no people. Dog Canyon was also used by the US army as part of an experiment using camels rather than horses to cross the vast distances in the region. It proved that camels crossed the same area in 60% of the time taken by horses. Nothing came of it due to the American Civil War. While Dog Canyon is a pretty trail it’s not somewhere you’d want to be on a rainy day as part of the hike takes you through Nine Point Draw which is a deep wash running through the canyon. The first drop down into Nine Point Draw.

It is also just the sort of place, where in the very best John Wayne movies, Comanche war parties would be waiting high on the canyon walls for unwary travellers, trust me I checked very carefully! Nine Point Draw where it goes through Dog CanyonBoquillas Canyon is at the eastern end of the park and also has the Rio Grande international border running through it.

There are ancient Indian grinding holes on the rocks just to the right of the steps down into the canyon.

Before 9/11 you could cross into Boquillas, Mexico for lunch and to buy souvenirs, however since then all the informal border crossings have been closed and if you’re found on the wrong side of the border you’re deported to Presidio 100 miles away.

Although Boquillas made crafts can be bought in the stores in the national park Mexican craftsmen still cross the river with Sotol Walking Sticks and jewellery for people to buy, but if you’re caught in possession of items bought from the Mexican craftsment, there are heavy penalties for both you and the Mexican. Mexican crafts for sale on display

Of course in between all this activity there has been a lot of sitting around in the sun, you have no idea how tough retirement is!

Have fun, we are!