Thursday, February 11

We started our day in Marathon, Texas this morning — a quirky little town in the high desert of west Texas. Marathon is the highway turn-off for Big Bend National Park and that’s where we headed today. I suspect most of the visitors in this map-dot-of-a-town are coming or going from the park, though there was an upscale Mexican restaurant and a boutique hotel in town.

The drive from Marathon into Big Bend National Park was peaceful and gorgeous with desert cactuses as far as the eye could see and the Chisos Mountains off in the distance. I’m not sure we saw another vehicle during our one-hour drive to the park entrance, other than a few Border Patrol trucks. Big Bend National Park is massive — over 800,000 acres of land protecting the Chihuahuan Desert and the only national park to fully contain its own mountain range. We entered the park from the north, first stopping by the Permission Gap Visitor Center to pick up a park map and Junior Ranger packets for the kids.

From there, we continued south to the park’s Fossil Discovery Exhibit. Big Bend National Park has an impressive collection of dinosaur fossils found here dating back to 130 million years ago. Looking out at the landscape before us, it was easy to imagine dinosaurs roaming the dry, desert land.

Did I mention I wanted to grow up to be a paleontologist when I was Aden’s age? Yep, it’s true! I was totally geeking out over this exhibit. Honestly, we were all impressed by the fossils and the interesting ways the park displayed them in this outdoor pavilion.

After the dinosaur display, we hopped back in the RV and made our way to the east side of the park. Andi reserved us a campsite at Rio Grande Village tonight, so we stopped by there to check into our site. We were lucky to secure a spot to camp inside the park during our trip. When Andi called a few days ago to book a spot, all three campsites in the park were completely booked. Then the weather forecast took a turn for the worst this coming weekend and I think a lot of people cancelled. Traveling with flexibility has its advantages — we were able to book last-minute camping spots in all the campgrounds we wanted to stay in during our visit.

Next, we made our way to the Boquillas Canyon trailhead for a short hike along the Rio Grande. The 1.6 mile trail started with a hill climb to reveal a sweeping view of the Rio Grande below, and then descended to the sandy shores of the river. Andi and I were amazed that this was the Rio Grande! I imagined it would be bigger and dirtier. The waters were a gorgeous blue-green color. It amazed us that Mexico is right there on the other side of the river.

It was neat to see wild horses grazing on our walk along the shore. There were also a lot of cactus plants — it seems like every plant in Texas has thorns in it. Definitely have to watch where you’re walking!

The Rio Grande Nature Trail is another short hike that left from our campground, so we decided to do that one next before settling in for the night. Thirty-seconds after we started on the trail, the sky started to erupt with ominous claps of thunder which was a little unnerving. Fortunately, the trail was short wrapping through a marshy area on the edge of the Rio Grande.

We were warned by park rangers at the visitor center that we might encounter Mexican Nationals on various trails in the park selling trinkets, but we didn’t see anyone. There were several piles of souvenirs on the trail with money jars.

There is an opportunity to cross the US/Mexican border at an official port of entry within the park, but it is currently closed due to COVID-19. We didn’t bring our passports on this trip anyway, so we wouldn’t have crossed the border. Another time, in a different state of the world, it might’ve been neat to do so.

Our camping spot at Rio Grande Village wasn’t anything more than a parking spot with full RV hook-ups, but we were thankful for them nonetheless. I made sloppy joes, tater tots and broccoli for dinner. It rained for an hour or so into the evening.