We met our grandson in Lubbock, Texas, the home of Texas Tech, a wonderful, beautiful campus where he had just completed his degree in Chemical Engineering, one of the most challenging and  difficult degrees and drove over 325 miles to Big Bend National Park in the Chihuahuan desert in Southwest Texas where the Rio Grand separates America from Mexico. Big Bend National Park is like Texas. …. unimaginably big. We stayed in several hotels and inns during the tour including stays in Terlingua and Marfa including the Piasano hotel where Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson stayed in the town of Marfa. Big Bend National Park includes 1,251.8 sq. miles of government owned lands which explains why there’s nothing much there to show human settlement.

The park is very worthwhile to see. There are a thousand views and loads of history. The park is named after the Big Bend in the Rio Grande river which in many places is reduced to a shallow stream which is easy to walk across into Mexico and back. Big Bend is one of the largest, most remote, and one of the least-visited national parks in the contiguous United States because it’s so out of the way. On the first Saturday of November, over 10,000 “chiliheads” convene in Terlingua for two annual chili cookoffs.

Unfortunately for the park commerce is not in the picture. If the park wasn’t in the hands of the government more people would be driving around to see it. There’s plenty of room for at least ten airport runways which would make jet service into and out of the park easier which in turn would make it easier to thousands more people to see the place.

Visits: 4