October 7, 2023 - Big Bend National Park, TX

Saturday morning, we woke to a few sprinkles and this beautiful rainbow.  You cannot see it in this picture, but it is a double rainbow.

We went back to Big Bend National Park and drove to the Chisos Basin Road which goes 6 miles into the Chisos Mountains.

        The views of the mountains were beautiful.

Every turn gave us a different view.

More of the beautiful scenery.  We stopped at Chisos Basin Visitor Center but didn’t stay as it was very crowded and hot.  There is a lodge and restaurant here and because it is a weekend it was very busy.  We will come back next week.

We drove back down the beautiful but steep and curvy Chisos Basin Road and continued to the east side of the park.  We stopped at Dugout Wells where moisture seeps from a bed of gravel in the Chisos Mountains’ east flank.  Around 1900 a settler dug out a spring to pool the seepage, and later improved the flow with a windmill.   It was very shady and cool inside the grove of cottonwoods. 

There was once a ranching complex, a few houses and a schoolhouse located here.

This little lizard shared the path as we walked around this site.

After walking around the site and nature trail, we ate lunch on the picnic tables in the shade.

This is a view of the west side of the Chisos Mountains from Dugout Wells Nature Trail.

We stopped at the Hot Springs Historic District.  J. O. Langford arrived from Mississippi in 1909, stricken with malaria, he spent his last pennies seeking health and fortune.  He developed this rustic riverside resort so that others could experience the waters that he claimed healed him. In the 1920’s he built a motor court to accommodate the growing number of tourists. 

This was the post office and store.

There were a few pictographs and petroglyphs on the cliffs beside the path to the hot springs.

A bath house was built over the hot springs in 1910.  The foundation remains and everyone is welcome to use it to soak in the hot water which is 105^o F.

Landford built his house on the bluff overlooking the hot springs.

We stopped at the Rio Grande Village Visitor Center, but it was closed for the summer.  We drove through the picnic area and got a great view of the Chisos Mountains.

We walked down to the Rio Grande River - this is looking upriver.

This shot is looking downriver toward Boquillas Canyon.

The store was open here, so we stopped for some ice cream sandwiches.

On the way to Boquillas Canyon there is a Port of Entry where you can cross the border to Boquillas del Carmen, Mexico.  You park at the Boquillas Crossing parking lot, pass through the Port of Entry and take a small rowboat across the Rio Grande for a modest fee of $10.  Once across the river you can either walk the ½ mile to the village or pay an additional fee to ride a burro, horse or in a vehicle.  This is the only legal access to Mexico through Big Bend National Park.   We opted not to go into Mexico.

Boquillas Canyon is as far east as you can drive in the park.  This is a view from an overlook.  We could not get a closer view without hiking to the mouth of the canyon.  It was late afternoon and hot, so we headed back to the RV park.

We had another great day in Big Bend National Park.

After dinner we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.