Chisos Basin, Big Bend National Park

A thought for today........Scotland hung more women than any other country

This mountain is the backdrop to our campsite and a lovely view from our home on wheels.......
Day one at Lajitas, we are nicely settled into our new campsite,...this is a desert area and very cold at night but warm/hot during the day.
The night-time sky is amazing, clear big sky, so many stars and constellations also very little light pollution absolutely fabulous.....
This morning it's clear blue skies and turns into a very warm day

Our first day in Big Bend National Park. The distances are vast Big Bend covers  800,000 acres with Big Bend State Park at 311,000 acres. It is the least visited of all of the National Parks which is a shame as it's fabulous but it is in a very remote area of Texas/USA, one road in one road out and no sizeable airport nearby. The nearest town for food, clothes etc is 109 miles away. The entrance to the National Park is some 30 miles from our campsite and then another 20 miles to the visitor centre. It's very similar to driving into Denali National Park in Alaska. Flat plains and mountains and wonderful views....parts of the drive today are also reminiscent of driving in Iceland but whereas the rocks were black in Iceland due to the volcanic activity these rocks are multicoloured.......much like the coloured sand we had in glass vials as children.....

The main area we visit today is the Chisos Basin an old extinct volcano . This photo is of The Chisos Basin Window  the only break in the surrounding mountains and looks directly into Mexico.....

Luckily we do not see any mountain lions or bears on our 2 mile loop  hike........

Another view from the trail of the Window.......

This place is on the main road near the turn off for Terlingua Ghost Town. We just had to take pics, in the yard there is a replica statue of liberty, mock up part of a sailboat and part of a submarine to name a few bits.........the ghost town is a collection of old stone houses and shops now used mostly by artists and artisans to sell their crafts, no tumbleweed though although we did see some blowing across the road on our journey down yesterday. Another fact tumbleweed is not a native plant of Texas/USA but brought in mixed with flax seeds from Asia.  Terlingua was a mining town when Cinnabar was mined here and in Big Bend National Park, most of the mines closed in the late 940's.
Mercury is extracted from cinnabar ore.......so many facts in one day !!!!

We had a great first day exploring the area and even time when we got back home for a cup of tea and a sleep in the sunshine..........
I forgot to mention in an earlier blog but we do see some sights.....at the campsite in Victoria we saw a couple walking their two dogs and pushing a cat in a pushchair/stroller......then in San Antonio we saw another couple walking 2 dogs with 2 more little ones in a pushchair !!!!
We do have a small problem one of our two ignition keys for the truck suddenly bent, must be really soft metal.....Wild Billy Page from the Walhalla dealership is over-nighting us another one.......more soon from The Happy Campers