Buc-ee's

Since it's Texas, we had to visit the world's largest convenience store: Buc-ee's, near New Braunfels. It is the size of a large supermarket, with over 200 gas pumps. The pictures don't really do it justice. 

Inside are convenience store products plus a deli. Here is the jerkey selection: 

And half of a Reuben sandwich we split: 

Donuts in the parking lot: 

Merry Christmas from the desert!

Christmas cholla cactus 

Mistletoe with white berries 

A festive prickly pear 

Heading Back

We were sad to leave Big Bend, but we're on our way home. First stop is back to Marathon, where we enjoyed the star party last time. The adobe courtyard is decorated for Christmas: 

Odds and ends

A big ammonite fossil in the trail: 

View over the Rio Grande, back to the Chisos, where we started: 

An Eastern collared lizard: 

A coyote in the middle of the campground: 

Not a very good picture, but a roadrunner (blow it up) :

More pictures near the River

The ruins of an adobe farmhouse, the chimney is built of petrified wood: 

A javelina (collared peccary) grazing through our campground by the river: 

Moon over the Chisos mountains, where our first campground was: 

The River at Last

After two weeks of fantastic mountains and desert, we made it to the Rio Grande. It's ... small. Between drought and both countries taking out lots of water, there isn't much flow. In all of these photos, the far side of the river is Mexico. Our first view: 

Then we hiked a short but spectacular canyon the river had carved. It is the notch in the distant wall above. If you blow the next photo up, you can see two tiny boats on the water. 

Rock Formations

Seen on some of our hikes: 

All the water that falls into the Basin flows through this chute over a cliff. 

Another, much lower waterfall chute. 

Wildlife

Aoudad, a wild sheep native to Africa, silhouetted on a ridge. They were brought over years ago as exotic game and are now invasive. 

These jays  thought they should get some of our lunch. 

Deer on the road near the campground. 

Hiking some of the mountain trails

For the next few weeks, all posts will be from Big Bend. The first few hikes were in the Chisos Basin. 

Big Bend, part 1

We've been in Big Bend a week, and it has been even better than I expected. The park is huge - the size of Rhode Island according to the brochure. We drove in through desert, and into the mountains rising up in the distance. Our first campground is in the Chisos Basin, surrounded by peaks on all sides. 

The light changes and the scenery is different every few minutes.