April 2013: Down Tom's Alimentary Canal to Big Bend

Itchy for a road trip, I decided to drive down to Big Bend National Park in Texas, a place we've visited once before. Patti wasn't very excited about camping out after our mountain lion incident at Capitol Reef last year, so I was going solo this time. Spent the first night at City of Rocks National reserve in southeast Idaho, a very nice spot and campground, probably crowded in the summer. Another long drive got me to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, where the campground was full, but the ranger directed me to a nice spot just outside. I got up early and took a short hike down to Kachina Bridge; took a lot of photos. I spent the night in Roswell, New Mexico (no flying saucers or aliens), and visited Carlsbad Caverns the next day. Somewhere along the way I ate something. Camped at Guadalupe Mountains National Park (very windy), and woke up feeling pretty sick. I won't go into the details, but an expert probably could have tracked me down to Big Bend that day. Camped at Chisos Basin for three days, spending most of my time not eating anything in a camp chair in the sun. I finally gave up hope of recovering enough to do any hiking, so headed back home, taking a scenic route up through New Mexico and Colorado.

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