New Mexico Visitors Center, Northwest of El Paso
I am writing this from one of the most beautiful rest stops I have ever seen. There are 18 picnic benches, all sheltered in mid-century modern white brick structures. The small buildings each rest on a loop positioned to overlook the Franklin Mountains at the southernmost western border dividing Texas and New Mexico. Wind is swaying the desert fauna, and thunder is rumbling at an almost constant rate. Bolts of lightning are striking the deep blue-grey peaks before me. This storm is unexpected, making it all the more ominous.
The temperature continues to fall below 75 degrees, much different from the 100 I experienced in southwest Texas. I’ve pulled on a sea green sweatshirt and pushed back my windswept bangs with a black bandana. I’m wishing I purchased the rain poncho I held in my hands for a few minutes back in an El Paso Wal-Mart. Alas.
Family travelers and solo vagabonds are filling the parking spots, truck drivers idling behind. Most are in their cars, but I’m giving Mother Nature the choice to strike me with her electric hands at number 18, the final building in the row.
Last night in a Terlingua campground, my site neighbor, Drew, suggested that I sleep in my Bug because my tent and I would be “done for” in the morning. He told me this with his eyebrows raised over his wire-rimmed transition glasses. “With your rubber tires, you won’t get hit by lightning, but that thing... I don’t know.” He offered to help me with my Nylon shelter minutes after it blew about 10 feet south into my picnic table. Lining the floor of the tent with heavy rocks was not enough for it to sustain the Chihuahua Desert winds. The storms are quick but brutal.
Drew, a man in his 70s, told me about his good friend, Jack, who spends his days hiking the mountains in and around Big Bend. “It doesn’t interest me at all, but at his age, I just let him do whatever it is he wants. Why not, at 75?” He boiled water on his camp stove as we spoke and offered me a cup of coffee, even though it was about 7:30 pm and still above 90 degrees. “I just patch him up when he needs it and make sure he takes his vitamins.” He sat, reclined in a foldable chair, began to smoke cigarettes one after the next, and watched the sun sink behind the mountains before retrieving Jack from his exhibition of the day. I retreated to my Beetle to get comfortable for the night.
The winds calmed, and stars revealed themselves from behind clouds. Before the pair of men returned, night settled, and the hot air began to dip into the 80s. I elected to set up my tent for the night once again, in hopes that I’d wake up in time to run to my car if the weather turned again. I drifted into a sound sleep next to Drew and Jack, murmuring about their days in the blazing desert and exchanging stories about the rabbits that are extremely comfortable with the strangers in the area.
“You’re still here!” Drew shouted as I crawled out of my tent in the morning light, cottontails all around. The night was better spent stretching across my blankets on the desert ground than in my cramped car, I told him. We smiled at each other and didn’t make much more conversation, each of us intent on packing up our cars before the heat descended upon the grounds. The golden light of the new day lifted me from the uncertainty of the night before.
I overheard Drew ask Jack if he’d made his appointment with his doctor and made sure he ate enough protein for breakfast. They wished me well on my journey and rolled out of the Rancho Topanga Campgrounds, onto the next leg of Jack’s adventure.