Big Bend National Park
Episode I: In Limbo
When we pulled over to take a photo by the sign at the entrance of Big Bend National Park, we did not expect smoke to start pouring from the hood of the car.
Lots of smoke. As if we had just parked on a bonfire and instantly smothered it. As if there were 40 hipster stowaways where our engine should be and they were all smoking at least two cigarillos each.
That’s not where we started. We started in Austin about eight hours east. Who are we? There was four of us. Chase and Kelsey organized the trip. We took their 2004 green-gray Ford Explorer. My friend Andrew flew down from Dallas to come with us. And me.
We left on the morning of Friday, October 16, 2015. Why did we go? From time to time in the course of human life you venture out. You leave the safety and comfort of home. To explain why in a straightforward way is beyond my skill. I can tell you what happened though.
In the car we discussed the musical excellence of the album “Kid A”, the superiority of Zaxby’s to Raising Cane’s, the lackluster (though not unexpectedly so) scenery of I-10 in central-west Texas.
We stopped at a strange gas station. Somewhere off I-10, but it’s hard to say exactly where. There was a beautifully normal oil derrick on the other side of the road. The strange part was the presence of no less than 30 cats lounging (as they do) around the parking lot. In retrospect, that was the first time I felt almost as if I were in a fairy tale. Perhaps it would not be hard to find that place again. Perhaps it receded into the mists of the Texas desert as soon as we had left it.
Fort Stockton brought questions. What is it like to live in a place where many pass through but few stay? Does it really deserve the title “Shining Star of Texas”? Is it worth it to get popcorn chicken at Sonic, or is it better to stick with a burger?
We had planned to spend Saturday in Big Bend, and we had reserved Friday to figure out what was going on in Marfa. Of course there was a film festival going on. We went to Dairy Queen and got the only thing anyone should ever get at Dairy Queen: a Blizzard. We paid ~$35 per person to pitch a tent at El Cosmico (it came with a ticket to a concert that night). We went to a small bookstore and thumbed through books while listening to peculiar percussion music. Vietnamese progressive post-rock.
We threw the frisbee around the campground and listened to Hotel Brotherhood play live music that fit the scenery. The sun was setting and we felt at ease, unaware of what tomorrow was going to bring. Every day is like that, but we don’t think of it that way.
Before the sun finished setting we saw another cat. I’m not going to say that cats are the theme of this story, because they are not, but this cat was remarkable. It was a large white cat in full cat mode, supremely disinterested in everything. It was daintily stepping across the ivy covered roof of the drink shack. At one point it was at the edge and there was a woman right below it looking up at, probably taking a photo. It looked like the beginning of a hilarious cat YouTube video.
There was some more live music but because our only dinner so far was the Blizzard we left to get food. It was around 9pm. I remember because the place we went was a grilled cheese diner / television museum that was only open from 9pm to midnight. There were probably close to 100 TVs in that one-room diner. There was an 8-track player that was actually playing music. Cash only. Andrew noted later that if there had been no music playing it would have been a creepy place.
We went to the Marfa lights viewing station and that didn’t solve anything. I’m not sure if we saw the lights or not. We didn’t see anything amazing. Still, we did see a few blinking lights that did not look like airplanes, satellites, cars, cell towers, anything. Marfa.
Saturday morning we woke up and backtracked to Alpine before heading south towards Big Bend. We didn’t take much notice of the town. We just drove through.
South of Alpine there is a stretch of 70 miles of highway through the desert. We were listening to the Alabama Shakes as we drove. It was much more scenic, with the beginning of what you might actually be able to call mountains. It reminded me of New Mexico, beautiful and desolate.
At last we reached the tiny town of Terlingua that sits on the doorstep of Big Bend. A few miles later we arrived at the sign for the park which is (as you may recall) where the hood started smoking. And that is as close as we got to Big Bend National Park.
We let the car sit for a little while and just looked at it until it stopped smoking. Then we drove slowly back to Terlingua. We were not optimistic about finding a mechanic in Terlingua. As it turned out, there was only one auto shop and they were closed on Saturdays.
We went anyway because we didn’t have anywhere else to go. The mechanic happened to be there even though they weren’t open. He was going to work on a friend’s truck, but the friend wasn’t there yet, so he took a look at our car.
He said the thermostat housing had a crack in it, so the engine coolant was leaking out and not fulfilling its intended purpose of cooling the engine, thus the engine was overheating and smoking. I don’t know much about cars. He said he didn’t have the part but that we might be able to find it in Alpine. We called the AutoZone in Alpine and they said they had exactly one of the part we needed.
We asked the mechanic if he thought we could make it to Alpine and he said maybe. You may remember, Alpine is 70 miles away through the desert. We decided we might as well go for it. The mechanic had also mentioned that there was only one tow truck that served this area, and the the guy who drove it charged “whatever he wants” (I’m not sure if that is a direct quote or just the feeling I got).
Our drive north to Alpine started off tense because we had no idea how the car would hold up. At the same time, there was an edge of excitement. What would happen to us?
I think it was around noon when we left Terlingua. We put a gallon of water in the coolant tank (apparently this is the next best thing to coolant, per the mechanic: “It doesn’t matter, it’s all gonna leak out anyways.”). Five miles later the hood was smoking again. All the water we had put in was gone. We had more water in the trunk. We had brought six gallons, which at the time felt like obviously too much. But what if a whole gallon only gets us five miles before we have to stop again? Can we do this 13 more times? Is this wise?
This is the first moment I remember where we started throwing out ideas (that would continue). OK, maybe two of us should hitchhike to Alpine, buy the part and hitchhike back? Maybe the others should go back to Terlingua and wait? Maybe the car should make it as far towards Alpine as possible? But would we have the tools needed to change the part? Could we do it ourselves even if we had the tools?
We decided to stick together and keep heading towards Alpine. We developed a routine. Drive ~5 miles, pull over, wait for the engine to stop smoking (I’d take photos of the clouds while waiting), one person holds the hood open, another pours a gallon of water into the coolant tank. I would hold my blue umbrella over them to protect them from the hot West Texas sun.
We were conscious that we were having an adventure, and that was exhilarating because it was unexpected and interesting, but it was also frustrating because it was happening to us and we didn’t choose it and we couldn’t get out of it.
People would pull over and ask if we were OK, and it was hard to know how exactly to answer that. People would give us jugs of water (people just carry jugs of water in their cars out there). A police officer stopped and asked how we were doing. There were not many cars on the highway, so it’s surprising that that many would stop. Off the top of my head, I’d say about four cars stopped of the 40 that passed by. There were times where we wouldn’t see anybody for 10–20 minutes. Oh, I don’t think I mentioned that none of us had cell service either.
I lost count of how many times we stopped. One notable stop was a supply store, or I guess I should say “the” supply store. We were hoping to fill up our empty containers with a hose or in a bathroom sink or something. When we asked the lady at the counter, she said they didn’t have running water. They did have gallons of water for sale, and I think we bought 15.
Another notable stop was the border patrol station. Like everything else on our way south, we had blazed past it without a second thought. Now we were hoping we could use their hose (surely they have running water). We pulled up to the station and rolled down our window, and they told us to stop while their german shepherd smelled our car.
There were three border patrol agents: two men with sunglasses and one woman. The larger of the men neither said anything nor took off his sunglasses the entire time we were there. The smaller man told us something like this:
My dog picked up a scent on your vehicle. My dog only picks up two scents: drugs and human corpses.
He then went on to say that if we confess now, we will get a smaller penalty than if we deny it and he ends up finding something. Andrew and I were chuckling on the inside because we had heard this exact script before from one of our friends who worked at Big Bend. Our friend had told us about his almost identical experience coming back through the border patrol station.
We didn’t have any drugs or corpses in our car, and the whole thing just felt ridiculous because we were having car problems and in the middle of our trek back to Alpine. They asked us to pull the car over and get out and sit on a bench while they searched it. Chase said sure and asked if we could use their hose afterwards.
While we were sitting on the bench and the german shepherd was climbing around the car, stepping on pillows and bags and empty bottles of water and sniffing everything. Kelsey started talking with the woman about how her aunt trains K9 dogs or something like that, and the woman said “Oh, how interesting!”
Then there was this funny moment when the female border patrol agent went over to the two men and told them about Kelsey’s connection to K9 dogs and they just completely ignored her. They just stood there off to the side, stone faced, with sunglasses on and arms crossed. No change in facial expression whatsoever. I wonder if on the inside they were thinking something like “C’mon, you can’t say something like that.”
After the dog didn’t find anything, the smaller man came back and asked us again if we have any drugs or corpses in the car and reminded us of the consequences. We said no and he asked if we are sure and we said yes. Then he looked over all of us again and his eyes stopped on me. He peered at me and slowly said “Are you sure?” Everyone thought that was hilarious.
We realized that if we drove slower, we could drive a little longer and the engine didn’t take quite so long to cool down again. I think our eventual cruising speed was around 40mph. I was amazed at how different the landscape looked at 40mph as opposed to 75mph. It felt like slow motion, like we had time to inspect every rock and cloud. Who would ever go that slow by choice?
When we ate lunch, we could pretend that we had stopped to eat lunch, but really it was just another stop because we had to. I think that was our last stop before we finally made it to Alpine. We were excited as our car climbed the last hill before Alpine, and when the town came into view we were near jubilant. That was right around when we got cell service again, so I played “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens on my phone (we had talked about Little Miss Sunshine more than once on that trip).
When we pulled into AutoZone, we felt like we had won. It was around 4pm, and we were so happy to be in Alpine. They still had the part and we bought it. Chase and Andrew worked to install the new temperature housing and connect it to I think three other hoses. It was supposedly a “very easy” operation.
While they were installing the new temperature housing, a guy walks out of AutoZone, and says that he was looking for the exact same part! They only had one, and we had beat this other guy by only 10 minutes!
Kelsey walked across the street to McDonalds’ and got a drink and some french fries. We walked in and out of AutoZone many times. Getting a ratchet to unwind a bolt, configuring the ratchet to wind a bolt instead of unwinding a bolt (we had to ask them to change it multiple times because we couldn’t figure it out), getting a funnel for the coolant we had bought.
Finally, the time arrived where Andrew and Chase had successfully installed the new temperature housing. We had so much momentum at this point. Terlingua couldn’t trap us. The desert couldn’t stop us. We had made it to Alpine, and the part we had needed was at AutoZone, and now that brand new part was in our car. Behold, all things are being reborn!
When Chase turned the key, the car wouldn’t even start. Everything dies. Dreams don’t come true.
We made more trips in and out of AutoZone to check the error codes, and check the error codes again, but I think that was the moment our spirits were broken. That car was not going to leave the AutoZone parking lot under it’s own power, and definitely was not going to take us back to Austin.
Another wild brainstorming session. What if we took the Amtrak to Austin? The train tracks were right behind the AutoZone. The train passes through Alpine at 8pm and arrives in Austin at 9am. That idea was short lived.
Then we were thinking: who could we call who would come out to Alpine and pick us up? Mason would definitely have done it if he hadn’t just had a son. Maybe Jake and Maija? But they’re probably training for their half iron man. We called them anyway and didn’t leave a message and then realized that that was probably going to freak them out because they knew we were in Big Bend this weekend.
It turns out they were in the middle of a workout, and us calling them did freak them out. Jake called back, and we filled him in on our situation. As fate would have it, Maija had a friend Sarah who was from Alpine. Sarah wasn’t living there now, but Maija though she might randomly be in Alpine that weekend. She could contact her and get back to us.
Kelsey called her dad, and he said he could come pick us up, which meant that we could be rescued tomorrow, but what were we going to do tonight? We had no way of getting around. The best plan we could come up with was to take the “Tipsy Taxi” (the only taxi we could find) to the “The Lost Alaskan,” an RV park that also had some tent spots.
That was a bleak plan indeed. While we were waiting for that, since we weren’t going anywhere, Andrew and I decided to go across the train tracks to Jackson Stadium, where Sul Ross State was playing a football game. We walked around the people tailgating and pretended we weren’t stranded.
We ended up tailgating in the AutoZone parking lot, by which I mean we broke out our camping stove and started cooking the steaks and pork chops and corn that we were planning to cook for dinner at a campground in Big Bend. That was a delicious meal. We even had a caesar salad, hand shaken.
There were two other funny things that happened in that parking lot. The first was a guy showing an AutoZone employee his car that was obviously very broken. He turned the key and it made a horrendous noise that sounded like the last rattling coughs of a dying man. The AutoZone guy thought about it for a second, then said “Yeah, there’s something wrong.”
The other funny thing is that this AutoZone was on one of the main streets of Alpine, so almost everyone who drove by was giving us weird looks for tailgating in the AutoZone parking lot. One car pulled up to us. I expected them to tell us we can’t tailgate there. Instead, they asked us if we were selling food.
We ended up getting in contact with Maija’s friend, Sarah, who invited us to her house. Of course we said yes, so she picked us up in a suburban. We grabbed the stuff we would need for the night, and then she drove us to the house. It was already dark at that point, I think around 8:30pm (yes, we spent nearly 5 hours in the AutoZone parking lot).
We made a fire in Sarah’s family’s backyard and we sat around it and talked, though I can’t remember about what. We were all tired. I remember feeling grateful for an unexpected place to stay.
The next day would be more normal. Kelsey’s dad would get up at 3 or 4am and get to Alpine by the time we were eating breakfast. We would have a safe drive back to Austin. Andrew would catch his flight back to Dallas.
But on that night Kelsey and Chase were sleeping on the floor in an upstairs bedroom. Andrew and I were in our sleeping bags on the upstairs porch, talking about the future. The sounds around us were beautiful, the sweet singing of insects and the quiet rustling of leaves as the breeze floated through the trees. We didn’t know we were going to end up here. We didn’t plan it. But we were still in the right place.
Ben Johnson is a mild-mannered software engineer by day (or is it night?), but finds time to create handcrafted music and writings. He’s a special guest contributor to the b-sides. Follow his musings on twitter and check out his music and other writings on his website.
Editor’s note: Episode II of Ben Johnson’s travel saga can be found here on the b-sides in 2016. In other words, much sooner than Episode VIII of that outer space symphonic movie series everyone loves.
If you like what you’ve read, please recommend us below!
