Texas is known for the boarder or aka “the wall”, horses, shooting stuff and if you’re old enough… Pecos Bill. We wrapped up our time in Big Bend and headed to Guadelupe Mountain on the boarder of TX and NM, but not without some wild driving!

We start with our walk to Mexico and proof that there is a real wall… but this one wasn’t man made it’s God sized and incredible. After an amazing drive through the Big Bend National Park on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, we find water, green and life in the desert. Santa Elena Canyon is a remarkably beautiful trail that explores a canyon split by the Rio Grand where it meets Terlingua Creek. An 80-100ft vertical hike along the opening of the canyon results in decent to the river and some flowing grass and reeds opening to shallow sand bars between Mesa de Anguilla and Sierra Ponce. It’s a 1500 foot wall on each side and great creek hike. You can go for a good distance but the boys explored a bit and Robert threw enough rocks to create a dam ☺️ and we chatted with another family of RV/howmschoolers while the kids took a walk over to the Mexico side 😎

After that hike we decided some 4x4 off roading out of the park on Maverick Road was a good idea 🤔🤪🤠 we have a Jeep Grand Cherokee and handled the relatively tame dirt/rock road but it does bounce you around a bit so wouldn’t recommend an RV for this route of any size. Regular truck could navigate it slowly but stick to 4 wheel mode and some ground clearance or you might lose a muffler.

To wrap things up we had some fun activities for the kids at LaJitas Resort… Horse Painting with a Super Bowl theme for Jayden and Robert and some target practice with Peyton. Both activities were… therapeutic but Peyton’s was a bit more on target 😉

For the trip north to Guadelupe we passed a few unique spots including the Blue Origin launch site, a number of art/deco for the desert and a Prada Marfa art piece. All as we crossed Pecos Bill’s playground with dust devils the size of our bus blowing us around. Michele drove the bus for the first time too despite the wind … she did great!

The final stop on Texas was the highest peak in Texas, Guadelupe Peak… however we unfortunately had our worst stop thus far. The wind that blew us to the mountain got worse, gusting up to 70 mph so we spent the first night on the mountain with all the slides closed to limit damage. I should have taken a nighttime pic but here is what it looks like closed… now just picture that with all 5 of us and 2 dogs 😳 It’s fine for travel but gets tight quick since our master bed folds up to 1/2 for driving. So Michele got a mini hike before sunset and then after a rocky night’s sleep we cut our visit short due to continued wind warning for the mountain… too bad cause it was a beautiful mountain to climb! More from New Mexico soon!