Big Bend, day three

I know you spent all day counting the hours until I posted more Big Bend pictures.

These are the butterflies and crickets that flew into the grill of our car. Gabriel and Ethan thought they were so cool.


We drove down to the Rio Grande along the border of Mexico and hiked to Hot Springs where there are relics of a turn of the century health resort and bath house. Below is an old, abandoned post office at the trail head.


The health resort...

This cracked mud was difficult to hike across. As the trail progressed, the cracks became larger and larger to the point that the childrens' feet would get stuck in the cracks. Then Gabriel got stuck in a sink hole. It was pretty scary for him but his dad came to the rescue. Then, of course he got stuck as well. Ironically a day or two before we left for the trip we saw Bear Grylls on TV demonstrate how to get out of a sink hole. So Brandon was able to free himself without any drama. Although that was the most frightening adventure for Gabriel on this trip.

We drove on a VERY narrow one way road (to get to the trail head) through a canyon. These are pictures from the hike to the hot springs but this is the sort of canyon wall views we saw on the drive.



At last! The springs! They were amazing. If you have never been to visit a natural hot spring I highly recommend it. It felt like a hot bath. That is the Rio Grande in the background. It recently flooded and the water was still very rapid.


One of the cool things about the park was that if you are not into hiking all that much or if you are sore from too much hiking, there are all kinds of neat scenic drives. After we left the hot springs we took such a drive.


roadrunner .... beep beep

Back at camp. Here is a picture of the car I grew to appreciate during this trip. Not that I didn't appreciate it before but not only did this car handle the switch back mountain roads with ease but also the off road canyon drive and it provided excellent shelter on the night when the temperature got down to freezing!
Brandon helping Gabriel with his workbooks. That's the thing about home school, I didn't think G could stay on track if we took a whole week off from his studies. So we took his studies with us.

View from my nap. I love naps.


Trail near our campsite.


Just before dinner we hiked the Window Trail. It was gorgeous. Here is Gabriel with a succulent larger than him! We didn't hike the whole trail bc B wasn't wearing his hiking boots. He was letting them dry (he had to take them off and scrub the mud off of them).
We had dinner at the lodge restaurant. They were having a special on St. Louis style ribs. Anything with St. Louis in the title and we buy it!


silly people.

Our "hotel room" for our last night.