Our Visit To Big Bend (Texas)

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The Indians said that after making the Earth, the Great Spirit simply dumped all the leftover rocks on the Big Bend. Spanish explorers, less intimate with the landscape, merely dubbed this "the uninhabited land".

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To come to know this land of desert and mountain cut through by the Rio Grande, the big river, is but to grasp a larger appreciation of the unknown. Here you will find, believe it or not, a desert amphibian,

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Couch's spadefoot toad: a mosquito fish whose entire world range is one pond in a park; a small mammal, the kangaroo rat, that makes metabolic water; and a good-sized bird, the roadrunner, that would rather run than fly. There are winged insects that live their entire lives in, on, and off one species of plant. By contrast, coyotes may turn up anywhere and will eat almost anything.

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Jackrabbits have such large ears that they use them as radiators, tranferring body heat to the environment. Motion can be almost imperceptible - or as fast as diving peregrine falcon clocked at more than 200 mph. Time can be measured ... or you can leave it unmeasured. If you want the reaches of time, find them in the Fossil Bone Exhibit or the deep rock strata of Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas canyons. For a fleeting glimpse of time, watch the jackrabbit sprint to elude a predator. If you are mildly patient, see how long it takes after the first good rainstorm for seemingly lifeless desert to come alive with brightly colored flowers.

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The truth is, Big Bend is more mood than place. Sometimes you must wait for it to capture you.

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Big Bend National Park can be thought as having three natural divisions: the river, the desert, and the mountains. River and mountains serve as counterpoints to the desert. The river is the linear oasis. The mountains function - in relation to their arid surroundings - much like an island of temperate life.

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That's all folks ....!