Winter Epic: Last days in Florida, Big Bend Nat Park

Friday Jan, 23

This morning I grabbed breakfast at a hotel then spent the day driving around the Everglades. At night I drove down to Key Largo to grab a drink with my friend Stefani.

Saturday Jan, 24

Saturday I drove up to Orlando to meet up with my cousin Ben. He had to work until late so I pretty much just sat in the car watching shows on my computer. Around 10 I went to the restaurant Ben works at. The place is called Dexters, and he cooked me up a delicious grouper dinner. This really hit to spot, you can’t beat the fish down here. I haven’t seen Ben in years, so we grabbed some beers when he got off work. He took me to a few of his watering holes before going back to his place.

Sunday Jan, 25

In the morning we walked around a really cool weekly market they have next to a lake. We walked around the city some more and grabbed some gyros. He also had to work today so I relaxed at his place watching Netflix. Later on we grabbed a beer, but I wasn’t feeling the best and became super tired. So soon made it back to his place.

Monday Jan, 26

Monday I had to drive to Sarasota to do a blood test for life insurance, I should have taken care of it before I left but I didn’t want to deal with it. From here I drove through the Everglades back down to Key Largo for some kayaking through mangrove tunnels with Stefani. I wanted to get started on the drive west so I drove back up towards Tampa. I dropped off a case of spotted cow, a beer only in Wisconsin, for my cousin’s fiancée’s brother.

Tuesday Jan, 27

Here’s where it gets boring, I drove west

Wednesday Jan, 28

I drove west

Thursday Jan, 29

I drove west, and made it Big Bend National Park. This is an amazing national park with a ton to offer. It’s right on the border of Mexico along the Rio Grande. It’s the only national park with an entire mountain range inside it, the Chisos Mountains. At the bottom it’s a dessert, at the top it’s a pine forest. The top gets twice as much rain as the dessert below. I did a ranger guided hike where he was really knowledgeable and explained a ton about the park and surrounding land. After the hike he talked to me about going into Mexico, there is a border station in the park and you can go to a small village across the river. I planned on doing that tomorrow. After the days in the car I needed to clean up, so I went over to the hot spring. It’s actually an old building that fell apart and the hot spring flooded the foundation. It sits right in the Rio Grande River and the temptation was too strong. I swam across the river just to be an illegal immigrant for a minute.

Friday Jan, 30

I was up early with a lot of things planned to do. First I drove the scenic drive to the west end of the park. Here is one of the main reasons this place became a park, the Santa Elena canyon. If I planned it out better I would have kayaked through the canyon, but instead I did the short hike. It’s a huge, 1000 foot wall that is split by the Rio Grande River flowing through. The size is hard to take it all at once. The next place I hiked was around a few old houses of the farmers lived in before it was a park. From here I did another hike to a spring, more like a pool of bad water. But I was able to follow the wash up into the mountains for a ways. Finally I drove to east side to the park for the border crossing. You pay $5 for a boat ride across the river then walk a quarter mile to the town. It’s somewhat sad to see, the place is dirt poor. A resident offered to be my guide and I accepted. Little kids run up to you asking you to buy their little trinkets. We walked around the town then stopped in the bar. I figured I'm in Mexico, I should have tequila. They also had a tequila type drink made from a different plant called sotol. We grabbed an overpriced lunch then I check out the store. Nothing I really wanted, but I did buy some vanilla. I wish I had another day to spend in the park, but I had to be in Vegas for a work convention on the 2^nd. So I started north. Leaving the park there is a border patrol station. And sure enough the dog barked. So I pulled aside and they had to search everything. Right before they started taking everything out one of them says to me “if there is anything in the car you have to tell me now, if you don’t and I find something it’s a federal issue.” All I said back “and if you don’t find anything, you owe me a beer.” He never did pay up on that beer, but I was just happy to be done with that. I drove up to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.