Fortunately, I am traveling with my Eagle Scout!

Left San Antonio this morning to make our way to Big Bend National Park......7+ hours away.  The drive was fairly uneventful.....except for the fact that once we were on I-10, Joan noticed some guys waving to us from a pick up truck and said, "Mom, why are those guys waving at us?"  It turned out that one of the emergency windows in the trailer had blown open (nothing wrong with the window - somebody had accidentally unlatched it).  Thank goodness it did not fall out all the way!  And thank goodness Joan saw the guys and asked the question. 


After that, life was uneventful until we were six miles outside of Marathon, TX (a small town on the outskirts of the road leading into the park).  Anyway, I will get to that in a minute.


We had lunch outside of Seminole Canyon State Park at a picnic area that overlooked the Pecos River.  Of all the designated picnic areas, we could not have picked a more picturesque site.  As soon as we crossed the Pecos, a sign declared that we were entering the "Wild West."  The scenery began to look like something from an old John Wayne movie (it turns out that several of his movies were filmed in the area), and houses became sparse.

Rick at our picnic spot

After lunch, we drove down the road another 20 miles or so, and stopped at Judge Roy Bean's Saloon and home.  Judge Roy Bean had declared himself the law west of the Pecos.  It was neat to see it after watching Lonesome Dove.  This was one of the side trips that Rick really wanted to do, and it was interesting to see.

On the steps of the famed Judge Roy Bean Saloon

OK...so back to the beginning when I was talking about driving into Marathon, TX.....


We knew we were going to be cutting it close with the gas (but I was kind of curious to see how far we could go on a tank of gas).  We had been averaging 8 miles/gallon pulling the trailer (we knew it was going to be bad), and we figured that we might just make it to Marathon on fumes.  Well......the fumes left us short....about 6 miles.  This is where my brilliance at having married an Eagle Scout comes in.......he had a full 5-gallon gas can in the back of the pickup truck....just in case!  OK, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I can assure you that I would never have considered carrying a gas can with me on the trip.  Anyway, it sure came in handy.

There's my Eagle Scout!

The girls were unfazed by the gas crisis

Once Rick added gas to the tank, we were good to go and could make it into Marathon.  Marathon has no problem charging a healthy premium for its gas.

Whoa!

From there, we headed up the 39 mile road to the park entrance.  We thought we were going to be going primitive tonight (no a/c or water)....and the high today was 112 degrees!  Fortunately, there was a campground area for trailers that had both water and electricity, so after briefly considering the "prettier" campground, we unanimously decided that we would prefer a/c.  Rick could us a yummy dinner of grilled steak and corn, while turkey vultures waited to grab some of our food.

After dinner, we walked down to the Rio Grande to see if we could see anyone crossing the border illegally (just kidding!)  There was a full moon rising in the eastern sky.

Joan made some new friends from Nixon, TX