Florida Spring Training Trip 2016 - Day 11

We left the RV park around 9:30 am for Big Bend National Park.  It is 70 miles due south of here on US Highway 385.  The road is mostly straight with a 70 mph speed limit.   There is nothing along the road although we spotted a few ranches set back here-and-there. We had the road virtually all to ourselves.  I think we saw less than half-a-dozen cars until we reached the Persimmon Gap park entrance.  After entering the park, we still had 28 miles to go to reach park headquarters and the visitor's center.

We started to slowly increase elevation until we reached the visitor's center at 3800 ft.  We watched the orientation film about the park, looked around the center and took a short walk on a desert garden patch.

After that, we drove another 10 miles up a steep and winding road up the Chisos Mountains to Chisos Basin at 5400 ft.  The basin contains a lodge with motel-style cottages a small tent/trailer campground with water hook-ups, a country store and a restaurant where we had  a great lunch.  The basin is surrounded by spectacular mountain formations and views; several park trailheads are nearby.

Big Bend is one of the largest, most remote, and least-visited national parks in the lower 48 United States. In recent years, only 300,000–350,000 visitors have entered the park annually. Here is a little more information about the park:

"Big Bend National Park in the U.S. state of Texas has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States. It contains more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals.

The national park covers 801,163 acres.  A variety of Cretaceous and Cenozoic fossil organisms exist in abundance, and the park has artifacts estimated to be 9,000 years old. Historic buildings and landscapes offer graphic illustration of life along the international border in the 19th century.

For more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km), the Rio Grande/Río Bravo forms the international boundary between Mexico and the United States, and Big Bend National Park administers approximately 118 miles (190 km) along that boundary. The park was named after the area, which is bounded by a large bend in the river andTexas-Mexico border.

The park was formed in 1944 after the land was donated by the State of Texas as Texas’s “gift to the nation”.  It is larger than the State of Rhode Island and is the only national park to contain an entire mountain range (The Chisos Mountains)."

After lunch we looked around a little more then started the trip back to the RV park and arrived about 4:30 pm.  It was a long drive, but we are glad we visited the park. It  might even be worth a trip back some day.

Day 11 Pictures