Big Bend NP Texas

Big Bend National Park, Texas
Big Bend refers to the great Southwest Texas U-Turn that the Rio Grande makes here which defines the park’s boundary for 118 miles. This boundary is with Mexico and part of the beauty lies in Mexico. The park includes the river, the desert and the mountains. Rio Grande Village, where the full hook-up campground is located, is over 100 miles to the nearest town. This park would be great if we were 30 years younger and could do the hiking and back country camping that is needed to visit many of the scenic areas. We did get to see a mountain lion which is a rare sighting. Bob was up early in the morning and spotted the mountain lion and Sue was able to see it from the RV. The park being so isolated only gets about 300,000 visitors a year.
We had quite the experience coming into the park. About 3 miles from the village store, we lost air to the rear brakes. Sue prayed and Bob drove into the parking lot safely. It was a large parking lot and he was able to park it safely out of the way. Once he locked the air park brake, he knew that he would not be able to move it. This is when he realized how isolated the area was. We called the road service provider that we have and it took them over 3 hours to find someone to come and tow us. We could not find a mobile service company to come out and do the repairs. Bob knew that it was an air line leak but there was nothing to do except wait for the tow service to come the next day. Bob did go out and explored the park and we were able to camp comfortably overnight in the parking lot. The park staff could not have been nicer about getting us help. The tow company arrived in a big red tow truck, the type that hauls 18 wheelers. Mike and his wife, Dolores, were a nice couple and Mike knew what he was doing. Once we crimped off the air leak and supplied the motor home with air from the tow truck Mike was able to hook it up so that it could be towed. This took a couple of hours. The next thing was finding someone to repair it. Mike was knowledgeable and knew exactly what had to be done. The air line had to be repaired and an exhaust leak fixed. The exhaust leak caused the air line to fail. We were told by the park people that there was someone in Alpine, Texas which was 100 miles who could do the repair. We called the facility and they said to bring it in. Mike, who knew the area, did not believe that the person in Alpine could do the job. We were misled and the person in Alpine did not have the proper facility to handle the job and Mike would not leave it there. He called Ft. Stockton and a one mechanic repair facility said that they could take care of the problem. Off we went for another 60 to 70 miles into Ft. Stockton. This was Friday afternoon and they were not certain as to actually when they could repair it. Once we said that we would pay the overtime rate, it was repaired within 3 hours. The good thing is that we were safe. The repairs were made by a mechanic who knew what he was doing and we were back on the road to a local campground by 7:30 p.m. It was nice to know that the road service that we have pays well because the tow company made certain that we had a repair facility that could handle the motor home before they would leave it. We were just happy that we didn’t have to pay for the tow.