By Joe Edd Waggoner

If you have ventured out to the Big Bend area of Texas, you know this place is special. Wax poetics are the only form of speech one can string together, when it's even possible to put words together to describe the Big Bend. If it hits you just right, you'll be awestruck instantaneously. Might as well pack it in and move, because you'll be itching, looking for chances to get back out here. I've heard this area described as being a big, beautiful black hole, and I believe that to be accurate. Once it gets in your system and engulfs you, it will be in your head and in your heart for the rest of your life. A favorite activity of mine is simply being out alone in the desert and mountains of far west Texas and making discoveries that are new to me. Watching the clouds shift gracefully, and cast shadows on the earth below. Listening to the ocotillo branches sway in the wind. Seeing the Milky Way stretch from horizon to horizon. Attempting to get a more intimate understanding of the mountains and how they look in different conditions. Seeing the shafts of light intermingle with the clouds and get caught on the branches of the creosote bushes. Just yourself, your thoughts or lack thereof, and el despoblado. There is comfort in the solitude. If this peaks your interest, I invite you out west of the Pecos River - where the river runs uphill and the rainbows wait for rain. I promise you, you won't forget it.