To Chisos Basin, BBNP

We rolled down the hill to Espresso Y Poco Mas for breakfast burritos, tamales and hot coffee this morning, then packed up our bags, loaded the car and got back on the road. Destination: Chisos Basin Campground, nestled in a kind of bowl near the tops of the mountains that tower over Big Bend National Park. 

Before leaving town, though, we made a quick stop at Terlingua Auto Repair. I had noticed the other day that the tires on the Teardrop are wearing down quickly, and I’m worried that they don’t have many miles left on them. I had a mechanic take a look and he seemed to think that the tires will survive our trip up into the Chisos Basin and back, but that they won’t make it all the way home to Indiana. Terlingua Auto Repair -- serving all of Greater Terlingua, population 138 – doesn’t have more than a half-dozen tires in stock and certainly doesn’t have the right ones for our trailer. So, the mechanic suggested that we have the work done in Alpine, the next bigger town up the road, when we pass through in a couple of days. I am grateful for that guy’s help and will be very happy to take care of that on Friday. 
 
It was about a 45-minute drive from Terlingua up into the mountains. HUGE NEWS! As soon as we turned into the campground, we saw another Tiny Teardrop from Camp Inn, almost identical to ours! It was parked in a campsite, but its humans were gone for the day, so we didn’t get to meet them right away. But it was absolutely, unmistakably a Camp Inn Travel Trailer. In all the years we’ve owned a Teardrop – since 2009 – we’ve never run into one at a campground. We’ve passed one, for sure, on the road – on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2012. But we’ve never seen one up close! This is such a remarkable encounter!
 
After we set up our campsite and ate some lunch, we embarked on a short 4-mile hike on the Window Trail, which descends from the campground 1,000 feet into Oak Creek Canyon, past sherbet-hued patches of prickley pear cacti and through scrubby oak forests, to a slot canyon pour-off that frames panoramic desert views. After climbing 1,000 feet back to the campground, we spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around the campsite, reading and working on the blog, enjoying a slight breeze and temps in the low 60s. What an absolutely glorious afternoon!

This is a popular campground, and I made sure to reserve a campsite months ago -- but only after weeks of scrutinizing online reviews, analyzing posted photos and zooming in on satellite views. Many of the reviewers complained that their RVs didn’t fit in the sites. Well, duh. From my research, I knew that the campground is not recommended for trailers longer than 20 feet, due to small, unlevel campsites. Indeed, there are many small tent-only sites, with severely inclined driveways that won’t fit anything larger than a Honda Civic, and thank goodness we didn’t end up with one of those. In the end, my efforts paid off; we have one of the largest campsites in the loop – a wide corner spot that could easily fit five or six tents. Which would be nice … if we had tents. Without a driveway, we’re just parallel parked on the side of the road. There’s not a lot of privacy, but hey, at least it’s level, and we fit.

The evening, we drove the short distance up the road to the Chisos Basin Lodge and visitors center to catch the sunset from the Window View Trail. On the way back into the campground, we noticed that our fellow Teardrop owners had returned, so we stopped to chat.  They are Mike and Sue Keber from Pewaukee, WI, and they are a couple of the nicest, most hot-dish-baking, NPR-listening Midwestern Lutheran folks I’ve ever met. They bought their Teardrop in April 2016, shortly after they both retired, and they have taken it all over the country. They especially enjoy camping with it in Peninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin. They proudly showed us the little metal tag attached to the shelf in their galley that marks their trailer as #798 from Camp Inn. Ours is #801(!), which means that these two little Teardrops were probably hanging out in the assembly shop together! (We picked up ours in April 2016, as well, after our O.G. Teardrop was stolen in 2014.) They are wrapping up a six-day stay here at Big Bend NP and are starting to head home tomorrow. They invited us to join them at Peninsula State Park some time; they’re always there the third week in July. That would certainly be a fun little jaunt. We’ll have to try to fit that in one day.