Big Bend National Park is a huge park – more than 800,000 acres – of river, desert, and mountains. It’s in southwestern Texas, and it’s southern border is the Rio Grande – and Mexico.

We camped in Rio Grande Village, which isn’t really a village, but a small campground with RV hookups, and a store, in the southeastern corner of the park.

Here we are.

We did some walking near the campground – the first afternoon because we didn’t want to drive any more, and in the evenings after our hikes.

Boquillas Canyon is close to the campground, and along the Rio Grande.

The Rio Grande

The canyon

Mud dunes from the flood that came through last fall

Great rocks along the canyon floor

Windmills Flower – Allionia sp.

Reakirt’s Blue Butterfly

In the afternoons, after our daytime hikes, we’d come back to the campground and I’d wander around in the deserted picnic areas to find butterflies basking in the late afternoon sun.

Fatal Metalmark

Gray Hairstreak

Red Admiral

West Coast Lady

A Mayfly

Mistletoe

The Rio Grande flooded in October of 2008, leaving mud on the roads, in the riverbed, and in the thickets of trees along the river. The mud on the trees shows the height of the flood.

In the evenings we walked along the road west from the campground. One night we saw some coyotes.

People told us that they’d been seen a bobcat, and we looked hard, but didn’t see one.

These are the mountains that we could see from the campground.

The mountains at sunset

More sunset mountains

Different mountains – at the west end of the walk

Walking back to the campground