It was a long long drive from Junction to Big Bend National Park. It was also a hot day and pretty clear.

As we drove, the landscape changed from hill country to desert and we went up in elevation too. Our campground was only at 1,800 feet, but that’s about as high up as we’ve been in quite some time.

We stopped for lunch at a busy rest area and saw several cool birds including western kingbirds and some type of swallow or flycatcher that may have been a barn swallow or a scissor-tailed flycatcher.

We switched off driving more often on this leg.

We arrived at the park, and it’s about 20 miles just to get to the visitor center inside the park, and another 20 to the campground we selected. The park was amazing, with fantastic rock formations as we drove along. We could see why it’s the most popular national park in Texas.

We picked the Rio Grande village campground after seeking the advice of the ranger at the visitor center, because she said it was a good location for birding and less prone to bears and mountain lions, which scare me a little bit. She also warned us about the javelinas, but we figured we’d take that risk. All the tent sites had food storage lockers, so as long as we put everything away and didn’t put anything smelly in our tent, we’d be ok. The campground was huge, with 100 spaces, most of which were not occupied. Those that were seemed to be mostly tent campers.

After a nice dinner of rice and beans, supplemented with some left-over rotisserie chicken that we had bought in Marshall, Texas, we went for a walk around the campground, which Rebbe appreciated after a day in the car.