Rebecca Henderson

When Jen and I first started talking about taking a little trip to Oregon this spring, we intended to backpack along the Pacific Crest Trail for a few days. Until we realized 1) it’s cold in Oregon in the spring and 2) we don’t have backpacking gear. I do, however, have friends in the Tri-Cities who are happy to loan me the gear for car camping, so we decided to switch tactics.

We further switched plans when the date for our trip got closer and it was still in the mid-30s overnight, raining, and windy in the Columbia River Gorge. Not the kind of weather I want for tent camping. The Oregon State Parks website, though, informed us that we had another option for camping on the coast: rustic yurts. These are sturdy shelters modeled after those used by nomads in Turkey and Mongolia, and they’re perfect for a camping trip where you (read: I) are feeling too lazy to put up a tent or too coddled to sleep in the cold. They’ve shown up in parks and campgrounds across the U.S., but Oregon in particular has been a popular place for yurts. I, for one, am now a huge fan of yurts.

Here are a few photos from our yurt at Ft Stevens State Park in Oregon:

Behold: the yurt.

one angle inside the yurt

another angle inside the yurt

making coffee outside the yurt

When I visited North Carolina last spring (and blogged about my experience with GPS in a new town), my niece Patience said she wanted me to take her to Myrtle Beach so we could both wear bikinis and swim. We went to Carolina Beach instead, and since it was the first week of April, I opted to wear long pants and a sweater.

This year, for Patience’s first official spring break as a school-aged kid, she said she wanted to go to the mountains. So, my sister, brother-in-law, and I packed the car and drove from Raleigh to Lake James State Park in western North Carolina where we camped for two nights with a friend of mine. It was Patience’s first time to camp somewhere other than the back porch, and she approached the experience with the wonder and delight of an almost-6-year-old going on the greatest adventure of her life.

For several nights before the trip, she slept in her sleeping bag on the floor of her room. The real reason for this arrangement was so I could have a bed to sleep in — but Patience declared she was practicing with her sleeping bag for when we went camping.

As we ran errands before the trip, she let everyone know where we were going. When I took her to REI to buy a kid-sized headlamp with a bright pink strap for her to use after dark at the lake, she told the guy at the check-out that we were camping for spring break. Same when we went to the grocery store to stock up for our snacks and meals. The grocery store cashier replied, “That sounds like more fun than working. Will you stay here and work for me so I can go camping?”

Patience sighed and told him, “Oh, I just wish we had 500 seats in the car, and then you could go with us!”

Packing the car on the morning of our departure, she asked, “Is it time for smores yet?”

“Not yet. We have to get to the campsite first, and then we have to build a fire.”

Once the fire was built, the marshmallows roasted, and the chocolate melted, Patience climbed up on the ledge, sidled up next to my friend, and said with conviction, “This is the best night ever!”

When you’re almost 6, holding marshmallows over a fire in the woods really is the best night of your short life. When you’re 35, it’s still pretty great.

Patience and I shared a snug two-man tent. All her practice paid off, and she slept well in her sleeping bag. She enjoyed the tent so much that she zipped herself in it a few times when the grown-up conversation around the campsite bored her. During one extended stay in the tent, we heard her shuffling and grunting like she was quite busy at a task. I discovered later that she had rearranged our two sleeping bags, head to foot and side to side.

“You were busy in here. What else did you do?” I asked her.

“Oh, I was doing a few flips.”

Of course. What else are you going to do on a lazy afternoon around the campsite, but do flips inside the tent?

our campsite at Guadalupe Mountains

The final entry from the road trip series “The West Texas Idea”

I thought it would be fun to end this series of blogs on my road trip in West Texas by listing some observations about camping that Janel, Jen, and I made over the course of our trip.  I don’t think I’ve ever included a bullet-pointed list in my blog before.  Enjoy this “first” for me; it may also be a last.

You see lots of different types of campers at national park campgrounds, especially if you plant yourself and observe the comings and goings for several days at one campsite.  Here are some of the people we saw at Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains:

The Block Party Family—They camped in a tent, not an RV, but otherwise they had pretty much the same amenities you would find in a suburban home.  Mom covered the wooden picnic table with a tablecloth at each meal, and she set up a clothesline from the table to the grill.  Their site was lit up with several lanterns at night, and at first glance I thought maybe they had strung twinkle lights in the trees for what appeared to be a party to which all the other campers in our campground had been invited.  Nope, that’s just all their lanterns.

The Bikers—On our first night at Big Bend, the site nearest to us was occupied by three middle-aged men on Harleys.  Unlike other bikers we saw on this trip (and we saw a lot of bikers), these guys weren’t pulling their bikes on trailers behind an SUV from place to place and then riding through the scenic parts of the park.  All of their camping gear fit with them on their bikes.  I was impressed.  Early that first morning, I waited for the coffee to boil in our percolator and watched them pack up their site, fighting off the covetousness in my heart over one bright red retro bike in particular.  When they were ready to go, one of the guys announced to the other two, “Time to wake up the camp,” and they started their engines and were off with a roar.  “Well, girls,” I said to Jen and Janel, “we just missed our chance to see the park on the back of those bikes.”

The Germans in a Van—I also had a problem coveting the van of a German couple we ran into a couple of times at Guadalupe Mountains.  I keep threatening to buy a van to live out of instead of finding a house to rent, and this German set-up would be perfect.  They actually brought the van over from Germany, and who knows where all they have already gone in the States—probably more places than I’ve been.  They parked near our tent site and planned to stay the night, and by craning our necks as inconspicuously as possible we were able to see in the side door as they were getting stuff out to cook dinner.  Surprisingly, the van was very organized inside.  A place for everything, and everything in its place—made me want that van even more.  Jen got a better view of the interior when our lighter gave out while trying to get the burner on our camp stove lit for dinner, and she went over to borrow some matches.  Sadly, when the campground host made her rounds that evening, she declared the van to belong in the RV category, and the Germans had to move from the tent section to the RV section, which is much less picturesque.

The Americans in a Minivan—On our last night at Big Bend, we observed a couple camping in a minivan in the tent site directly between us and the toilet.  With three girls in our group, there was a lot of walking back and forth from our tent to the toilet, so we made quite a few observations of this couple.  It didn’t take us long to figure out that they hadn’t really planned their trip.  I’m not sure how one ends up this far south on the Mexican border without planning, but somehow they did.  They slept in the minivan that night, and the next morning we were quite intrigued by the items we saw outside the minivan at their picnic table: approximately 15 bags of chips, a ladder, and a brand new electric coffee maker that I’m guessing came from a WalMart in Midland.  Janel said she saw the lady walking back from the bathroom holding the empty coffee maker in one hand and its box in the other.  It never occurred to me to bring an electric coffee maker to the park and try to plug it in in the bathroom—but who am I to judge?

In addition to our observations about the people around us, we also noted a few lessons we learned over the course of our trip.  First, and props to my dad for this one, it’s good to organize all your miscellaneous gear and cooking utensils in an action packer-type box that you can take in and out of the back of your vehicle easily when you’re car camping.  I use the word organize loosely—our stuff started out organized in the box, but by the end of the week we were throwing it back in the box however we could make it fit and still get the lid to shut.  But at least it made it much easier to get stuff in and out of the car than if we were throwing it directly into the backseat instead.

Second, car camping with just girls is OK, but if you’re going to do any backcountry camping, it’s probably better to have a boyfriend along.  I don’t mean a friend who’s a boy, because chances are he isn’t going to feel obligated to carry any of your junk for you.  But from personal experience, and observation of a couple we met who camped near the top of Guadalupe Peak, when backpacks and boyfriends are involved, I know who’s going to end up carrying 50 pounds of gear for bragging rights and who’s going to have a daypack with a change of clothes and a toothbrush.

I loved camping and hiking with Jen and Janel, but they never would carry my stuff for me.

And lastly, even though they might make you move your uber cool German van to the RV section, we learned it’s good to make friends with the campground hosts.  Partly because they might loan you a lighter when you accidentally break the matches from your new German friends and still can’t get your camp stove lit for dinner.  Partly because they have lots of stories to tell from all the places they’ve been since retiring.  And partly because they get lonely and bored living in these remote parks, and it’s a nice gesture to talk to lonely, bored people.

sunset at White Sands

Part 10 from the road trip series “The West Texas Idea”

After climbing Guadalupe Peak, we drove to Whites City, New Mexico, the nearest place to get a hotel room.  Our campsite at Guadalupe Mountains had a fantastic view and gave us a glowing array of colors at sunrise, but it was nice to shower and sleep in a bed after a full day of hiking the mountain.

We woke up the next morning in New Mexico, decided to skip Carlsbad Caverns, drove back to Texas to eat lunch at a famous hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant inside a car wash and gas station in El Paso, then drove back to New Mexico to camp at White Sands National Monument.

Well, we planned to camp at White Sands.  They have a small number of primitive campsites (read: no water or toilet and a mile of walking off the road), and we thought it would be worth it to haul a bare minimum of our junk out to the site so we could watch sunset and sunrise and all the stars in between.  A night sleeping on the dunes would be a perfect way to close our road trip.

But we ended up being 2 for 3 for our campground success rate.  Once again, like had happened at Chisos Basin in Big Bend, we found out when we arrived at White Sands that the campsite was closed, this time because of a missile test in the restricted area of White Sands Missile Range that surrounds the national monument.  So, no camping on the dunes to end our trip.  Instead, we spent the afternoon walking around in the southern New Mexico heat, stayed long enough to watch the setting sun turn the sand from white to orange, and started our drive back to Fort Worth a couple of days earlier than expected.

NEXT in The West Texas Idea

on a hike along the Rio Grande, Sierra del Carmen in the background

Part 4 from the road trip series “The West Texas Idea”

Our plan at Big Bend National Park was to camp at the Chisos Basin campground—we had read it was smaller and at a higher elevation than the other campground on the side of the park that we were entering from.  But when we arrived at the entrance station after 10 hours of driving, a sign posted on the station window greeted us mockingly:  “Chisos Basin campground closed for pavement resurfacing until the end of October.”  All three of us had repeatedly read the information about camping in Big Bend on the National Park Service website, checking for rules about what types of fires are allowable and what types of water and facilities would be available at each campground.  Chisos Basin has toilets but not showers, charcoal fires but not wood fires—and it’s in the mountains.  We drove 10 hours to stay in the mountains.  Would it kill the Park Service to update their website so that three weary mountain-seekers don’t find out at the front gate that they have to camp, instead, down on the river with a less than thrilling view?

The Rio Grande Village campground turned out to be perfectly nice.  It would have been more than just nice if it were what we had been planning on all along, but it wasn’t.  Still, we found a nice flat spot for the tent, with space in the shade for afternoon naps on the grass after hiking.  The nights weren’t as cold as we had expected since we were down near the river, and without a cloud in the sky we could leave the rainfly off the tent and fall asleep looking at the stars overhead.

Not long after drifting off that first night, a coyote howl startled me back to consciousness.  The second night, around midnight, it wasn’t just a howl, but what sounded to me like a pack of 50 coyotes about five yards from the tent, howling and yipping.  The third night, I woke up to the sound of a javelina snorting and rooting around at the ground near our picnic table.  I heard the coyotes again, but much further in the distance.  When I climbed out of the tent the next morning, I saw one lonely coyote standing about 20 feet from the tent.  I stood still and watched him for a few moments, but he didn’t seem to care about me at all.  A roadrunner sped past on the path behind the coyote—Chuck Jones must have received cartoon inspiration from camping at Big Bend.

(To be continued…)

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Part 2 from the road trip series “The West Texas Idea”

I’m back from my West Texas road trip.  My dirty clothes are out of my backpack and spread in noxious piles across the floor awaiting the washing machine.  I’ve moved my photos from the camera to the computer and am trying to organize and label them.  I’ve made a dent in going through my e-mail and snail mail, and now it’s time to start looking through my journal pages from the past nine days of travel and figure out which of my stories and experiences are blog-worthy.

As I’ve done in the past, I’ll try to keep the next several blogs about my trip from being a minute-by-minute account of all we did, but rather hit the highlights and give a general idea of the tone of the trip and some of the people we met.  Also, I realized a while back that since I switched to the new blog host last spring, I haven’t posted any pictures with my writing.  In a way I prefer emphasizing my writing over my poor attempts at photography, but for this series of blogs I will go back to posting a photo with each story.  Look for stories on Pecos (my dad’s place of birth); Big Bend National Park; the triangle of towns at Alpine, Marfa, and Fort Davis; the Guadalupe Mountains; El Paso; White Sands, New Mexico; and a blog with some of my observations and musings on camping and my fellow campers.

It’s good to be back online—I don’t have an iPhone or smart phone or anything but a regular old cell phone, and even if I did we were out of cell service (regular or 3G) for much of our trip.  I always enjoy being disconnected for a week or so, but it’s also nice to catch back up with folks when I get home.

NEXT in The West Texas Idea

Plans come about in many fashions.  The plans for my road trip through West Texas and New Mexico came about over a (long) period of time, mostly by me and a couple of friends starting off on one idea but getting distracted towards another.

I was supposed to be driving from Texas to Washington this October, with the purpose of staying for several months to write and to get to know the area and the folks in a church up there.  That’s a long way to drive by myself, so I asked my friend Jen if she wanted to go all or part of the way with me and fly back to Texas.  She thought that sounded like a good idea, so she set aside the vacation time.

“You know, I’ve been wanting to go to Big Bend National Park—what do you think about driving through that area on our way?” I asked her.

“Sounds like a good idea,” she said.  It’s on the border of Mexico, sort of the wrong direction to go from Fort Worth to Washington, but still, we both decided that’s the route we needed to take on this road trip.

“You know,” she said, “that’s not too far from White Sands, New Mexico—why don’t we go there too?”

“Good idea,” I said.  I didn’t have any particular hankering to go to White Sands at first, but Jen’s been wanting to go for years, ever since she got stuck on hold in 2003 with the customer service rep for AT&T over an internet issue at our rent house in Fort Worth.  The guy on the other end of the line found out she’d just moved to Fort Worth and told her that she ought to take a day trip to White Sands.  The 11-hour drive from Fort Worth to White Sands is as much of a day trip as Big Bend is on the way to Washington, so Jen is just now getting around to going out there.

OK, so we’re up to Big Bend and White Sands.  Recent months of Texas Monthly gave us a few more ideas of things to do in little West Texas towns, scenic drives in the area, art galleries to visit, restaurants that we can’t pass up.

I told my aunt about the trip.  She and my dad and their other siblings grew up in West Texas and went to Big Bend when they were kids, and she and her husband love the area still.  “You know, if you’re going all the way out there, you should climb Guadalupe Peak,” she said.

I looked at the map.  Guadalupe Mountains National Park is sort of on the way from Big Bend to White Sands.  Good idea.  We added it to the itinerary.

“You know, this is the kind of trip that Janel would enjoy too,” I said.  Janel also lived in that rent house in Fort Worth in 2003, and the three of us have gone on a few road trips over the years—Fort Worth to Monterrey, Mexico (before it was deadly to do so). Buffalo to New York City to Niagara Falls to Toronto. Seattle to Vancouver.

“Good idea,” Jen said.  So we asked Janel.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Janel said.

“You know, my car is kind of small.  And we really ought to camp at all those parks and places we’re going to visit.  And I really should stay home for the holidays this year.  So why don’t we go in a bigger vehicle to carry all our gear, and I’ll just come back to Fort Worth with y’all and go to Washington in January?”

“Good idea.”

So we’re leaving this Wednesday, and I won’t be blogging again until we get back.

(Please click NEXT to read more on the West Texas road trip.)