Big Bend National Park, Texas

After Alpine I went to Big Bend National Park. I only stayed at one campground, Cottonwood, in the South West part of the park, so I mostly saw the south west corner of the park with the Rio Grande River (which is the border with Mexico), the San Elena Canyon and the Mule's ear mountains being the principles features in that area.
In Big Bend you can hike off trails if you want and I did a couple of long hikes randomly in the desert, it was fabulous. I am  not going to say much about Big Bend. I am just going to say that I had a good time and really enjoyed it. I found it beautiful.

Here are the photos to show what I mean:

A view with San Elena Canyon's mouth just visible in the cliff in the background.

a view with Mule's ears.

 Again, Mule's ears

Just the beautiful desert

Lupins blooming in the desert on the side of the hill on the foreground

 One more Mule's ear's view

Ocotillo cactus in bloom

the bloom

the Rio Grande...amazingly small actually for a "grande" river which is the an international border.

San Elena Canyon in the background again.

the compulsory fuzzy bird picture, here a vermillion flycatcher. They were plentiful in cottonwood campground  but camera shy.

Also seen in the Cottonwood campground was javelina's

When they are scared they raise the hair on their back so much that they reminded me of porcupines.
 Here is just the end of the process as it calms down and goes back to eat...it goes very fast.

Here with its hair mostly up and walking away.