3/31/2025
After sitting in bed doing Wordle and reading the paper long enough to make a point about the 7:45 am departure time, I got up and was happy to see the fridge was still working. I finished loading the food up and slamming my tea (that’s a WHOLE OTHER story…). We managed to leave by 8:15 am, but farted around with stops at the post office (to see if someone might have turned in our keys. Nope.) and the tea store to pick up some of my depleted matcha. I guess at some point I’ll have to explain the tea thing, but not now…
Prep for this trip was pretty lackadaisical. As in: I have no idea if we have what we mean to have. Time will tell. And it’s not like we are going to ALASKA for two months, so really: how bad can it be?
The worst part of the whole trip is our destination: Texas. Without going into dangerous political territory, I think it’s safe to say that Texans were never popular even before the current climate. They are an easy creative writing target. The only people comfortable with Texas are Texans. Not to mention, they can’t drive around a round-about to save their lives. I have friends from Texas. I have shared these sentiments with them to see what they have to say for themselves and they respond with something like, “Ya. You betcha” or some such nonsense like that.
So yeah, we are going to Texas. Big Bend National Park to be exact. Our first worry was if it would be open — you know, given the current political climate. But our newest worry is the news article that appeared on our phones as we drove out of the driveway this morning: “Trump Sends Hundreds of Troops to Texas National Park”
Yep. The same park we are headed to.
We picked Big Bend because Dave read somewhere that it was both one of the largest national parks while also holding the designation as being the least visited park in the US. I’m not sure when he read that, but it had to be from like 10 years ago, because now it is Grand Central Station. We aren’t national parks people to begin with, preferring to poop in the wild, ya know…, but this one is literally FILLED TO THE GILLS with Texans. It’s busy as all get out and nearly impossible to get a campsite. However… invitingly, it also has some kind of primitive road designated camp sites — much like dispersed camping — even though every single web page states that they DON’T have dispersed camping, as does every single telephone hold message. If you call, they literally lead with: “Big Bend does not have dispersed camping…” It’s a head scratcher because they then direct you to Recreation.gov to reserve your “Primitive Backroad Campsite” — which is, indeed dispersed camping. Except you have to RESERVE IT.
Speaking of which, has anyone here ever reserved campsites on Recreation.gov? If so, you are a smarter fool than I. It seems to be a website developed solely to confound. Oh yes, there is LOT’S of information. Maps. Descriptions of campsites. Links to a mysterious reservation site, which loops you back to where you started… on Recreation.gov.
This is precisely why we preferred dispersed camping. (I was lying when I said it’s because we like to poop in the wild.)
But since showing-up-dispersed-camping isn’t ALLOWED, we had to figure it out. It took about an hour to finally discern the green button buried in a sidebar of distraction that said “Itinerary Planning”(I am not kidding). And that, my friends, is the secret to reserving a spot on Recreation.gov. Itinerary Planning. Does this make sense to you? It does not make sense to me.
Out of four large established campgrounds with hundreds of reservable sites and 20 reservable primitive sites, we were able to secure ONE NIGHT at a primitive site during the two weeks we had available to make the trip. So, to be clear, we are driving 13 hours south to TEXAS for ONE NIGHT with the HOPE that we can then nab another couple nights at a site that is only reservable IN PERSON. If that seems like a gamble, it is. But, eh, whatever. We drive. It’s what we do.
So that is what we are doing now. Our route is much like driving to our former land in Pagosa Springs. In fact, we were there exactly a year ago collecting a bumper crop of deer sheds. We veered from that route before the pass to Wolf Creek and entered New Mexico — a state we have not spent hardly any time. Aside from the oasis of Santa Fe, I find it to be mostly made up of unpronounceable towns and streets. It’s also pretty windy and desolate. In a (mostly) beautiful way. (Though there are a shocking number of mostly abandoned towns and houses that I think people are living in??).
Anyway. In case you can’t tell, I’m trying to be NICER…
I have no idea where we are planning to spend the night, but it’s looking like we are headed straight for Roswell, New Mexico — home of the 1947 UFO crash and countless ET abductions.
Wish us well!
Leave a Reply