“Half the pleasure of a visit to Big Bend National Park, as in certain other affairs, lies in the advance upon the object of our desire. Coming toward the park from the village of Lajitas deep in west Texas, we see this rampart of volcanic cliffs rising a mile above the surrounding desert. Like a castled fortification of Wagnerian gods, the Chisos Mountains stand alone in the morning haze, isolated and formidable, unconnected with other mountains, remote from any major range. Crowned with a forest of juniper, piñon pine, oak, madrone, and other trees the Chisos rise like an island of greenery and life in the midst of the barren, sun-blasted, apparently lifeless, stone-bleak ocean of the Chihuahuan Desert. An emerald isle in a red sea.”

-Edward Abbey, “Big Bend”

“We wake at dawn to discover the desert hills shrouded in rolling clouds of vapor, seeming remote and mystical as the Mountains of the Moon. A rare and lovely sight and we are sorry to leave. We console ourselves, as we always do, with the thought that we’ll be back, someday soon. We will return, someday, and when we do the gritty splendor and the complicated grandeur of Big Bend will still be here. Waiting for us. Isn’t that what we always think as we hurry on, rushing toward the inane infinity of our unnameable desires? Isn’t that what we always say?”

-Edward Abbey, “Big Bend”

Travel where your heart calls you on your journey†††nada te turbe†††jim