Skirting the Mexican Border at Big Bend

The vast untouched reaches of Texas' Big Bend region are breathtakingly beautiful.

With the desert's low rainfall stunting plant life, there is nothing to impede views or to hide the wild expanses stretching in every direction.

The summer in Big Bend is so hot that few campgrounds and visitor centres even open, but with Autumn now bringing slightly cooler temperatures, the region is beginning to open for the season though not yet experiencing the heavy visitor traffic it sees from Thanksgiving through Spring Break.

The region encompasses the Big Bend Ranch State Park, the Big Bend National Park and several small communities in the Chihuahuan Desert on the border with Mexico.

Starting in the border crossing town of Presidio, we took the 170, the 'Camino Del Rio', which heads east through the Big Bend Ranch State Park.

Starting in the late afternoon, we nighted at an honour-system RV park not far along the road and watched with interest as a Border Patrol truck drove through not one but four times in just the twilight hours before the pitch black of night descended.

The next morning, as we followed the Rio Grande on its meandering course south-east towards its eventual 90-degree turn north-east (hence the 'big bend'), the road showcased cliffs, canyons, hoodoos and dykes in its sweeping panoramas.

What it also showed us was how easy it must be to cross the border between Mexico and the United States, with the river being not wide or treacherous whatsoever.

The border is indeed a very 'soft' barrier and that explained why on the roads in and out of the region we were stopped a total of four times for passport/vehicle checks.

Later in our visit, in the Boquillas Canyon of the National Park, we watched two Mexicans simply ride their horses across the river where we had been skimming rocks to the other side just moments before.

The tiny resort town of Lajitas made a pleasant stop for a couple of nights, with the boys enjoying pool swims for the first time since we left Washington DC.

Their efforts chasing roadrunners across the lawns reminded us of Hanna-Barbera's Coyote.

The nearby golf resort has a unique longhorn museum displaying the lengthy horns of many a bull who once proudly sported them.

Entering the National Park, we took the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, perhaps the highlight drive of the Park, down to the Santa Elena Canyon trail head.

The trail, about three kilometres return, took us into the midst of the Santa Elena Canyon, where the Rio Grande has sliced deeply into the rock.

The boys had fun playing with the canyon's echoes.

Back at the Cottonwood Campsite, I spotted a bobcat wandering just 20 metres away. It strolled for a while, unhurried and unbothered by us until another camper drove in and it quickly skidaddled.

The next day, we entered the Chisos Basin Road which is not recommended for long vehicles and so only drove as far as the Lost Mine trail head at the pass.

The boys and I accompanied Nath on the 2.5-kilometre return route to the Juniper Canyon Overlook, a highpoint affording impressive views through the Chisos Mountains which push up out of the desert like a forested, cool oasis.

Dash spotted two tarantulas during our walk and we watched them feeling their way over the path and across the cactus debris and plantlife.

(As many of you know, I'm not a fan, but there was something innocuous about these - perhaps because they were so slow - and I surprised myself with my ability to stand still and just watch them).

Nath completed the rest of the trail (eight kilometres return) while we returned to Bessie, spotting a praying mantis and lizards and scat along the way.

Later, we drove Bessie to the Rio Grande Village, where we stayed two nights.

The next day we walked the Boquillas Canyon Trail, playing on a sandy beach at the edges of the river's gouging slice through yet more rock.

Here we skimmed rocks and contemplated the canoe on the other shore; not as sleek as a 747 but all a Mexican needs for international travel.

Indy insisted on yelling out to horsemen on the other bank, who then rode across not long after we started our walk back.

These and other locals had set up signs and displays of trinkets available 'for a donation' at regular intervals along this trail and the Nature Trail we walked on the following day, as well as on the roadside overlook to the Mexican township of Boquillas Del Carmen.

We tried as much as possible to drink in the unimpeded views of these rugged expanses, knowing too well that as we now begin working our way eastwards there will be few other moments (on this trip at least) where we will feel like we are the only people on earth.

The Old Frontier

Fort Davis was one of the key military posts in the settlement of America's western frontier.

It protected travellers, freight and mail on the San Antonio-El Paso Road throughout most of the second half of the nineteenth century.

This is when the Indian Wars with the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches were in full swing.

Today, this National Historic Site contains refurbished buildings and original structures and ruins showcasing what life was like at the barracks for all of the different people stationed or stuck there.

Indy and Dash worked to get their Junior Ranger badges.

The 'find the item' scavenger hunt held their attention, encouraging them to look for the pictured artifacts in the quarters, hospital, store houses, etc.

The bugle calls at intervals over the loud speakers and the accompanying guide we had replicated the regimental routine of the day and enabled us to play make-believe: "Oh, that bugle means it's time to feed the horses" (two of which, incidentally, were wandering through the grounds, along with goats)!

Guadalupe National Park

(written by Nath)

Guadalupe National Park is home to the tallest mountain in Texas, formed at the same time and thanks to the same geological forces as the Rocky Mountains to the north.

At 8780 feet, Guadalupe Mountain, along with its brother El Capitan, rise from the chihuahuan desert floor like a wall of granite.

At the base of the mountains is an amazing salt plain, skirted by gypsum white sand dunes -- really unique scenery.

Of course the national park rangers also reckon there are bears and mountain lions up there.

I laughed at the ranger. They must be pretty skinny ones, having adapted to a diet of rattlesnakes, lizards and scorpions. There's not much else for them to eat, except maybe three and five-year-old boys?

To fortify Bessie's defenses, we set about replicating the superb clubhouse design from a couple of weeks ago; the same stick and hessian based wall system, with a seat-mounted slingshot in case of animal attack. The boys were ready.

As if to taunt the prowling mountain lions, the boys raced each other around the campground on their bikes/scooters.

Loading myself up with the suggested 1 gallon of water and my trusty Leatherman - it's all I need to take down a fully grown black bear or to whittle a wooden duck - I took the opportunity to summit Guadalupe Mountain, a 14km return trip with a 1km altitude gain.

The desert floor around the mountain base is amazing, with so many different cacti, ground shrubs and wildflowers. I felt like picking a bunch for flea (maybe not the cacti) but the destruction of national park flora wouldn't win me any points. The thought was there.

Nobody else was on the trail as the cacti started to give way to tall grasses and yukka trees. The Indians supposedly loved to roast the yukka fruit - 'make you strong like bull'.

Up, up, up, through a forest layer, juvenile Douglas fir amongst other awesomely named trees.

The view out over the desert was spectacular, like the earth had been crumpled up when plates collided however many millions/billions of years ago.

The massive dry washes coming off the mountainsides showed how aggressive some of the summer storms must be.

The summit was in sight. I turned on the jets, not even needing 'Eye of the Tiger'.

A large silver pyramid adorned the peak. Resting against it, I could see to Mexico some 150 or so kilometers away.

I opened the little metal box beside it, which contained a comments book .

Next to an entry by 'Taiwan Tony', who said he loved Texas and the longhorns, I scribbled a  message 'All the way from Down Under to the top of Texas - Aussie Nath'.

I hope Taiwan Tony didn't fall over the edge on the way down, because I hadn't seen a sole.

Holy Bat Cave

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, at the edge of New Mexico's border with Texas, is the summer home of a colony of Mexican free-tailed bats.

Our first attempt to see the bats take off from the cavern on their nightly flight ended in disappointment.

The boys were getting restless after sitting for an hour, through a ranger presentation and then a long wait for the bats to emerge. So we cut our losses and left.

Usually, to keep the boys from being boys (and to stop people whispering to each other about our terrible parenting), we whip out the iPads (which actually gets people talking about our terrible parenting, but for completely different reasons).

Unfortunately though, the bats are affected by electronic devices and so we had switched everything off (including the camera) on entering the bat flight observation area.

This is what the bats look like when they're roosting.
This image is from the NPS brochure -
you aren't allowed to use cameras near the bats.

The next night, after a day spent exploring deep inside the cavern below, we skipped the ranger presentation and were just getting to the jumping beans stage when the bats (thankfully) decided to emerge.

Seeing those hundreds of thousands of bats circling upwards and outwards in swarms across the twilight sky was an unparalleled experience for all of us. (Sorry we don't have pictures to share with you!)

They looked like a flock of little swallows, with their bodies the size of an adult thumb and their wings the size of a pair of hands.

A bit of the warm stinky air from their guano-rich cave wafted up on their wings. Apparently the guano (bat poo) in their cave is metres and metres deep.

Our day-time exploration of Carlsbad saw us hiking from the Natural Entrance deep down through the mouth and into the enormous caverns below.

As the last bit of natural light dissipated behind us the trail continued down and down, through limestone formations with names like 'Devil's Spring' and 'Witches Finger'.

With a kids-oriented audio guide to help us, we admired stalactites and stalagmites and columns and draperies and popcorn and soda straws and all of the amazing formations in this labyrinth of limestone.

Continuing on to the 'Big Room' loop walk, now at almost 800 feet below the surface, we came to the highlight of the self-guided rooms.

There are still further rooms you can view on ranger-guided tours, but they don't allow children as young as ours.

The word 'room' is a massive misnomer for these caverns.

The 'Big Room' alone is 8.2 acres.

After walking for almost four kilometres, we thought the boys deserved to catch the elevator from the rest area straight up to the Visitors Centre, instead of forcing them to walk all the way back out of the cave. How civilised!

I'm sure there's a strong lure for visitors to avoid the descent via the Natural Route altogether and to simply catch the elevator up and down.

But for me there was magic in the transition from strongly-lit day to dark netherworld below and I think it helped the kids to better understand the creation of the caves and their formations and the drip, drip, drip continuing today.

Monster servings of Texan fun

Texas takes its patriotism VERY seriously.

At the Forth Worth Championship Rodeo we stood for the US Anthem, then another moment in honour of servicemen and women, and then for the song Proud to be an American which blasted over the speakers while a lone rider urged his horse faster and faster around the arena until the US flag he carried streamed behind him in a glorious tribute to freedom.... (hey, it's hard not to get caught up in the moment!)

The Americans sang (in words; not mumbles) with their hands steadfastly held over their hearts.

We Aussies dislike our national anthem so much that we'd prefer the announcer played nothing at all and just said: "Yair, let's get on with it, eh?"

I know I've said it before, but my frustration is growing the more I see Americans being genuinely moved by their national song.

And Waltzing Matilda? A song about a sheep-stealing ghost? It's very hard to feel moved by that.

Perhaps we should change the anthem to Men At Work's Land Down Under. Maybe then it would get the hands-over-hearts treatment.

After all, every Aussie can relate to vegemite sandwiches and men who chunder.

The anthem and tributes at the Monster Truck Championships at the Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track confirmed it - these Texans are raised proud.

Every kid in the crowd knew what to do - except ours of course. Indy kept yelling: "Is it 10 minutes yet? He said it'd start in 10 minutes. What about now mum? Oh, WHEN will they stop SINGING and bring out the TRUCKS!"

We've spent almost a week in the Fort Worth Dallas area and here's the low-down on our favourites...

KIDS

1) Monster Truck Championships - hands down!

2) Legoland Discovery Centre (they had loved Chicago's version so much that we were easily persuaded to spend another day in Lego heaven).

ADULTS

1) the cattlemen's catwalk at the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District (especially watching the cowboys bringing those Texas Longhorns back into the pens after the twice-daily cattle drive down Exchange Avenue).

2) the Fort Worth Championship Rodeo (awesome! but especially watching Indy chase a sheep around the Cowtown Coliseum in the kids' event).

THE WHOLE FAMILY

1) We all loved camping for the night beside the Stockyards Arena and opening our curtains in the morning to say Good Moo-rning to the bulls, horses and even a camel.

2) It was interesting listening to air traffic control as they directed the planes to take off and land at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. (The Founders' Plaza observation area has a radio feed from the tower).

Toothless in Arkansas

Cruising through Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, we thought it looked like a decent enough little city.

But when Arkansas' licence plates read "The Natural State" we thought we owed it to ourselves to  head straight for the Ouachita Mountains.

This is a huge swathe of National Forest running through Arkansas' centre.

With Hot Springs National Park closed thanks to the federal shutdown, we contented ourselves with a drive through the township itself, mostly derelict by the look of things.

Onwards we pushed to Lake Ouachita State Park where we found a campsite by the water and in the morning I walked/jogged the Caddo Bend Trail (7 km return from the campsite).

Apart from a few woodpeckers and what I'm sure was a beaver beating its tail, I was left unharrassed. I'm certainly braver again now the bears are very few and far between.

Petit Jean State Park was then only a short drive up highway 7 to the north east. It sits on a high plateau overlooking the surrounding farmland.

Cedar Falls, the Park's highlight, was barely trickling, but we made friends with a little armadillo on our way to the overlook.

This was the first of perhaps ten armadillos we were to see, both alive and dead, as we travelled Arkansas' roads.

With the campsites full to the brim, we grabbed a spot in 'overflow' for a couple of nights and had a beautiful lakefront spot all to ourselves for the first of those nights.

Lake Bailey supported all sorts of life, including honking flocks of geese, huge lilly pads and noisy cicada-like insects.

Emboldened by the seeming isolation of our little spot, the three 'boys' decided to create a club house using the oak and maple trees beside us as a base and by scavenging for bits of timber.

Indy erected a 'no girls allowed' sign, so mummy contented herself with relaxing and reading inside Bessie and occasionally delivering some supplies.

It was almost Lord of the Flies time when dad fashioned a sling-shot out of timber, elastic bands and some torn fabric.

He made sure to explain the rules to the other 'boys', including not aiming at each other or any other animals (wise words sensai!)

In many ways, this two-day slingshotting, boys club fest was in keeping with where we were.

Almost every second person in Arkansas wears camo gear, so they clearly like their huntin'. But I get the feeling the fashions go beyond the hunt.

You need to pick up your script from the pharmacy? Put on your camo.

You run out of milk and pop down to the grocery store? Put on your camo.

You drive around (anywhere) in your 4x4? Put on your camo.

The adults wear camo. The kids wear camo. I'm surprised the dogs don't wear camo. Maybe they do and I just didn't see them.

But the biggest surprise for us in Arkansas was when Indy's bottom tooth started wobbling.

A couple of days later, he finished an apple and announced the last bite had tasted a bit funny. Brilliant!

Then the tears flowed as he started to wonder whether the tooth fairy might not come because he didn't have a tooth to give her.

Never fear - it's nothing that a determined mummy, a day's wait and a pair of latex gloves can't fix.

We exited Arkansas over the Winding Stair Mountain drive, an obvious favourite of bikers with its rollercoaster dips and its winding curves through forest.

It was certainly nice enough and lots of people were stopping to take photos of the scenery, but I can't say that we were all that 'taken' with it.

With Elvis at Graceland

We're a bit partial to Elvis Presley in this family.

Okay, so maybe that's understating things. I walked down the aisle to Elvis' "It's Now or Never". So the respect and adoration is enduring.

And here in Memphis, Tennessee, with Bessie camped directly across the road from his beloved Graceland, we didn't want our communion with the King to be spoiled in any way.

That meant leaving the kids behind and taking turns completing the Graceland Platinum Tour which allowed us to visit the house and adjoining buildings, Elvis' resting place and numerous associated museums.

What struck both of us within the main house was how many of the rooms served a useful purpose and had a natural (not extravagant) size.

His mum and dad lived in the house with him for as long as they were alive (his mother predeceased him) and because of the lived-in feeling of the rooms, you could really imagine family life within the house.

Several recordings were made in the lounge of his 'Jungle Room', where the floor and ceiling were coated in a thick green shag.

And there were a LOT of mirrors. Everywhere.

The open, grassy pasture behind the house still has horses to this day, and the self-guided tour walks you through areas like this and the numerous buildings adjoining the main house.

He did so much for charity. He knew what it was to have nothing and perhaps that early association with struggle-street fed his need to help others.

There are so many costumes and platinum records and keepsakes and videos - we each spent more than three hours going through all of the exhibits at the house and the museums.

The automobile museum showcases the pink caddy that was his mum's favourite along with several others from his collection, including toys like golf carts and trikes they used to race around the lawns of Graceland.

Two of his private aeroplanes are also open for viewing, including the "Lisa Marie" replete with its gold-plated seat belt buckles.

Nath's favourite exhibit focused on the '68 comeback special. Is there anything better than when somebody's written off and up against it and comes out and does their thing and proves to the world that they've still got it.

Mine was probably the Vegas years.

Those who know me best are aware of my affection for jumpsuits. Mum's skills with a sewing machine meant I had several of my own as a young girl. My favourite was a yellow, green and brown floral number.

The exhibit featuring the Vegas concerts had so many of his costumes -- I could have spent hours admiring that bejewelled and embroidered bounty of one-piece awesomeness.

The tour doesn't touch on his demise apart from mentioning that he played the piano in his racquetball lounge area on the very morning of his death. His weight gain and prescription drug addiction isn't addressed.

Standing at his gravesite was perhaps my most emotional moment; reading the inscription written by his father who survived him by only a couple of years.

For days now, Bessie has been rocking non-stop to the sounds of Elvis (with just a bit of Paul Simon's Graceland thrown in here and there).

We'll never tire of listening to the King.