Day 2

Day 2 After breakfast began our trip towards Big Bend national park itself, it was an hr long drive to the entrance of the park and after paying the entry fee another 45mins drive to the center of the park. We stopped at the visitor center at the center of the park (called panther junction) and consulted the ranger who said "We don't want to for our opinion on you so we have survey published in the news paper which can help you decide what to do".

We thanked the ranger headed to the Ross-Maxwell scenic drive. The winding drive ended at Santa Elena Canyon. The canyon was gorgeous and as Dr. R observed lots of the rocks and stones are so precariously placed that a small jolt can get them rolling down. There wasn't much water in the Rio grande river. We walked up the trail till we hit the narrowest part of the canyon and headed back.

Meanwhile it was time for lunch for some of us and way beyond lunch time for others. After a short and quick debate we stopped at Canyon overlook and created an assembly line to make sandwiches. One slice of bread had green chutney other had red chutney (thanks to A and R), some cucumbers, tomatoes, spring veggie mix, cheese and sprouts were stuffed to make the sandwich. Some ate 1 some ate 2 and we topped it all off with some good bananas and some not so sweet oranges.

After food we traced our way back towards panther junction while stopping along the way for another small canyon, bunch of amazing rock formations and a rock formation called mule ears. Since we were running low on gas we decided to head to Terlingua to get gas (nearest gas station as per the GPS) and check in to the cottage which were to host us for next 2 nights.

Terlingua/Ghost town true to its name looked like a ghost town. The population in the town was very less and I doubt if the town has a high school. It is right next to the park hence it shares the desert vegetation. The entry to our cottage was through an unpaved road. But the accommodation was really nice. It had a full fledged kitchen and place enough to accommodate 4 people in each room. We tried inquiring about vegetarian food and the locals looked at us as though we were from Mars :). Our initial google search for restaurants in Terlingua had resulted in a Thai place which was no where to be found in reality, I think it is the bad economy.

After grumbling some time about dinner we decided to head back to the park. There was still some time for sunset so we decided to hike up the Lost mine trail, We stopped half way the trail and enjoyed some breath taking views and decided to head back to window view for sunset. We spotted a few mule deer on the way. MK had to switch his lenses to capture the Deer properly. The evening light on the adjacent mountains made them really colorful. It made us realize the power of twilight in bringing out the natural colors. After hiking down we drove to the window view to watch the sunset which we hoped would be really spectacular but it wasn't as we expected it to be. We didn't want to take chance at Terlingua looking for a place to eat and hence we devoured at the restaurant inside the park.