Point #25- Big Bend National Park

To obtain this point: One must hike a trek to feel the vastness of Texas in Big Bend National Park.

While researching Big Bend, I started feeling like a wayward high school girl wanting to date the bad boy on campus. The more I researched, the more un-inviting it sounded. The more un-inviting it sounded, the more I wanted to go visit.
This process all started when I came across the official website by the National Park Service and was dumbfounded at how un-inviting the NPS makes Big Bend sound. I can see why it is such a poorly visited park. Here are a couple interesting facts as advertised on the official Big Bend website:
- The remains of a 50 foot crocodile with 6 inch teeth was found there in the 1940s.
- Big Bend is one of the least visited National Parks with about 300,000-350,000 people a year. This is up from its first year of 1400 visitors (most of whom were probably lost).
- There are multiple drug smuggling lines that run through Big Bend...so don't buy anything from a guy in a old van selling 'white powder'
- Multiple caves in the park are said to be haunted by ghosts or are locations of smuggled treasure (but there is no 'real' treasure).
- Because of deteriorating air quality, the spectacular vistas are limited to due to haziness on most days (seriously, this is on their website trying to attract guests)
- Mountain Lions, Mexican black bears, box turtles, and jack rabbits are some of the unique residents of Big Bend.
- Cell phone service often does not work inside the park
- Mariscal Mine (a mercury mine) is listed in the National Register of historic districts and one of the best preserved mines in Texas. Remember that mercury (AKA quicksilver) is the element that is the basis for the phrase 'mad as a hatter'.
- Big Bend became a national park one week after D-Day in 1944...I hope FDR did not spend much time mulling over this decision because I figure he had other things on his plate like the largest World War ever and the worse economic depression in recent history.
- Big Bend is the location of the largest area of protected Chihuahuan Desert in the US
- The tarantula is the largest spider in Big Bend and occasionally seen crossing the the road to find a mate...which leads to the obvious question: Why did the tarantula cross the road?...errr, nevermind.

A quick summary from the Big Bend Website why to visit:
Enormous pre-historic Crocs, drug smugglers, ghosts, fake buried treasure, black bears, Tarantulas, quicksilver, few visitors, no cell phone service, and more cacti/bats than any other National Park all in the middle of the desert with crummy views...I think the National Park Service needs another PR person for their website, but like the bad boy in high school, it is irresistible to me!

A special thanks to the fine folks at the NPS:
http://www.nps.gov/bibe/index.htm