Family Camping Tradition

8th year at Big Bend National Park

Vast Texas skies surround us and the land stretches out on the horizon. As I write this, it’s Monday and I’m in the car with my parents, sister, and our dog Mac. There’s not a cloud in the sky, but dust clouds emerge from the desert around us. The five of us are enroute to Big Bend

National Park for our 8th annual camping Christmas in the desert in West Texas near the border with Mexico.

This is also the 80th post of this Substack account! It’s been a crazy week given that yesterday I got back from a work trip to Florida and this morning we packed our bags to go roadtripping.

Pressed for time, I remembered my past self had taken photos of all my old journals and saved them as PDF’s on my phone. So during the drive I pulled those out to write this blog. Big Bend memories from the past 7 years.

Technically we are on the 9th year of consecutive desert holiday trips, but 2020 gave us the short stick and we had gone to a different park that year. But I’m sharing some little bits and pieces of my Big Bend poems, thoughts, and journal entries throughout the years.

They say you can’t step in the same river twice— and Big Bend is the same. Each year we discover new trails, new mountains. Some years are hot, some years are freezing with ice. Years with flat tires, motorcycles, bears, storms, extraterrestrial sightings, crossing to Mexico, swimming in hot springs and the Rio Grande.

Looking back at my journals just now made me realize how much I’ve grown over the years. It’s a chance to look back and see all the layers that we’ve added to our human experience in the past year and get ready for the next. It’s like Big Bend is our annual reset button. A chance to be in nature and with ourselves. To see how far we’ve come. To see how we’ve evolved as people. Coming to Big Bend feels like a homecoming. A familiar yet still unfamiliar place.

Time feels different here where you move with the rhythm of the sun. Where days are meant for hiking and nights are meant for gazing under the galaxies of stars.

I wonder what this huge magical, mystical, unpredictable place that captured our hearts in 2016 has in store for us this 8th year.

It’s Just a River (Poem at Big Bend 2023)

I wonder how the river felt when it was just a river. Before it was named a border. When it was wild and free. Before we changed its destiny. But still the river flows, for nature knows no boundaries.

Journal 2022

I hold my breath so as to not interrupt the silence. The desert’s presence is so powerful it demands your full attention. But once you give it, you notice it’s actually not all silence. It’s empty of the droning street noises, the humming of home appliances, and the chatter of voices. But it’s silence brings to the ear the distant buzz of a single bee, the specs of dust gently blown in the breeze, the micro movement of a slithering snake. It’s like you can hear the clouds move and the cactus sleep. I could sit there all day, content, just contemplating the desert.

Journal 2021

There are some things that never change. Over eons and centuries. I’m talking about the stars.

The pitch black skies dotted with constellations. The same ones they saw 2,000 years ago areclose to the same ones we see now. The feeling is the same: Awe. They connect ancient with present. And present with future.

December 2019

After hiking with our backpacks all day, we set up camp and dragged our sleeping bags out of the tent and placed them in the dirt. As we lay on our backs, we gazed at the immense dark sky which put on a shooting star spectacle and the Milky Way looked straight out of a Nat Geo Magazine. In the morning the sun showered the mountains with color explosions while we made coffee. Desert magic.

Journal 2018

Our stubbornness of really wanting to get to a particular unmapped trail...led us on a 3-hour dirt road drive out in the boonies where we stumbled upon zero humans, a deafening silence and some crumbling ruins. Sometimes the best adventures are the plans that go sideways and you just have to embrace the detour. Have a laugh, take a breath and soak up the moment.

This still-standing window was a pause for me. A reminder to look at what fills my life this very second and frame it in my memory.

Another night we pitched our tents in below freezing weather, fierce winds, and dagger-like rain. We left Big Bend courtesy of a US Government shutdown so we came to neighboring Fort Davis State Park. We could have gone home, but that’s not our family’s style. We prefer the thrill and luxuries of discomfort. We don’t do very “normal” things and instead go our and find adventure, which we certainly did. It was like pitching a tent in the middle of a hailing ice hurricane. What thrill seekers we are. My parents are to blame (or thank).

Poem 2017

The sound of the water at the river bend. The bells of a horse eating grass.

The sound of vast desert silence. Murmuring voices hiking up. White cow and black horse grazing.

We are waiting for the sun to rise and fill the valley with light. Mexico is in sight just across the river.

Journal 2016

It is hard to leave this timeless, spectacular, beautiful, wild place. I’ve gotten used to no cell service, no snapchat, no email, no responsibilities. The only thing I “have” to do is be in a constant state of awe.

It was the first time I saw with my own naked eyes the whole damn Milky Way. The first time I heard such a loud silence. No sound. Nothing. I didn’t even want to breathe because it felt like I was disrupting the silence.

(Wishing everyone a heartfelt wonderful end of the year and happy beginnings to 2025. This post was written on Monday and scheduled for Thursday so I’m off the grid right now! I’m sure more Big Bend stories to come!)