Pensacola to Big Bend: Our West Texas Road Trip
Big Bend has been on my list for a long time, so this year I finally made it happen.
Graham and I loaded up in Pensacola and started the drive west a couple days early to turn it into a real road trip instead of trying to crush it in one miserable push. We did overnights in Shreveport, Abilene, then stopped in Midland to pick up the girls from the airport.
After that, it was straight into the part of Texas that feels like you’re driving into another world.
Terlingua is the vibe
We stayed in Terlingua, which is basically the perfect home base if you’re visiting Big Bend. It’s close to the park, it’s weird in the best way, and it feels like a desert town that hasn’t been polished up for tourists (thankfully).
The light out there is insane too. Even just driving around and pulling over randomly for photos was worth it.
Big Bend is 100% worth the drive
We spent two days exploring Big Bend National Park and just doing what we came to do:
hiking
driving scenic roads
stopping constantly for photos
soaking in the desert/mountain landscape
Coming from Florida, it’s such a different kind of outdoors. In Pensacola, everything is green, humid, and beachy. Out there it’s dry, wide open, and dramatic. It feels huge.
Christmas Flu Disaster (not the plan)
Then… everyone got the flu.
It hit fast, and by Christmas morning both girls were dehydrated enough that we weren’t going to mess around with it. So we packed up early and started heading back so they could go to the ER and confirm flu and make sure they didn’t need fluids.
Definitely not how we planned to end the trip.
Back to Austin to recover…
We drove back to Austin, recovered for a bit, and then headed home once everyone was stable again.
Even with the chaos at the end, I’m still really glad we did this trip. Big Bend lives up to the hype.
