“You will fail sometimes. And that’s ok. That’s all part of it.” Jeffrey Hughes, Fairfield class of ’63, has made a pretty good living for himself and his family. After serving in the Armed Forces, he and his sculptress wife headed to Latin America as he worked for a corrugated box company. He’s opened a few businesses of his own and currently works about two or three hours per week in his office and thirty-two hours from home as head of Intelligent Offices. Jeff treated Shannon and I, and Gary Dayon, Fairfield class of ’71, to breakfast. Gary is a recently established real estate agent, after spending thirty years working in the manufacturing industry. Quite nice meeting with both of them.
From El Paso, we headed down to Big Bend National Park. The road to Big Bend is abundant with small shrubs and dust. If you’re looking for scenery, this is not the place of the country to drive through… That is until you reach Big Bend. The stereotypical perception of desert is Sahara like dust and sand for miles upon miles in every direction with an occasional cactus. The more typical desert is full of plants – small, insignificant (at least to me) shrubs with latin names (that I can’t remember), small flowers, and cactuses and yucca plants that store water to feed themselves and the animals that eat them.
Big Bend is named for the Rio Grande, or as the Mexicans call it El Rio Bravo del Norte (the Wild River of the North), which takes a ninety degree turn on the border of the park. The park is a beautiful amalgamation of desert and mountains and river. We camped in the basin of the Chisos Mountains, with the campground surrounded on all sides by mountains. The weather was beautiful – clear skies, mid-seventies to mid-eighty degrees during the sunny days, dropping to forties and fifties at night. If Montana hadn’t already laid claim to the nickname of Big Sky Country, I’d dub Texas as so. With the exception of the basin where our view was obstructed by the mountains, you can see for miles upon miles anywhere you step foot in the state. [I threw together a quick panorama of our camp site. It's not my best handiwork - quick and dirty]
Our first partial day in Big Bend, we set up camp, cooked dinner and watched shooting stars. East Coast skies don’t have stars like this. You have to go somewhere dark, with less trees, to really enjoy the sky at night. Since the forecast did not call for rain, we left the rainfly off the tent so we could see out the screened roof at the stars, and in the morning, the blue sky. The next day, we drove the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive through the park down to Santa Elena Canyon. The Canyon is a crevice in a mesa plateau where the Rio Grande River has cut through rock over many millennia. We hiked inside the canyon, but not before I muddied my boots by futilely fording a small creek in search of the hiking trail. Some patience and diligence from Shannon revealed a drier and cleaner track across the creek. Too late for my boots and pants. And the socks were goners too.
Shannon walked, I sogged, along the trail that put us into a forest-like environment of brush and trees and a muddy river full of silt.
After some more hiking that day, we settled back into camp. This second night was a bit colder than the first, and it wasn’t helped by the wind that started blowing through the basin. As the sun set, and we got into the tent, we realized sleeping was going to be a difficult task. After all, it was Halloween, and the wind began to whip around and thrash our tent. Who knows what ghostly spirits were trapsing around the desert mountains in southwest Texas? I think I awoke around 4AM and everything began to quiet down. But who knows if any bears or mountain lions or javelinas were outside scavenging for food. Either way, we survived the night.
Tuesday, November 1 we got lost on another hike around the Rio Grande. Well, we didn’t really get lost, we just didn’t know where we were or where we were going. When in doubt, backtrack. So we did. Three hours after starting the hike, we got back to the car, tired and ready to head to San Antonio. So we did. If you’d ever like to drive a long quiet road that would give you some time to think and contemplate life, drive across the western portion of Texas. We were on route 90, but you could probably choose any of the roads out here. There ain’t nuthin’. After going crazy around hour 4, we stopped in Uvalde for some lousy dinner, then hit the road for the last hour to San Antone. Not five minutes before pulling out, a Texas state trooper pulled me over. Ugh. I was doing 65 in a 65. ?!? License please. Sure. I pulled you over because one of your headlights is out. Phew. Here’s a warning. Thanks sir for not putting me in the slammer for a night.
I have a cold. Some Dayquil and down time should cure that.
November 2 in San Antonio, I crashed. Slept for most of the morning before we got up and ate lunch. We met up with Shaun for dinner. (Shaun was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base, right next to our motel, where he was going through dog training). We went to downtown San Antonio to the Riverwalk, which if you don’t know, is probably one of the coolest city features I’ve ever seen. Imagine Venice without the flooding. This stretch of river cuts through downtown in a square (man-made?) and there is a sidewalk and restaurants and shops all around it, on a lower level than the rest of the downtown area. Trés chic. The riverwalk and the lighted up buildings gave San Antone a character and style that I didn’t know it had. How bizah, how bizah. Though I battled through Nov 2, I had to put myself into a Nyquil coma to get some sleep that night so…
We didn’t get moving on the 3rd til much later again. We saw some of the downtown attractions during the daytime at least, including the Alamo. Met up with Shaun and some of his Marine buddies later in the night.
Nov 4 said goodbye to Shaun and drove to Austin.
Now that we have our last commitment complete, we can relax a bit and not worry about how long it takes to get home. The down time probably comes a few days too late as I’ve already crashed and burned. Happily I’m over my cold now and can enjoy the rest of the trip. We’ve decided to skip Louisiana and New Orleans. Just not worth the effort right now. We’ll be headed in the Memphis direction in a few days after Austin and then Nashville and then likely home (for Shannon) to Ohio.
