Sunday, February 11, 2018

ADVENTURES AWAIT US AT BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK

Monday, February 5 – We traveled Southwest on US-90 to Marathon, TX, where we stopped to fill up with diesel fuel at $3.45/gallon. We filled up in Del Rio yesterday at $2.65. Quite a difference! We then turned South on TX-385 to Big Bend National Park. The drive was a pleasure on US-90 which we recommend as an alternative to I-10 when crossing Texas. We arrived at Big Bend National Park after a nice uneventful drive.

drive to Big Bend

drive to Big Bend

This tunnel in the park is a lot higher than it looks.
tunnel in Big Bend

Big Bend

We used our America the Beautiful Senior Pass to waive the $25 admission price, but the campground did NOT give any discount on camping.

We are in the Rio Grande RV Campground with full hook-ups. It is just a blacktop parking lot and not very roomy at that. The area that is intended to be the road between the two rows of back-in camp sites is very narrow and made it difficult to back into our site. The sites are about 30 feet wide with parking for your vehicle next to your RV. That makes it nice that we are not right next to our neighbor's RV. The utilities are at the rear of each site with 50 AMP electric, water, and sewer. We had a clear shot at the Southern sky for our satellite TV.

Big Bend campground

Big Bend campground

Looking right.
Big Bend campground

Looking left.
Big Bend campground

There is WiFi at the nearby camp store. It isn’t the strongest WIFI we have ever used, but we can at least text with the kids. Since we are in Site #24, the second site from the camp store, we are able to pick it up from our RV. No one is in Site #25. We are hoping, if and when they arrive, they don't block our ability to get WiFi. There is a nice grassy area between the first campsite and the store. There is no cell phone service unless we go to Panther Junction Visitor Center, 20 miles away. We were able to make a phone call to Marsha’s 90-year-old father, who has had the flu for a week…and yes, he did get the flu shot. This is only the third time in nine years of RVing that we were unable to pick-up Verizon cell phone service.

After getting setup in our site, we went up to the camp store to do a couple loads of laundry. We sat out on the provided picnic tables, where many visitors were sitting to use the free WiFi, and chatted with several couples about the Big Bend area and other RV travels.

We have tons of things to do and places to see while in Big Bend so stop back and enjoy the visit with us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!