Trip Log: Big Bend '21
I have been long on thoughts and short on words to express them lately (which explains the general quiet in this corner); but after a season of so much change and effort and what often felt like chaos, I was more grateful than usual for the full stop of a trip to West Texas with dear friends.
For those keeping track, this is Maggie’s and my third annual westward voyage (“We’re really doing it!” she screeched at one point on the trip. “A tradition!”) and one that I think will continue to accumulate new faces each year. While Sara couldn’t make it this go-round, Brooke was up for it. As always, it was fun not only watching and listening as two good friends got to know each other better; but to learn totally new things about two women who I would have thought I pretty much had down pat. Time outside together and completely disconnected from everyone else has a way of doing that. I love it.
We revisited old favorites in the park and discovered some new ones. I’ll never get over the layers of Big Bend — environmental and aesthetic, the colors and textures and materials and plants and animals and weather systems — or get tired of trying to visually drink them in. We ate a lot of camp stove tacos and gazed at stars and got rained out in gnarly fashion on our last night in Chisos Basin; Brooke and I having to surrender and retreat to my truck for the night, rotating between sleeping, headlamp reading sessions, and watching lightning crack the sky open outside our windows. (Also big shouts out Maggie’s tent, which held through the whole thing? We are all now extremely loyal to the REI Groundbreaker 2.)
One night in Alpine to recoup and drink a lot of Cedar Coffee Supply and we were back in the bayou, but the stillness stuck with me in a way I badly needed. Thankful for my people and places that make me feel small in the best of ways. May both always be among my highest priorities.
