Episode 5: Family Traditions
September 2024
Several years ago, I told my husband that we needed more family traditions. Don’t get me wrong, we had long standing traditions with my side of the family, and with my husband’s side of the family; but we didn’t have any real “just us” traditions… something that we created ourselves, for ourselves. When COVID happened in early 2020, and we (and the rest of the world) were barred from air travel, we ended up learning that our family was very well suited to road trips. It happened accidentally, at first. But when we realized we enjoyed it, we began searching for worthwhile locations within a day’s drive of Houston.
The year before, Michael and I had gone to Marfa, and taken a day trip to Big Bend National Park to do a 5 mile hike on the Lost Mine Trail, and I fell in love with it. The effort, the beauty, the scenery; all of it. So, over Labor Day weekend in 2020, we drove the 10 hours to Big Bend National Park with the boys, hoping it would be a worthwhile family getaway. We hiked for a few days, rode horses, explored the ghost town in Terlingua, and tempered sweaty days with early evenings lounging in a pool. When it was all over, and we’d made the 10 hour drive back home, we were tired, and we weren’t relaxed, but he had found something worth doing again.
So, we repeated our Labor Day trip, our new-found family tradition, in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The specifics of the trip changed each year – where we stayed, where we ate, which hikes we did, whether or not we rode horses – but the destination and the purpose were always consistent. We typically leave after a full day’s work, and drive as far as we can, stopping before it’s too dark and everyone is too tired to continue. This year we stopped at La Calabria (near Comfort, TX) for dinner, which was worth the stop (the pizza was actually very good, in a pretty setting). We then made it as far as Sonora, TX, before it was time to call it an evening. We couldn’t remember where we had stayed previously, or if we’d ever stayed in Sonora, so we looked up hotels and the Wyndham Super 8 was the best rated of the bunch. I told my husband, “as long as we aren’t staying at that creepy horror movie hotel we stayed at a few years ago, I’ll be fine”. Michael assured me there was no way that awful hotel would be rated as highly as the Wyndham was, so we booked it. I believe my exact words, when we rolled into the parking lot and were being hard-stared at by the heavy-set gentleman in a wifebeater and boxers, chain smoking outside of the door to his room, was, “well, crap”. It was the creepy hotel of my nightmares. But, we survived!
The next day, we woke up early and drove to Marfa for lunch. Our traditional pre-Big-Bend lunch stop was always the WhistleStop Café, but we learned that they had changed to a dinner only establishment. So we made our way to the Paisano Hotel for apps instead. Then, we made the 2 hour drive to Terlingua, where we had rented a 1 bedroom casita with Terlingua Base Camp. We had stayed at various Terlingua Base Camp homes over the previous years, and have enjoyed the simplicity of it. They are fairly spartan, but they have a fire pit for s’mores, air conditioning, and are only about a half hour from Big Bend National Park, so they’ve been perfectly adequate.
By this year, we as a family had hiked just about every well known one-day trail in the National Park: we’d seen droughts and waterfalls on Lost Mine, seen bighorn sheep on Grapevine Hills (Balanced Rock), pictographs and petroglyphs at The Chimneys, Black Bears and rattle snakes on The Window, absolute exhaustion on Emory Peak, and vistas at Mule Ears Springs, Boquillas Canyons, and Santa Elena. So this year, we had to decide which of our favorites would be redone.
We decided that, since it had been 3 years since H & T had first done the death march that their first Emory Peak hike had been, we would do it again. They were 10 now, so in our minds it would be less tortuous. For those who don’t know, Emory Peak is the highest peak in Big Bend National Park, reached on a 10.6 mile round trip hike with 2,500 feet of elevation gain. And, the hike was much more doable this year, with the boys being older. But, what we hadn’t accounted for was the torrential downpour that began about 20 minutes into our descent from the peak. We first tried to wait it out, huddling in a group hug under a single poncho, under a tree, assuming that the rain in the desert would pass quickly. 20 minutes into our huddle, with the rain ceaseless and the thunder and lighting getting closer, we realized we needed to get off of the mountain by any means necessary. So, we all just started running down the trail, through the pouring rain. We got out of the danger, but were soaked to the bone for 2 hours before the rain let up. When we finally made it to the car, we were not our kids’ favorite people. Needless to say (both because we were tired, and as an implicit apology), we decided to take it easy the next day, and only did the Grapevine Hills (Balanced Rock) hike, which is a mostly flat 2 mile, round trip with the option of some fun rock climbing at the turn around point. And then we took the long drive to Santa Elena Canyon, just to see it. And one of the best parts about that drive was that, along the way, we randomly saw a blooming century plant (complete with nectar foraging humming birds). Which might not sound that cool, but they only bloom once in their lifetime (which is about 25 years), and I’ve never seen one before. So we parked on the side of the road and dodged cactus thorns bushwhacking to it for a closer view. I’m a flower nerd, so I loved it. And the boys begrudgingly humored me.
Dining has always been an adventure on this trip. Our motto is, if you find something worth going back to, definitely do that; because there’s plenty that is not worth doing the first time! A favorite, that has become an every-year visit, is Long Draw Pizza. Yes, it is a no-frills pizza joint. But it’s just plain good. Go there. And then go back. It’s worth it.
We tried El Gordo food truck this trip as well. The chicken fajita wrap was worth eating, as were the fries. The quesadillas were almost too greasy to eat, and the Al Pastor tacos were just ok. So, order a few things, and keep your fingers crossed!
One definite go-to, regardless of where you eat dinner, is the Milky Way. It is a dessert food truck halfway up to the Terlingua ghost town, started by a very nice lady from Houston who used to be the pastry chef at Tiny Boxwoods. The ice cream (and brownies, and sundaes, and floats), are all amazing. Go there, and go often! We went every day that it was open.
After a few days, our trip was at an end. Instead of driving straight home from Big Bend, we decided to spent the night in Marfa. Our hope was that the boys could enjoy the St George Hotel pool for the day, and we could finally eat the pistachio crusted chicken fried steak at Jette’s Grill in the Paisano Hotel. We have tried to eat there on 3 previous occasions, but were thwarted by gas leaks, broken fans, and unforeseen hotel closures. The entire Marfa stop was a loss (outside of a brunch stop at Marfa Burrito, which has the kindest owner you could imagine, and very good burritos as well).
The threat of rain closed the St George pool. And we arrived for our reservation at Jette’s Grille only to be told they “didn’t have any staff, so the restaurant was closed and our reservation was cancelled”. I can say that, as things stand now, there will be no more overnights in Marfa. Next year, we’ll try something else.
The next morning, we woke up early for an uneventful, but 9 hour long, drive home from Marfa. Yet again, unrested. But, yet again, looking forward to next year.
