Big Bend National Park Onward

2022-09-30

To Georgia and Back Series: Part 22

We’re at the campgrounds up in the mountains in Big Bend National Park. The hike today was wonderful. We’re surrounded by a variety of tall jagged cliffs and mountains on all sides. People are all around, in tents and small RV’s.

A wailing brat is dominating the otherwise peaceful program. He just doesn’t let up. This kid is a mess. I think about yelling, “Stop beating your kid.” But I’m sure the parents are embarrassed as it is and desperate to get the situation under control. When “he’ll just play himself out in time out” is obviously futile, the father goes into the tent looking tense and firmly on a mission. The child shuts up…Peace returns to the community. I think to thank dad for abusing the little monster. Nah, parents do their best, we all make mistakes and I just hope for the best…

…There is something special about this place…and the sun drops into a saddle.

Golden light and silhouettes replace it. There is calm and magnificence.

After falling asleep watching stars, we awaken to much of the same sense of peace, as the morning sun paints mountains.

We take a drive into the extensive camping area. Maybe there is a backpack trail to get naked and camp. There may be such a thing, but with designated backpack camping sites, it just doesn’t feel wild, or naked and private to us. There would likely be people, like yesterday.

We decide to take the scenic route, a long drive. It has been recommended by our hostess, “Just head south. You’ll get what Big Bend is all about.” She has heard that it is currently green from lots of rain south of here, “More than us.”

This place is famous for desert geology. We haven’t been to all of Big Bend and know little about it. We intend to explore, take a nice carnude in the warm dry air to parts unknown and get away from the crowds.

We take the winding two lane highway. It wraps around the mountain. We see that window that we stood in at the end of yesterday’s trail, but from the other side. From here, we’re on our way sort of south-ish.

We’re determined to take our time and enjoy the ride. The road is fairly free of traffic. Still, there is that one car, a stoner with Colorado plates who just doesn’t care and seems oblivious. His pace is 15mph slower than the posted speed limit, like there is an emanate school crossing around the next bend. Brakes come on for seemingly no reason. I can’t just let go and enjoy the scenery for concern of running into his rear-end. There is no passing on this road. After enough of this, I feel like a victim being tortured. He misses a pull over at every opportunity. Have you encountered something like this? Perhaps, farm machinery?

The road stretches out eventually and I accelerate. Our little Honda seems to roar away.  But, within minutes, we are stopped to gas up in Terlingua.

I picture Jerry Jeff Walker standing here at this gas station. He named a record after this place. I wonder why. Could it be an inside Texan joke? Is there something that I’m missing here? Is there a hidden mystique, if I stop and look for it? Could it be the rather plain grey concrete block looking Mexican food stand?

It is a desert. It is quiet out on the range. Looking up at landmark mountains and huge sky does give a sense of solitude. The stars are amazing. I realize that this is what they are selling. There are trailers, particularly old refurbished air-stream trailers placed out in this desert. They are camp/retro with their trademark airplane aluminum casings. Still the mystique becomes tourism, when I find the price of these rentals.

This opens up into a vast and varied terrain where humans have only accomplished changing it with a two lane road and that in the terms dictated by the geology. I recognize things northern Arizonan, but soon, I find an appreciation for Big Bend’s uniqueness. Here lies a painted desert, another different terrain and then desolate mountainous structures. It is as if God has taken a small piece from several locations, picked them up and placed them here, like a humans collect animals and place them in zoos. There are few consistencies to notice in passing, other than the consistently parched context.

I keep notice the set of mountains that look like a fox, or coyote’s ears that keep popping out after the various bends in the road.

We drive through spilled paint covering a slope.  

A red mountain rises straight up, alone, like crystals growing. Nothing anywhere else here, is like it.

DF has seen the end of my pleasure in driving and offers to take over for the return trip north. Window open, completely naked, liberated feet on rough carpet, all of it breathing in the breeze, camera in hand, I am able to soak in this amazing collection of valleys under turquoise skies.

We stop and listen, motor off. In the sun, Planet Earth gives us yet more gifts. We snap photos and then around the bend there is another snap.

There is a consistent rock formation out here. Running across the valleys and up mountainsides. Looking like the remnants of a Chinese Great Wall meander rock edifices. It is as if someone ancient has constructed them. They run straight like a cattle fence marking an artificial boundary.

They sit on the tops of hills like fortresses. They seem out of place.

As we get into the high desert once again, the hillside erupts with flowers and I soon manage a little sleep before Fort Davis. We make a stop near Alpine University to try the local deli connoisseur pizza, after two weeks without. My beaming compliments are extended to the chef.

We’ve got reservations for Fort Davis State Park, outside of Fort Davis, in Fort Davis County. I find this is named after Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. I have to wonder how such a political statement would be made way out here in Texas.

Back before the Civil War, when the nation was one-ish, Jeff Davis was the Secretary of War. They named this outpost about that honor. It was an outpost to protect the trails out to El Paso from San Antonio and down into Chihuahua.

At this time however, I am suspicious of this small town. We stop for provisions for the night at a local specialty grocery store. I hear a joker behind my back, talking to his pal about hippies in kilts. We walk outside along the sidewalk and a woman, another pedestrian, just stops in her tracks and stares. This place is remote and it would seem many may be out of touch, but to the point of being rude. I turn to DF, “Man, what if we were here still nude instead?!”

They have another one of those very fun old time hotels, but we’re camping under stars.

After Jeff Davis, we find Jeff Davis Park.  It is high desert trees in a small valley with deer roaming around us. These locals are big and small.  

After setting up camp, we think about the advertised local hike. We could probably get through it nude early, before we leave, but it is just grass hills like home.

The camping area has more spaces, lots actually, but not enough. Even though it is off season and there is plenty of space between, we are not out of view.

We’ve been watching that big moon grow. Each night, it starts later and higher earlier. Still, we can be entertained by the stars in these dark skies.

By morning 10-11-22, we are leaving, not using our option to stay, because there are too many people. Sometimes, a naturist just needs some elbow room.

We stop for brunch at a spot that is very different. It has pine trees, obviously more altitude, cooler, but more than that, the traffic is nil. I sit and flip open my kilt. DF joins me, disrobing at the stone and concrete table on a slab. It feels good, free. With the scent of the pines and the lack of the sound of traffic, it is downright charming.

DF comments, by reminding me to feel the breeze. I respond suggesting the obvious, “Smell the Pines.”

That is simply what there is here. It is a defining conversation. This is just what we needed.

There is a driving big haul for this day. We’re heading home. We eventually come out of the peace of the plains of two lane Texas. The Interstate feels frantic. Cars are lined up at the first gas station after many miles, Kent. They are desperately being gouged at more than a dollar more than the next town. Make a buck, make a buck, make a buck!

We’re back in the modern world again, away from quiet people who are shocked by anything different. The intensity increases as we barrel into El Paso, multi-lane, overpass, hectic. I feel my grip tighten on the steering wheel, until we find our way off and into remnants of New Mexico’s past. We flow into a cute little adobe town, where lies “La Posta.”

I used to visit this restaurant 60 years ago, when my family would travel from White Sands Missile Range over the mountains, just to eat here.

It has changed. It is decorated more colorfully, but still popular. We feast on hot plates of Mexican food all meshed together in a classic puddle. I’m delighted.

I take a walk through the restaurant to find something in particular. This is an old post office/trading post dating back to visits from Billy the Kid and Pat Garret. One night, my grandfather sat at our table next to a very old door, showing me, the kid, ancient non-standard nails that were once used in construction…when he was a kid. The old worn and heavy shuttered window/door that had been next to our table is still there. I touch those nails, as I choke up.

So many memories are here.

We are traveling home into a glorious sunset around 9pm. We’ve been naked awhile.  Unusually, two people pass us and wave. I wrap on a kilt over my lap. DF lifts up the pile of red pattern cloth from between the seats and waves back.

This is supposed to finally conclude the Georgia and Back Series. There will still be another post in the series, maybe two, about our Alabama Getaway, later. I have had to wait for “N” magazine to publish an excerpt from it. It is in distribution, now. I had to give them first publishing rights.

I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.

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