Day 4: Big Bend or Bust

We spent the morning visiting the state park headquarters of Monahans Sandhills State Park and trying to slide down a sandhill. We rented one snow discs for a $1. Kathy actually slid down the sand for about 20 feet. Chris could not slide at all because too much weight was spread over too small an area.

We spent the rest of the day driving toward Big Bend National Park.

On the way south we stopped in the small town of Marathon, named because an old sea captain told them that the surrounding land reminded him of Greece. And the land does look like Greece.

We stopped at the public library to use their Internet connection, only to discover that they do not have wireless. We had a nice professional chat with the librarian. This town of 500 has some wealth. They have nice hotel with fireplaces in the rooms. A grocery with gourmet foods. This grocery store, called French Grocery, has wireless Internet. So we bought some food and sat at picnic tables out front and added Day 3 and 4 to vacation blog. While we were there, customers in nice, new cars pulled up. The town is doing ok.

After finishing our blog we drove the rest of the way to Big Bend. Before reaching the front gate of the park we turned left 18 miles to Stillwell Store, RV park and museum. It's the only RV park near the north entrance of the national park. What a dump. RVs are right next to each other. Fortunately, it's off season and so some lots remained empty. These people are related to Hallie Stillwell, a famous woman in these parts.

Our RV was backed-up against a rocky hill covered with cactus. As it got dark, three horses walked around the hill snorting and stamping their feet. We could see them be the light of an almost full moon.

There were no clouds in the sky today. The nights are chilly, even cold earlier in the week. The mornings are cool. The days are warm, but not hot. Perfect weather.