Guide School Day 8: Driving to Big Bend

We met on Saturday morning at 5am. We packed the cold items into ice chests and loaded our personal gear into dry bags. However, we decided to take a raft at the last minute, since Chris had seen that the water was high in the Santa Elena canyon and we had almost too much gear to carry in canoes.  Hence, we ended up leaving at 7am after pulling and packing the raft.

I rode in the back seat of the suburban towing the box trailer with Ellie.  Zack, Manuel, and Jakub were in the second seat, and Billy and Chris were up front.  Apparently Chris was unhappy that all the current Outdoor Center guide school participants clustered in the other car, so in Junction Zach and Manuel were moved to the other car and Sarah Rose and Sean moved to our car.  Chris and Jakab claimed the move was to unite Leave No Trace groups, which was true, but clearly not the main reason.

Ellie, Jakub, and I chatted some, and we all slept some.  We reached Fort Stockton at 1:30pm after driving really slow for 15 minutes since the other suburban was running out of gas (ours was only half empty, so the canoe trailer was causing a lot of drag with canoes on the top row of the rack).  We went to Walmart first to get some forgotten items (soap, dry bleach, more snacks), and then we went to Sonic for lunch.  We also moved the canoes on the top rack of the canoe trailer to the top of one of the suburbans.  We finally left Fort Stockton around 3:15pm.

We arrived at Brenden's house near Terlingua around 6:10pm.  We unhitched the trailers and then went into Terlingua to see Brenden play at The Starlight at 6:30pm.  He played for about an hour while we ate dinner.  I sat at a table down by the stage with Hannah and Tessa.  I had a chicken sandwich, fries, and a local draft beer (I'm not so sure of this was allowed, but we were far from the rest of the group so no one saw anyway) - and then the three of us shared a root beer float.  Brendan's show was actually really nice, and a great way to start the trip.

 Brenden playing at the Starlight Theater in Terlingua (photo by Manuel).

After Brenden's show, we drove back to his house, met shortly, and then fell asleep in the living room, kitchen, and an outdoor patio. Those of us sleeping inside chatted with Brenden's mom Wendy for a while.  Apparently she is selling the house soon since she works at a national park in Del Rio now, and only comes to Study Butte on the weekends (she worked in Big Bend National Park until about a year ago).

 Sara B and Big Dog settling in for the night in the kitchen (photo by Manuel).