Rio Grande RV Park, Big Bend National Park

     We had a beautiful drive today with views of mountains and ranches.  Some of the ranches are so big they show up as entities on the Texas map.  I enjoyed seeing many varieties of wild flowers and added a roadrunner and a golden eagle to my list of birds that I have seen.  I am looking for a book on plants and flowers of Texas so I can identify some of the cactus.
    Anyway, here were are in a campground in Big Bend National Park.  We are a looooooong way from Minnesota.  Just a short walk to the Rio Grande River which creates the U.S. / Mexico border.  The park covers over 800,000 acres, and we will see as much as we can in the three days that we are here. The campground has full hook-ups for 25 campers - there are about ten here tonight.  It is really quiet except for the fans running in the camper.  The weather was in the mid-80's today.  Mosquitoes have chased us in from our lawn chairs.
    The park is so big that fifty miles of our drive was within park borders at 45 MPH, but the views of the Chisos Mountains were spectacular.  It was less windy today which made the drive much easier.  It is a thrill to arrive at our furthest point from home and set up camp for a few days.  Day after day of driving is really tiring.
     Late fall and winter are the busy times in this park.  Two of the Visitor Centers and many of the campsites will not open until November 1.  As the weather cools in the northern states the park becomes more temperate and folks come to enjoy the fine south Texas weather.
     Park literature has a lot of information about border crossings.  As we approached the park we went past a border patrol checkpoint equipped with dozens of scanners and cameras.  They were not interested in us as we headed towards the border.  I'm sure our RV will be fully checked out when we return.
   I am amazed the the WiFi in the little camp store reaches my laptop enough to post this blog.  I am not tempting fate by including photos.  I will post pictures when we get back to civilization.  Instead I will go back out and look at the billions of stars in the sky over Texas tonight.