A wise gambler once said, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” After two nights of holding an off-suit 2-7 in Big Bend’s Cottonwood campground, we mucked our hand and ran for our Iives to the western exit in search of cooler temps and plug in options.
As much as we pride ourselves on overcoming adversity, honestly, we were no match for the punishment Big Bend can bring to bear when it wants to. We knew what a week WITH electricity felt like in the Village and we rationalized that the evening breeze would break the high day temps. Even though it would likely be too hot to sleep in Roxie, we’d set up the Grand Hut tent, leave off the fly and slumber under twinkling stars of the dark sky. We’d do Santa Elena Canyon day one, an Boss A/C fueled day trip to Big Bend State Park to see the hoodoos and stop in Terlingua for dinner on day 2. We’d finish with Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive and the last of our To Hike list – Tuff Canyon to see the white rocks, Homer Wilson to Blue Creek to see Red Rock Canyon with sunset at Sotol Vista. The days would be hot, but the nights would be passable in the open tent.
What actually happened is that the sun set at 8:30 pm over a super-heated landscape which brought no relief. Instead, the Big Bend hair dryer got switched on. At first the moving air felt good. It forced the biting flies to seek shelter. As the night grew darker, the winds grew stronger and hotter. By midnight, they were blowing 30 mph and 95 degrees hard against the sides of the tent and Roxie. Roxie did not cool. The internal thermostat stayed stuck at 99 degrees. We retired to the tent only to stick to the sheets, the cots, and the sides of the tent that collapsed into us.
We placed the cots out in the open, in the campsite. No bugs could venture out in such a stiff wind but a stream of particles from the desert that worked like a sand blaster against any exposed flesh could. Hot under a sheet to protect from the flying dirt, we would check our phone to see how many hours until the rising sun would kill the wind. By 4 am, Roxie had cooled to 85 degrees so we collapsed inside to get 2 hours of sleep. After two identically hellish nights, we not only “Knew when to walk away, we knew when to run.”
With no cell service or internet on the Castolon side of the park the issue was where to go. Terlingua, the famous place for chili cook offs and ghost towns was outside the park – we could find electric there and still see the hoodoos of Big Bend State Park, which are different than the ones we saw in Bryce Canyon Utah. Ranger Christie described them as small stone pillars, 2 hours away, and then made a scrunchie nose. As we passed through the wind blown dirt town of Terlingua, we filled up with gas and our survival instincts refused to let us stop. We were in panic mode. Instead, we kept on going north until we were 100 miles down the road in Alpine, home to Sul Ross State University and the cutest downtown library you’d ever seen. Of course in our state of post-shock, we forgot to photograph it, but we did use their Wi-Fi to post a blog and pick up a few books from the resale shop.
When you’re in West Texas and you have no place to be, go where the beautiful people go. Go to Marfa where artists and actors hide out in suddenly trendy west Texas. And that is exactly what we did. First we fired up the WI-FI to check out the weather in the southwestern United States. We had to find somewhere livable. A large portion, including West Texas, is under a severe fire warning. Parts of next stop New Mexico are under fire evacuations orders. Another large portion that included the area we planned to cross is under a severe wind warning with winds hitting 60-70 mph. That is strong enough to tip a 5th wheel. It looked bleak, even tragic. All we could come up with for a survival plan was to grab dinner at Marfa’s latest “must see” BBQ joint, and catch an art movie in the Marfa Ballroom. A plan to survive the end of the world would have to wait until tomorrow.
