Going south of Marathon brought us to a world we had never yet seen. After passing through some border patrol checkpoints we entered Big Bend National Park, named for the ‘big bend’ the Rio Grande River makes to form the southern border of Texas. The Chisos Mountains and other awesome rock formations welcomed us into this desert landscape.
We drove along and spotted several roadrunners crossing our path. They moved fast! The landscape was astounding. At the visitors center we were told that this was the least visited National Park in the US, but that it had the highest percentage of return visitors. It was about a 4 hour drive away from San Antonio and down at the southern border of Texas. Worth it. Worth a return as well.
We drove along the Rio Grande and peered into a deep canyon on the Mexico side of the river. The park offered many enticing trails, but they didn’t allow dogs on trail and it was beyond too hot and sunny to leave her in the car, even in February. It was still a beautiful and much worthwhile loop through the park.
The park was quite spectacular and a place I would be glad to spend a week in exploring, but probably not in the heat of the summer.
The loop brought us out of the park and through more border patrol checkpoints. We passed through some south Texas towns surrounded by more awesome landscapes. Back at Highway 10 we passed through El Paso and continued back into New Mexico. We were taking a more southern route through the Southwest this time, hanging around near the Mexican border.
We passed through more border patrol checkpoints along the highway, each one requiring a full stop with questions and eyes peering into our vehicle. For us they were quick stops, but the number of times we had to stop was getting annoying.
Luckily the landscape more than made up for it. As we rolled back into Arizona we also entered saguaro cactus territory, those big two-armed cactuses you see in cartoons and movies. They were way cool, and much bigger than I anticipated! Arizona, again, turned out to be quite amazing.
We flew through Tucson and turned south to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Right along the border we visited another park full of crazy cacti and surrounded by more border patrol checkpoints.
We think we want to buy a ranch in Arizona somewhere. The state vastly impressed us. It would be a great winter escape away from the PNW rains!
Due west on Highway 10 we aimed for San Diego where we would head up to LA and see Jill’s parents. It was night when we hit California, so we didn’t see much of San Diego other than city lights and the darkness of the ocean, but we were in for a surprise when we got to LA.
Jill’s parents greeted us and told us they would take us to Disneyland the next day. Woo! We had both been before, but it was still very exciting. The greatest part was the Paint the Night Parade the park held at the end of the day. It was the most brilliant parade I had ever seen, and the floats were very impressive both visually and mechanically. They must have had quite a good engineer or two design those things.
From there we hopped back up to the Bay Area to see a few old friends and stay the night at Jill’s brother’s place once again.
From the Bay Area we decided we wanted to take California’s coast road, Highway 1, as far north as it went. We had been up I-5 and Highway 101 countless times, but Highway 1 would be a new adventure.
It started off great. Right out of the Bay Area we got away from the crowded cities and drove through cute coastal towns and along coastal forest and grasslands, but it soon took a turn for the worst. The road became so twisty that we often slowed down below 25mph, usually somewhere around 10 or 15mph for how tight the turns were. And those turns remained constant, for hours. The views were lovely, but not quite as awesome as the Oregon Coast views we were used to. Cows on the road. Slow Sunday drivers. Road work. We were ready to be done with this road trip.
The dog, Jill, and myself (as the driver) all got car sick. The roads were that bad. And there was no escape. Highway 1 is all but excluded from other major roads for most of its length. We were stuck, and it was awful. By the time we made it back to Highway 101 we had added at least a couple of hours to our return trip, and none of us were happy about it.
We took 101 through the redwoods and back up the Oregon Coast. We were so happy to be home. The trip was beyond amazing, but damn was it exhausting. After over 2 weeks on the road we were all just straight up beat.
But now we know some new areas of our country which we love, and a couple of which we hate. Arizona was amazing, Texas far exceeded our expectations, Kansas City and New Orleans are awesome cities. But nothing beats home. Glad to be back in Oregon.
Part 1 West Coast
Part 2 Arizona
Part 3 New Mexico
Part 4 Midwest
Part 5 The South
Part 6 The Border
