Big Bend National Park is named for the significant direction change the Rio Grande makes at what is the southwestern "tip" of Texas. But have you ever looked at a map of the whole southern border of the state? The Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte to Mexicans) is 1255 miles of bends and curves and squiggly switchbacks. Oh, wall builders, you have a challenge!!!
When we left Big Bend National Park after 3 nights of no power, no showers and no cell service, we drove to Davis Mountain State Park north of Fort Davis, Texas. We "plugged in" to brew coffee in the coffee maker instead of using hot water and the French Press, we "fired up" the laptop to view emails and world news via the hotspot and the booster, and we took long hot showers. We felt like we were back in the real world, like we'd returned to civilization. Being hooked in and powered up DOES feel natural to us. There's a certain inner relaxedness, I guess that I associate with being able to contact others and know that I can be contacted.But there's also this:
At Big Bend it's easy to lose track of time. At Big Bend time loses its meaning. If one's day is normally structured by morning news, timely phone calls, reminder texts or daily emails, and those markers become unavailable, then, really, one just lives out the day. And whether it's Wednesday or Thursday, the 2nd or the 3rd, is irrelevant. At Big Bend, the only imposed time structure is remembering what day you need to leave your campsite, and THAT you wrote down on a tag when you arrived and you hung the tag on the post at the edge of the driveway.
My iPhone and me. We are, oh, so used to getting through our days together. And I know I will go right back to depending on news stories and emails and texts and phone calls to give structure and meaning to my day-to-day existence. But this spaciousness, this open state of accepting presentness and nothing more here at Big Bend ...... needs to be remembered from time to time.
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| The natural walls of Santa Elena Canyon |
Lovely description of being off-the-grid. That's why I loved backpacking, although in those days there were no cell phones or Internet. Still, we enjoyed the knowledge that no one knew where we were. We just walked, sweated, crossed streams, marveled at the flora and fauna, huddled together at night in the tent, utterly alone and yet always feeling a complete part of something, of life. Love these blogs, Martha. Thanks for writing.
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