West Texas: Day 4 - Big Bend & Marfa (Santa Elena, El Cosmico & Marfa Mystery Lights)

Day 4:

We couldn’t come this far and not experience the Santa Elena Canyon and hike. So to celebrate Addie's "half-birthday," we grabbed some powdered donuts at the famous
  Terlingua gas station and headed south to the border, one last time. Wadding in the ice cold waters and hiking into the canyon was incredibly memorable. Half the hike was in the sun and half was in the shade, nice and cool! We were so glad we went out of our way to come do this hike on our way out of Big Bend this morning. I think it might have ended up as our favorite hike of the five incredible ones we did.

With a packed lunch in the car, we were off to Marfa and the famous El Cosmico. Wow, such a cool and modern “camping” place. Our tee-pees were absolutely adorable and decorated with modern but classic Mexican linens and decor. When we saw heated mattress warmers, electric blankets and a propane fireplace in the middle, we knew that the 40  degree over night temperature was going to be a non-issue!

The kids just ran around exploring and playing and the guys went into town to scope out dinner options and surprised us by coming back with everything to cook out for dinner. It couldn't have been more perfect.

I was determined to try and get a cool star shot with our family and tee pee under the dark West Texas skies. Hopefully, it worked out for our annual fun Christmas card.

The evening’s highlight was jumping into our fire warmed Dutch tub soak under the stars. Blake and I had a romantic soak with 6 kids in a 5 foot diameter tub!

We waited for it to get good and dark and finally got dressed and had to go check out the famous Marfa Mystery lights at the viewing station about 10 miles south of town. We hung out for almost 45 minutes in the cold night between 9:15 and 10PM and were slightly disappointed not to witness the unexplained dancing lights. After such an amazing trip, it was okay that one of our experiences hadn’t been near perfect and we’d rather it be this than anything thing else we did! ;) We will always remember Mike out in the field with his flashlight.