We spent two weeks crossing the State of Texas this December. That might seem like a long time, yet our visit was surprisingly rushed. We saw just a fraction of this immense state. But two weeks felt like more than enough. Makes sense, as Texas is a strange and contradictory place.
There’s lots to like here, but at least as much NOT to like. In this post, we’ll give you a quick rundown of our travels in the Lone Star State, the big, bad and beautiful.
Not Our First Rodeo
Where Texas is concerned, this ain’t our first rodeo. In our inaugural year of crazy brave adventuring, we roadtripped from El Paso to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Then continued on through what is known as the Texas “oil patch”, a big flat land, studded with oil and gas extraction machinery.
After driving for days, the most exciting thing we saw was a meteor crater, and, to tell you the truth, it didn’t look like much.
This didn’t endear us to the state. Neither did the lack of public bathrooms (even at the media crater!) and trashed public parks from Midland to San Angelo. They say “Don’t mess with Texas” but clearly people do.
San Antonio was cool, but our waitress at some glitzy restaurant along the Riverwalk, started off with “You all aren’t from around here, are ya?” and ended by linking our hands and praying for us. That never happened in western Massachusetts.
From San Antonio, we hit the Corpus Christi coast, beach-camped up to Galveston and parts east. An awesome experience… despite the many oil refineries that dot the gulf coast here.
When we headed southeast again in 2023, we tried to avoid Texas altogether. That year, we zipped across the panhandle, stopping only for tamales, and a quick park-up at a lovely highway rest area.
Flash forward to 2024. Another year on the road, and another long swoop eastward to share the holidays with our family in Florida. But this year, we decided to go deep as well as long, all the way to Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas. Then we’d cut across the middle of the state and …. well, we weren’t sure where we’d end up after that. But the direction was east-ish.
The Land of Falling Down Things
We try to check out any place that’s recommended to us. And Big Bend National Park has been recommended. Often. But it’s far (really far!) from just about everywhere.
But this was the year! We left New Mexico and, after a day and a half of driving towards Big Bend, our expectations were kind of low. All around us, the dull desert-shrubs were dotted with the husks of dead RVs, abandoned houses, and decrepit, long-closed gas stations. We started calling this stretch of Texas “the land of falling down things.” But we could have just as easily called it the land of big wide nothing. It was that too.
West Texas was strangely beautiful in its expanse, but also just…. strange. I’m a huge fan of expansive terrain. Wyoming (and not just the mountain part) is one of my very favorite states. But Texas felt different, the land seemed less welcoming somehow.
So when we hit Presidio and finally turned east beside the Rio Grande, we were surprised by the sudden stark beauty of the place. The rugged mountains along the Mexico border, with their strip of green river were breathtaking. There is a Texas-sized state park here, but we had our hearts set on Big Bend National Park and kept on.
We stopped at alongside the road to watch a squadron (yes, squadron) of javelinas in the wide, green riparian zone of the Rio Grande where the ground was studded with agate, jasper and petrified wood.
The falling down things were kind of neat on this stretch. There was the quirky town of Lajitas, which was mostly a golf resort. They’d elected Clay Henry, a beer drinking goat, as mayor here, and one of his progeny was still around… in a cage with a big sign above it that read “Vote for Clay III! Unfortunately, by the time we’d googled the goat we were long past it. All we got was a picture of this lousy t-shirt.
An out-of nowhere golf resort with a political goat, and that wasn’t even the quirkiest town in these parts.
A bit further down the road, was Terlingua, a revived ghost town. Terlingua had been a hot spot for the mining of cinnabar (mercury) but now it was a charming, artsy mess with a famous chili cook-off.
Falling down things… but quaint. Really quaint. We poked around town a bit and ate lunch in a shady picnic spot.
Texas was growing on us.
Big Bend National Park
Why did it take us so long to visit Big Bend? Well, as we said, it is far from pretty well everywhere.
Also, Texas had not yet endeared itself to us, and we had the idea that the park would be another wild stretch of blah.
Not so! Big Bend National Park is beautiful, varied in its terrain, full of unique experiences, wildlife, starry skies.
We ended up spending a full week in the park (which wasn’t part of the plan at all). And not in one place either; we moved around, checking out a wide range of biomes, trails, and camping options. “Vast” does not even begin to describe this place. Check out this park if you can.
We spent two nights camping in the mountainous terrain of the Chisos Basin mostly among tenters and backpackers as the road up to the basin is twisty and steep. We explored a bit and hiked the iconic Window Trail.
Then we headed to the southeast end of the park to camp in the quiet Cottonwood Campground a flatter, smaller campground in the riparian zone along the Rio Grande.
While here, we hiked another iconic Big Bend trail: Santa Elena Canyon. This one was short and busy, but spectacular just the same.
Then we discovered that the park has remote, primitive roadside camping options and, sick of campgrounds and crowds, we decided to check one out. The road into our site was 11 miles of washboard-y, dusty mess but it led to a beautiful lonely camp with no close neighbors at all. A perfect place to wander the desert.
The next day, we restocked and laundry-ed on the busy southeastern edge of the park. At dusk, we checked out the campground nature trail. Turns out, it was really beautiful, with views of the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande Campground is kind of a scene, animal-wise. There were coyotes roaming around, and burros, and horses that came over from Mexico. Nearby, there’s a (human) border crossing but we never got around to that.
Instead, we got up early and explored the remains of a historic hot spring. While there, we soaked a bit in the remains of the historic bath house. Lovely!
On our last day in the park, we tried out another primitive camp spot, Pine Canyon. The road into this one had a few rough patches, including a deep dry wash that we scraped bottom in. But Stevan made it through and we set up for a quiet night.
We could have stayed in Big Bend longer. It was that amazing. But we’d very much run out of time… and food(!) We stopped at the open air museum of the Fossil Discovery Exhibit on the way north.
Then we reluctantly headed to the small town of Marathon, TX for some overpriced groceries in extra-large quantities: Texas.
Crossing Texas
After Big Bend, it took us five days to drive across Texas. On the way, we stopped at the interesting Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site, home to the oldest rock art in the country.
Aside from that bright spot, there was a whole lot of this:
We reached the “Hill Country” and stayed at a Harvest Host in Bandera, a fun brewery with a quirky beer list. This was our first Harvest Hosts stop of the year (Still not sure it’s worth it).
Then we camped at Mckinney Falls State Park , an expensive stay (by our standards) but just outside of Austin…. which was fun on a Saturday night during the holiday season (if a little overwhelming).
Texas Gulf Coast
By the time we reached the Texas Gulf Coast, we were in a bit of a hurry. We camped at a free parking lot beside the gulf in Matagorda and on the beach on the Bolivar Peninsula.
We got stuck in deep sand the day after camping on this very same beach with no issues at all (should have checked that turnout…). A very nice Texan in a truck pulled us out before I had the wherewithal to worry.
And then the Lone Star State was behind us. Which was a fitting end to our journey through Texas.
Both Bad and Beautiful
As promised, we have a few ideas about Texas. It’s a state of contradictions. And it is also exactly what it seems to be. It doesn’t surprise us at all that Texas used to be its own country. It still sort of is.
The Bad
Little Public Land
Here it comes, folks. I’ve been working up to this rant for a while. Unlike other large, empty western states, Texas has very little public land. Most of the state is privately owned. In the western and middle parts, this means vast stretches of fenced off nothing. No getting out to explore. No rockhounding or random hiking trails. Instead, you get locked gates with fancy, wrought iron decor. It looks like BLM land, but it is not. We don’t always stop and wander off into the wide open lands in other Western states, but we feel like we could… which is a certain kind of freedom. One that doesn’t exist in Texas.
“Picnic Areas”
Texans are super proud of their state, and they have a gazillion roadside historic markers to make sure you know all about it. Many include “picnic areas”, a few tables set beside the road. Buuut these don’t have bathrooms… or pit toilets. What kind of half-assed thing is this? To us travelers, it felt like the state was saying “come here go away”.
Border Patrol Presence
Other states have Border Patrol. We’ve seen them in Arizona and New Mexico, even hit a roadside checkpoint in Vermont once! But the Texas checkpoints are just… mean. There are K9s sniffing around and guns and just… ugh. It felt scary to drive through them. In addition, the Border Patrol folks are parked along the roads all over the place. A lot of them. We don’t have pictures of the checkpoints because: scary.
Scale
Everything in Texas is BIG. Case in point: Buc-ees. The store we went to was -no joke- the size of a supermarket! And it was packed! People were circling the parking lot looking for spaces. And the sandwiches in there… HUGE!
Same scene at the H-Mart we went to in Austin. In this case, we were more fascinated than repelled. We’d been to an H-Mart in San Francisco, and it could have fit in one small corner of the humongous Austin store. And it was hoppin’ busy too.
The highways around Austin were similarly huge, and crowded, lined with so. much. stuff. Overwhelming, really, after our stay in the quieter corners of the country.
The Beautiful
On the flipside, Texas is a land of beautiful things. Here are a few that caught our eye.
Dressed up Cowboys
Until we got to the coast, we saw them everywhere: Men in cowboy hats, boots, and pearl snap shirts, just walking around, wearing what they do. I don’t think they were “real” cowboys necessarily, but they were definitely representing. There are few places where you can go around in a cowboy get up when it is not Halloween without much comment. Texas is one of them. Kinda cool! (In Massachusetts, maybe people should take to walking around dressed as pilgrims or something…… Nah! Definitely doesn’t have the same panache.)
Diversity
Texas has a lot going on; The cities and suburbs are a surprising mix of many cultures with an equally surprising mix of interesting foods and customs that go along with that. We really appreciated that in Austin. We didn’t visit the (even) larger Texas cities. Maybe next time?
Food!
Texas is chock full of terrific food options. Some are regional: Kolaches, for example, which are sort of like danishes with a Czech pedigree. And Barbecue (of course). Tex-mex and Mex-mex…. Gulf Coast shrimp and Cajun dishes. Also sushi and ramen and pretty well anything else you might want can be found in Texas. Few Western states can say that.
We ate way too many things in Texas: Delicious $3 burritos at a teeny gas station/restaurant in Marathon, Detroit-style Pizza in Austin (I know, weird choice), carne asada tacos in Bandera, and Kolaches, of course, along the road somewhere in east Texas.
Coastline
Like everything else about Texas, its coastline is BIG. And much of it is marshy and untrammeled (except for the oil refineries, that is…. and the honky tonk beach resorts….) Both times we visited, we found the Texas coast a nice contrast to Florida’s built up, pricey, no-vans allowed vibe…. even if you can hear the clanking of big machinery in the distance.
24 Hour Parking
Texas allows 24 hour parking at any public parking spot (unless there are city/county ordinances against it). This means that there are many places to overnight in your van or other vehicle. We don’t “stealth camp” often. And after our experience stealth camping in Florida, it felt a little weird just stopping and sleeping in a random beach parking lot. But this is totally allowed. You can even stay in those durn “picnic areas” with no bathrooms ….if you want to.
A Very, Very, Very Big Place
In short, Texas is all of the above… and a whole lot more. We enjoyed our two weeks here, exploring deserts, coasts and cities. And, as Texas is always on our way east, we’ll probably be back to discover more of this big, bad and beautiful state.
