Big Bend NP-4

4/1/2025

Breaking Bad.

Dave said that’s what the area looked like and he was EXACTLY RIGHT. Was Breaking Bad filmed in New Mexico? I feel like it had to be. I don’t have internet right now, so I can’t check but this place screams of a camper-making-meth scene. 

Dave wasn’t even going to make coffee, but I made 5 five pre-measured tea bags of earl grey and dammit I was going to use them all, so I rolled my butt out of bed, faced the extremely distressing landscape, and got ‘er done. Caffeine always gets the juices flowing, so I also took advantage of the nearby port-a-potty.

And let me just say: I miss my bidet. 

Remember the bidet from Banff at the tail end of our Alaska trip? WELL I BOUGHT ONE. And I am literally ADDICTED to the damn thing. I don’t recommend watching The American’s, but I DO recommend getting a bidet. You are welcome.

Driving back out to the road was a treat. I’m still just sort of  speechless about this place. There aren’t many places I would be scared to be alone, but I would not have made it through the night on my own here at the Red Bluff Dam Park…

Happily, we had a stretch of connectivity, so we read up on the area and found a super interesting short summary of the Permian Basin. Here’s a link if you are interested: https://www.enverus.com/permian-basin/ . 

TL;DR 

…the area from southwest New Mexico to Pecos, TX is a newer drilling area that predominantly consists of fracking, which requires electricity, sand and water (versus those stand-alone one-arm bandits -or pumpjacks – that most of us equate with oil drilling. The fracking drills are dense, lit up like a prison, and surrounded by tanks of water and sand. It’s… not pretty. And every few miles there are row after row of temporary worker housing clusters along the highway and the truck traffic is chaotic and constant. It’s a hive of other-worldly activity. 

After we drove through Pecos, the landscape changed to almost no fracking, with the traditional pumpjacks — which was WAY more serene. More what I had expected of the area. I also enjoyed it a lot more…

Shortly after Pecos, the landscape changed dramatically with more vegetation and spurts of green. Fort Stockton was a nice little town! We grabbed egg McMuffins and resumed the drive. 

We stopped again in Marathon — last town before the turn off to Big Bend and — I assumed — my last chance at internet. I needed connectivity to download the BSF lecture, compile the video and then upload it to the BSF website — which I do for the class I’m in. No one else really knows how to do it and every week I’m somewhere on the road it’s a little nerve wracking. But it keeps working out. I’ve had some wild times this year! I like the challenge… though I’m not sure they like the drama…

Another hour and we were at Panther Creek Visitor Center. We stopped to check in, get our permits and see if we could nab another couple nights of camping.

We were told by the rangers that NORMALLY the line would be out the door, but spring break ended last week for Texas and now it was relatively quiet. The ranger pulled out a huge 3-ring notebook showing each primitive site — each looking EXACTLY the same and pretty desolate — and answered ALL of the MANY questions Dave had for her. “Is it private?” “Does it have a good view?” Etc. etc. After inserting my own priorities (“I don’t want to go extreme 4-wheeling to get there”), I wandered off to explore the books and found myself in the theater room showing a movie of the park.

Fascinating. Seriously. No sarcasm here. (I feel the need to point that out, given my penchant…).After standing there for 10 or 15 minutes and I suddenly jolted back to reality, thinking: “Dave is probably wondering where the hell I am!” I went back out to the desk.

…only to find Dave still asking questions about primitive sites. I’m seriously not exaggerating. And this woman… she was still smiling and answering them. Fascinating! I went back in and resumed the movie.

The net-net of the camping site summit between Dave and the Ranger was that he had gotten pretty far down the road with her, honing in on a site, when she learned we had a trailer attached to our car — which apparently changed everything and they had to basically start over. The irony here is that I am writing this days after it happened and I now know what you do not: it’s all just utter ridiculousness.

But that will wait.

For now, we had our permit in hand (and were told we needed to have it “on our person” should we be approached by border control), we downloaded some offline maps and set off for Pine Canyon #4. The road was primitive but not bad. The site was, in all respects, decent. That said, it was HOT and it was WINDY. We set UP the canopy and sat DOWN.

For the most part, except to get another beer, we didn’t move all that much until dinner time. I did plug in my AirPods and put them on noise canceling in order to drown out the wind.

I hate wind.

I mean… I REALLY hate the wind. I had a friend when we lived out in Watertown who equally hated the wind. I still think about her when it howls. She was my accountability partner. But I had no cell service and I couldn’t call her. So I reached for another beer.

Eventually we ate (green chicken curry) and went to bed. The camper was hot inside as I installed the screens and opened everything up. The wind had finally died down a bit and it became pleasant. And we drifted off to sleep…

…to be awoken two hours later by insane wind — banging doors, the camper shaking and the canopy making fearful noises. We decided to take the canopy down, and scrambled out in the dark as the dust blew in our eyes.

Totally naked, mind you.

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