I took a three day trip with my son to visit Big Bend National Park, and boy
did we have some fun! Here are some photos from that wonderful journey to
the rugged Chihuahua desert!
This  house/saloon remains my all-time favorite building. I found it in Alpine, where I stayed at a locally-owned hotel as kind of a
'starting point' for each day's adventures. The building is covered all around wih tin,  has a thin pipe chimney, and a false facade.
Facing the train station in the oldest part of Alpine, it makes me wonder if this great old building was once a hotel.
Thousand year old pictographs can be viewed at eye level
close to the Big Bend Hot Springs, along the Rio Grande
River. These pictographs probably belong to an extinct
people, forebears to the Apache and Chihuahua Indians.
The three pronged claws depict bears that were killed in
a hunt.
The Santa Elena Gorge, where the Rio Grande
cuts a straight path through rugged mountains, is
absolutely incredible. The water level was quite
low when I visited the Gorge; the facing rock is
actually in Mexico!
A sun set view of Mexcian Mesas. The scraggly hill in
the front is Mexico; the blue roofed building once held
a store for early 19th century visitors to the Hot
Springs (before Big Bend became a National Park, a
small resort preserved and promoted the Springs).
Before the September 11th attacks, Big Bend visitors
could swim and hike to Mexico without a problem;
today, the border is closed, and anyone caught on
Mexican soil who is not a Mexican citizen can be
thrown in jail and fined. Many of the Hot Springs
visitors dared to swim the Rio Grande, anyway...
Here's a good look at the rugged wilderness of Big Bend. My
sister says this landscape is definitely an acquired taste;
without much water and with temperatures rising into the
upper 90s even in the Spring, she does have a point...
When you visit Big Bend, you *have* to visit Fort Davis, one
of the best Western frontier military posts around.
Established as a guardian for American pioneers before
the Civil War, Fort Davis was abandoned during the Rebel
Conflict and was reopened once settlement resumed. It
was here that the Buffalo Soldiers - freed African
American soldiers looking for adventure and challenge -
guarded the frontier and fought the Apaches.
This marker is a good example of bad history. It reads:

Ruins of
The Ranch Home of Manuel Musquiz,
A pioneer who settled here
In 1854
Abandoned due to Indian Raids
The deserted buildings served as
A ranger station intermittently
1880-1882
While the country was being
Cleared of Bandits and Indians

Erected by the State of Texas
1936

Two things stand out:
1. The audacity to equate the Apaches, who were fighting for their
homes and hunting grounds, to bandits, and
2. The innocently termed 'ranger station' hides the atrocities the
Texas Rangers committed against the Indians as well as Mexican
settlers.
Thelma and Louise road!
Big Bend Rocks - Literally!