A few weeks ago, I flew down to Texas to meet up with some good friends from Princeton for a three-day hiking trip. That description might give you the impression that the trip just fell into our laps. Oh no siirreeee. We went out and conquered it like men. Men who are wild at heart. In truth, planning the trip was a logistical challenge on the scale of moving an army of men and elephants through the Alps in wintertime. Our troubles began when 21 inches of snow fell on Chicago two nights before my flight was schedule to depart. I spent several hours on the phone the next day only to learn that composing the on hold music for major corporate phone trees must be the lowest paying job in America. By mid afternoon, I also discovered that the good folks at Southwest Airlines (and O’Hare, and my wife) took a rather different position than I had hoped on the viability of my flight the next morning. I don’t think the representative I was speaking to found my offer to fly the plane myself amusing.
Relaying this news to Adam and Ben that evening set off mad dash to find a new date that would work. The following evening concluded with a three way Skype conference call during which we all searched for tickets. Sitting there in my hiking boots, boxers, and headlamp, with a tall bourbon, I felt sure that we could make something work.
We had planned to meet up at the El Paso airport, and rent a car for the five hour drive southeast to Big Bend National Park. My flight to El Paso arrived two hours late, pushing our drive into the night. Around 9 p.m. we decided to just get a hotel for the night, get our packs ready, and drive down the following morning.
By the time we got the trailhead, it was midday and everyone was ready to get going, so we did. Which, three miles later, turned out to have been a mistake. A sun cured old Texas gentleman pointed this out to us when we asked for directions to our campsite. He gave us a very polite rendition of “you caan’t git der frum hir.”
Six hours later and three miles down the right trail, darkness was falling and we had to decide whether to try to make our original campsite or stop at the next one available. After some discussion of this matter wiser heads – i.e. not my head – prevailed and we made camp.
That night, I was awakened by the sound of Adam yelling, in a stage whisper, “Ben, Ben.” Ben was not responding, so I got up (and he soon did as well) and we spent the next 20 minutes huddled over him trying to fix his broken sleeping bag zipper. We tried safety pins, then we tried duct tape, then we tried straps from our backpacks. We did not succeed. We did manage to stumble into a few physically intimate encounters that were not among my hopes or expectations for our time together. Unfortunately, Adam was left to pass the night without much shelter from the freezing temperature.
The next day we took off on a loop shorter than our original plan, which led out to a ridge overlooking the valley. The view was worth it. Having done all of my hiking in alpine climates, I found west Texas ruggedly beautiful and utterly barren. From the ridge you could see dozens of miles into the valley without spying a single moving thing. We finished back at the parking lot and decided, for various reasons, to drive down to a border town for the night. The drive along the Rio Grande was nice, but the town was not. We stayed in a little hotel called The Three Palms, so named for the three palms planted nearby. The place was surprisingly hard to find, and without Drew’s sure navigation, it would have been harder. We rewarded Drew by making him sleep on the broken half of one of our two queen size beds (sorry!).
The following morning we drove back to El Paso, stopping at points of interest along the way. Took a very memorable drive through a little artist town called Marfa. Had the best Mexican food ever in El Paso. In the evening we went to a bar in an old train to celebrate Drew’s birthday. The bartender looked like a guy whose life was almost interesting enough for a Jimmy Buffett song. Fortunately, we were able to hear his life’s story, which confirmed my initial suspicion. The only other guy at the bar was a well dressed young business type, who started talking to us and turned out to be a real estate agent to Mexican drug lords. But a nice guy overall.
By the time we left, everyone was exhausted and spent. The trip didn’t go according to plan. But it was a wonderful time with good friends, hopefully the first of many.
