The stars had aligned and it was time to tackle Big Bend and the rest of the West Texas state parks. And when I say the stars aligned, I’m not joking. I came up with a 10 day itinerary for the first week of September, during a new moon (dark sky) and both Nathan’s and Dad’s schedules fit! We would be caravanning our car with Wanda and Dad in his truck staying at campsites, rv sites and hotels. The first leg of our drive was straight through to Balmorhea State Park for one night. I wanted a redo of that park since our first visit in October of 2022 when the weather was not cooperative and it worked out wonderfully as a kick off to our trip. The newly renovated campsites had just opened this year and the weather was perfect allowing us to finally explore the pool properly. I still want to come back with scuba gear in the near future as well!

The next day, a short 30 minute scenic drive later, we arrived at Davis Mountains State Park for a 2 night stay. On the first night, we had a star party booked at nearby McDonald Observatory and then we would attempt to see the Marfa Lights on the second night. I really liked our particular campsite as it was nestled in trees and we didn’t really have close up neighbors since the road curved around us on one side and a creek bed was on the other. But with it being Labor Day weekend, the park was full and there were quite a few campsites that were set up to party all weekend.

After setting up and eating lunch we decided on checking out the Skyline Drive in the park while we killed time before our star party that didn’t start until 9pm. The drive was beautiful and entertaining as we switchbacked the narrow road up one of the peaks. There were a couple of pull off areas where we were able to view the town of Fort Davis, the observatory and most importantly, Indian Lodge. More on that in the next post :).

Once back at camp, Ashlyn and I decided to walk the 1 mile round trip trail to the headquarters in search of stickers. We checked out the fanciest bird blind we had ever seen and some unique plants along the way.

When we returned from that, it had started to rain. About 30 minutes later, I started receiving notifications that the star party was cancelled due to the weather and cloud cover. We still had the option of entrance to the observatory grounds but no telescopes would be set up. We decided on completely canceling for a full refund and venturing out to Marfa instead for the evening’s entertainment. We went to Cactus Liquors, a liquor store AND plant nursery all in one that was definitely one of a kind and then enjoyed a beverage at the bar in the historic El Paisano Hotel where we already had plans to eat dinner the next night.

It stormed off and on the rest of the night, but everyone faired well and after breakfast, the 5 of us hiked a 1 mile trail enjoying the elevation gains and views.

After lunch, we headed out for the day stopping at the National Historic Fort Davis site and explored the buildings and artifacts documenting centuries of operations. Most interesting to me was the strategic location at the base of the mountains along a settlement trade route, but also blocking off a known Native American trade/hunting route through the mountains that intercepted the new one.

We then headed back to Marfa where we had snacks and drinks at the very eclectic Planet Marfa. Our dinner plans at El Paisano fell through when we found out at arrival that the wait would be about 2 hours even with our reservation. We ended up at The Water Stop and enjoyed their creative craft cocktails and original menu. Marfa is a really unique town and had plenty of entertaining features, but there was an air about the people we encountered that we didn’t really click with. Not that people were unkind…just kind of stuck up, which seemed weird for a small town famous for desert and art.

We made it out to the highway rest stop/mysterious light viewing deck before sunset and settled in hopeful for a show with chairs and a cooler. About 30 people had gathered by the time we called it at 9:30pm. We definitely saw lights that could not be explained by us or anyone there. Were they, in fact, Marfa’s Mysterious Lights? We didn’t care, it was a cool to just be out there and searching the dark horizon like people have done for years.

We spent one more rainy night at our campsite in Davis Mountains and continued on to Big Bend the next morning.

-Lindsay