Big Bend – The First Night

Last week, Chris and I went on our very first vacation together.  We drove out west to Big Bend National Park.  The entire trip can only be described using grandiose adjectives like, “breath-taking”, “stunning”, “fabulous”, etc., etc.  Not two hours outside of Austin there are actual mountains (well, large hills until a bit further west, but I’ll take what I can get), teeny Western towns with three taxidermy shops to every person and beef jerky as far as the eye can see, gloriously sprawling ranches, and eventually, desert.  But really, the most lush, verdant desert I’ve ever seen (yes, yes, I know I’ve only see one desert in person, but I’ve seen a hell of a lot on TV!)

But before I get to all of that, let’s talk about The First Night.  The trip to Big Bend is about a nine hour drive, so we decided to drive out in one day.  We got a bit of a late start on the day of our trip, but were making pretty good time.  We calculated that we would reach the lodge (located in the middle of the park) where we were staying by around 9:00pm.  At 9:15pm, we were still driving and the sun had completely set, but we were still unconcerned.  After all, according to our map, we were nearly there.

At 9:30pm, the highway narrowed to a smaller two-lane, then a narrower gravel road.  Then, we passed a sign welcoming us to Big Bend National Park.  Finally.  We turned onto a dirt road.  Around this time, I remarked to Chris how rough the road seemed.  We were, at this point, mildly concerned, but thought that perhaps park roads were just unpaved to maintain a more rustic feel or something.  We drove on.  It had been many miles since we’d passed a house, a street light, a road-side reflector.

At 10:00pm, the car got stuck in, what we discovered was not dirt but rather, sand.  Completely silent, Chris and I turned to look at one another.  It was so dark, I could barely see the outline of Chris’ profile.  We got out to assess the situation.  The front wheels of the car were buried almost completely in the sand.  One of us (probably Chris) suggested that we try to dig the wheels out.  After about 15 minutes of digging with our bare hands, Chris tried driving the car while I pushed.  Nothing.  He tried backing up while I pushed.  Nothing.  We put the car in neutral and both pushed.  Nothing.  We were really stuck.  And neither of us had had cell phone service for hours.

“Well, we’re going to spend the night in the car, ” Chris announced, in his best, let’s-make-the-best-of-this-everything-will-be-ok-so-please-don’t-freak-out-ann-marie voice.  And then a coyote howled.

The thing is, I think that if I could have been assured that everything really would be ok the next morning, I would have immediately embraced the night as the most awesome adventure.  After all, I have never been, nor perhaps never will be again, be so very much in the middle of nowhere.  The air was crisp and fresh, and we were surrounded by miles of beautiful desert grasses and cacti.  And the stars were unbelievable!  We could barely see sky, there were so many bright points of starlight.

But I was scared.  I think it was more the unknown of how we would get out the next morning or the concern that we might truly be really lost.  And what if we ran out of water or something?  And no one knew where we were, and this was obviously a rarely traveled trail.

But of course, morning came.  Chris got out the map and figured out that we were only about six miles from the highway. T he sunlight revealed that our little car was sitting atop a mound of sand.  That’s why the wheels could not get traction.  We decided to try leveling the mound and attempting to back out and go out the way we had come–obviously, the road had been ok up until now.

So we gave it one more try, did a lot of furious digging by hand, and got the car to back out!  And then it immediately got stuck on another mound of sand.  We ended up digging the car out three different times.  But finally finally finally we got it going and made it back to the highway.  The crazy thing was, though, in the daylight, that road looked really rough.  I’m pretty sure that if we had actually been able to see it the night before, we NEVER would have attempted to drive down it!  I have no idea how we made it as far as we did before getting stuck.

We did eventually make it to the lodge (it turns out the main park roads are paved) and had a lovely vacation.  We also made a pact–no more dirt roads.  No matter what.