After arriving in Big Bend, our first order of business was making sure that we hit all five visitor centers to get all of the passport stamps for the unit. At the first visitor center, we chatted with the ranger about our options for the day and night. Apparently, we’re here for the busiest week of visitation – not only is the lodge full, but the campgrounds will be full by early afternoon. That presented us with a bit of a challenge, as we had decided to keep our plans flexible until we saw how much there was to do there. We now had to make a quick decision about whether to camp and stay an additional day (and not doing Carlsbad), or leaving the park at dusk and moving on to a motel in Alpine, 100 miles away. After considering our options, we decided to get the hotel in Alpine, and if we were feeling bad about missing something at Big Bend we could simply get up early and make the drive in.

In the end, we made the right decision – we were able to see most of what we had wanted to, and even though we didn’t get to do any of the hikes we had planned, we definitely got a sense of the park. We’ll be back – next time with a kayak – and can hit the trails then. Part of the decision centered around the date – it’s New Year’s Eve and we wanted to be in hotel with television and internet. Earlier in the morning, I had reserved a Best Western via my iPhone. Since I barely had coverage at the visitor center, I had some trouble getting the reservation made. In fact, I lost the room I was reserving in the middle of the confirmation process – leaving no additional rooms available at the lowest price point. In the end, however, I was able to finangle the staff to give us a better room – a king suite – for the lowest room rate.

After dropping off the bags and enjoying the great room for a few minutes, we headed across the street to the Buffalo Rose restaurant across the street. Though the service was a bit slow, the food was plentiful and we enjoyed the dinner. After that, it was off for dessert and then back to the room to watch some tv, get online, celebrate the new year, and relax after another long day.

Tomorrow we’re off to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Unfortunately, neither was possible. After arriving slightly ahead of schedule, we entered the visitor center and chatted with the ranger. I asked what hiking was available, the ranger answered “not much really.” The one trail in the NRA was flooded – and was only 2 miles long to begin with, connecting the visitor center parking lot with a boat ramp. Yikes. To his credit, the ranger did come up with a couple of bushwhacking possibilities, but none of them sounded very exciting, even after a full day of driving. In the end, we drove to a couple of dayuse areas, snapped some quick pictures, drove out to the dam, snapped a few more pictures, and called the unit “done.”

If we return, we’ll be sure to bring a kayak and paddle out to Panther Cave, and maybe plan a day at the local state park – which seems to have some great trails and archaeology. But, to be honest, this is one of those units that we yawn at and reluctantly visit just to get the passport stamp and pin and check off the list. This is clearly one of those National Park units that should not be managed by the NPS – instead, it should be run by the Army Corps of Engineers or BLM.

After the disappointment of Amistad, we headed back to Del Rio, the city we were staying in. We spent awhile stealing wifi from the hotels while we decided where to stay, finally ending up at a Best Western (using a AAA discount despite the fact we aren’t members – hotels rarely ask for the card, so it’s worth the risk for the 10% you get off). Then it was over to Applebee’s for dinner. Kim was craving an Applebee’s salad and I had promised a stop last night. Unfortunately, the steak and shrimp dish I ordered was horrible – so much so that I hardly ate any of it, and the waitress offered to remove it from the check as soon as she saw it sitting mostly untouched at the edge of the table and before we could mention how crappy it had been.  After a couple of quick stops, we grabbed a to go order from Chili’s and made it back to the hotel room to watch Oregon pound Oklahoma State and discuss Mike Shanahan’s firing.

Tomorrow we’re off to Big Bend National Park, the highlight park of the roadtrip. We have a couple of options for the rest of the trip. One is camping in Big Bend tomorrow night and spending a full two days there before heading over to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Chamizal National Memorial before returning home. Otherwise, if we feel like we’ve done enough to get a good taste of the park (we’ll be back for a kayaking trip in the next several years), then we might stay until dusk then head out to a motel in Alpine. That would give us an extra day that we could use to stop by Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which happens to be tantalizingly close to Guadalupe Mountains.

That’s probably because our comfort level with these trips has dramatically increased. It’s also, frankly, probably a product of better gear. And by better gear, I mostly mean my iPhone 3G, which affords us internet access while we drive in the car. That’s incredibly useful – heck, we planned, researched, and reserved everything we needed for our big summer trip across the South on it – and so it feels like we don’t quite need to be as prepared as we often are.

It’s also due to fact that we’re getting by with much less gear, especially for camping, that we used to bring. And we could probably further cut down on what we’re bringing, if only I we had enough time to think about it and make the necessary eliminations.

Finally, I know that Kim’s put quite a bit of time in trip planning. And she’s getting pretty good at it. We’re both mostly on the same page when it comes to roadtrip decisions, and I felt more comfortable this time around letting her pick hotels and routes without any involvement. Speaking of itineraries, here’s what we have planned:

Dec 24 – Depart Phoenix, drive to El Paso to see Chamizal National Memorial, continue on to camp at Big Bend National Park.

Dec 25-26 – Spend both days seeing Big Bend (and the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River that runs through it), camping these nights as well.

Dec 27 – Depart Big Bend, hit Amistad National Recreation Area, and continuing driving southeast, staying at an EconoLodge in a town called Harlingen.

Dec 28 – Drive to Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site, then visit Padre Island National Seashore, camping there or nearby somewhere.

Dec 29 – Drive to Big Thicket National Preserve, explore the park, and find somewhere nearby to camp.

Dec 30 – Head into San Antonio to see San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, adding a stop at – what else – The Alamo. Stay in an EconoLodge in the city.

Dec 31 – Finish up San Antonio, drive up to the Lyndon B Johnson National Historic Site, and then over to Austin to spend New Year’s Eve and part of New Year’s Day. Stay in a Days Inn.

Jan 1 – Explore Austin a bit more before hitting the road and driving back west. Camp somewhere near Fort Davis.

Jan 2 – Visit Fort Davis National Historic Site and drive to Guadalupe Mountains National Park where we’ll camp for the night.

Jan 3 – Finish up Guadalupe Mountains and high-tail it back to Phoenix, arriving late.

Jan 4 – Rest, relax and unpack before starting back at work on Monday, or…finish driving home if we haven’t kept to our schedule.

It should be a good time. We’ll add eleven National Park Service units to our lifetime total, and more importantly, complete all of the units in Texas. That will make only the seventh state we’ve completed (Nevada, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, and Kentucky are the others), though we’re only one or two units away from finishing Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Indiana, and Missouri (not including Eastern and Midwestern states with only one or two units).

We’ll try to keep the blog updated, but with so few nights of guaranteed wifi, that may not happen that frequently. However, you can check out Scott’s tweet’s here and Kim’s tweets here for shorter updates, as well as some summary posts right here.

Scott’s also posted a map of our route and a quick explanation of why we chose this roadtrip.