Surviving Big Bend: Part 1

From Alpine on Wednesday morning we headed straight for Big Bend National Park.  We decided to camp at the lower campground for our first night to avoid the treacherous roads initially.  We found a spot at the Cottonwood Campground- which was easy since we were the ONLY people there.  After dropping Stan at our campsite we headed for a few trails.  It was hot, but we still enjoyed the Santa Elena trail, with the view of the Rio Grande, and the Mules Ears' trail.

After hiking we tiredly returned to the still vacant campground.  It was fun to have the whole place to ourselves.  We were able to use the solar shower au naturale!  The solidarity was great until the intense thunderstorms rolled-in around midnight.  We spent hours hoping to avoid a lightning strike- even moving Ollie across the field from Stan, as to divert the lightning to Stan rather than us in Ollie!  Luckily we made it through the night safe and dry.  xxx