On the morning of September 6th, after 8 days in the mountainous deserts of the Big Bend region, we set off from Terlingua on the last leg of our trip to Seminole Canyon State Park. On the way, we drove through the north end of Big Bend National Park taking one last look at Emory Peak and checking out the flat plains of the northern end of the park. A couple hours later we pulled off at the rest stop overlooking the US 90 bridge over the Pecos River. 20 minutes after that we were at the state park entrance.

I had a pictograph tour booked at 10am the next day, so our only objective was to set up camp and chill on the first day. There is one trail in the park that leads to a bluff where other pictographs can be viewed on the canyon wall from above, but we had reentered the heat of southwest Texas and just weren’t feeling it haha.

The next day we met our guide at headquarters and started down the trail into the canyon floor. We passed the “Maker of Peace” sculpture erected by Bill Worrell in 1994 inspired by the cave paintings.

Once down in the canyon, we trekked it back up into the rock shelter where the back wall and much of the ceiling were covered in images. While evidence of Ice Age Hunters from nearly 10,000 years ago in the area have been found, the images have dated back to 4,000 years ago to the Middle Archaic period. With many images of deer and human shapes in various forms, recent research suggest depictions of shaman’s journeys and a symbolic relationship with deer.

After our excellent guide finished her presentation, we had some time to meander on the path and enjoyed the unique details of the images and coming up with our own theories of symbolism. Dad was pretty sure he saw a deer blind in one haha!

We then headed back out the way we came and by 11:30, our tour was over. Obviously we worked up a good appetite and treated ourselves to some huge and delicious burgers at The J and P Bar and Grill in nearby Comstock. Ashlyn’s selection had fried mozzarella sticks layered in!

The rest of the evening was spent chasing shade and we enjoyed one more sunset on our Big Bend travels as the next day was the 5 hour drive home and the end of another epic roadtrip.

-Lindsay