No Church In The Wild

The wild wild west is meant to be seen!! We had to cancel our trip to Chile, but knew we couldn’t sit still with our time off. Our last minute plans to Bend Big National Park exceeded all of our expectations.

It’s always been on my personal bucket list to visit the Prada building in Marfa, so of course we made a pit stop. An eyesore to the Great Plains, but a five star review from us art enthusiasts. It’s a long drive from Dallas, so I discourage you from going if you’re going to roll up and say “that’s it”, because YES.. that’s it 🙂

As we continued on our journey west, Texas got really cute!! The mountains, true blue sky, and rolling hills. Elijah felt the Oklahoma Sooner in his heart beaming with pride!!!! All jokes aside, we were grateful to have an SUV and not a horse drawn wagon. The more we drove, the more I kept saying “OK TEXAS GIRL! THIS IS NIIIICE!” She was showing a side I don’t recall ever seeing before and I was literally here for it.

When we travel, we are all about the experience and the culture. Y’all know this…. BUT what I’m not down with is CAMPING. I can’t do the whole tent thing. I just can’t be convinced that bumming it as if we are the final characters in a survival movie is the idea of a good time. My ancestors told me this in my dreams many, many years ago LOL We found a cute Airbnb house/cabin that checked all our boxes and we would highly recommend it!

To note: there’s no grocery store in the sticks. You have to get all your goods in Alpine (60 minutes out). If you visit, be prepared!! You can’t even walk over and ask the neighbor for sugar.. there’s hardly anyone around.

Our Airbnb

We drove to Odessa Saturday night, woke up and hit Marfa Sunday, and left the cabin Wednesday. Most of the day, we chilled with Esme outside, cooked, and grilled. We drove through Big Bend on Monday guided by one of their suggested scenic routes. We hiked through Santa Elena Canyon and did a little off-roading afterwards. The national park is beautiful and there’s so much to explore but, with a toddler, one day was enough for us.

My personal favorite moment on the trip was star gazing. I’ve always been intrigued with the cosmos and I was truly in awe at how majestic the sky is at night. A blanket of stars that reminds us how small we are in the universe, but how wondrous and curious we must always be.

Netflixed, chilled, hiked, and recharged. 9/10 would recommend (since Momma doesn’t do bugs) because this is a great way to be outside, outside!