Alaska Kiwi: Fort Stockton-Big Bend National Park-Fort Davis

November 7^th thru 11^th

We drove the 160 miles to Big Bend National Park, amazing how far out of the way this park is, it borders the Rio Grande River. Our camp site is at Rio Grande Village about 200 yards from the river where we camped for 3 evenings. Rio Grande River is the Texas border with Mexico. The 1^st evening we went for a short hike to see the river and to a look out point, there is very little water in the river. No rafting just a few canoe trips happen on it at the moment. We went on some really nice short hikes, we tried to time our hikes early in the day as the temperatures in the afternoon got extremely hot around 90 degrees. Our 1^st full day we went to Chisos Basin which is in the hills, beautiful scenery everywhere you looked. The 2^nd day we drove to the west side of the park to Santa Elena Canyon. There we did our most pleasurable walk in the park, walking along the Canyon Trail about one and half miles along the river. It was really nice to have a walk in the shade of the canyon with a pleasant river breeze. Today we left Big Bend Park and drove thru Presidio to Fort Davis, not the most direct route, but possible the most scenic route out of the park. The road follows the river for many miles, it was like being on a roller coaster with the step grades going both up and down.