Rodeo Stars and Glamour Girls: Traveling Texas to Arizona
In the early stages of planning our road trip I intended to have every day scheduled... to have the fancy (and not so) Airbnbs and glampsites we'd stay in determined, to have our hikes planned and to know what would be just over the next horizon.
And then, as Ben and I sat down to create our travel itinerary we made the decision to map out week 1 only and then see where our hearts were feeling pulled to next. We'd spend two nights in one of the most glamour girl campsites, then head out to rough it** a bit down on the Rio Grande and then, on the night of the 20th, which would be 6 days into our trip, we'd celebrate Ben's birthday and the Full Moon.
Experiencing that night together way outside of any city lights was the last real calendared activity I'd made.
As a recovering control freak the idea of having a one way car rental and only 7 days of certain destinations was wildly freeing. Here's what we knew when we left Dallas, TX on May 14th:
Travel to Marfa. 2 nights at El Cosmico.
Travel to Terlingua. 2 nights at Tin Valley. (**not exactly roughing it, the converted vintage airstreams are fully plumbed, have wifi and a serious interiors game).
Travel to White Sands. 1 night in a shipping container nature retreat. Birthday night!
Travel to Bisbee. Arrive at Uncle Robby's 1800's house (the old town jail) and regroup from there.
End goal (many days later): Flathead Lake, Montana.
Our travels would take us from the Mexican border to just shy of the Canadian border in 2.5 weeks.
Once we arrived in Bisbee we were in serious need of some decompression time.
Big Bend National Park is a mind bender.
I'll have a post coming on that whole experience, however, think 10 hour days hiking and off roading in the Chihuahuan Desert heat surrounded by nothingness and rattlesnakes. And mountain lions. And scorpions. And... you get it.
The only sounds at night were the coyotes in the distance.
Bisbee gave us a beautiful few days. We ate pizza (2 addicts over here) at Screaming Banshee - a total treat after 4 days of campfire meals, went to a classic Greek play at the Central School Project, toured Lowell, just a few minutes down the road and home to a street packed with classic cars... it's not an exhibit... this is the real thing.
We shopped up and down Main Street - the Culture Pirate (owned and curated by a former stylist for The Who. Yes, The Who) had so many great finds - we drank lots of red wine, and took in the sunset up a dirt road on the mountain top.
Bisbee is a total hideaway for Cowboys with an artistic side.
When it was time to depart we had a plan: the proprietor of Culture Pirate recommended on our drive to the Grand Canyon we stop for a night in Scottsdale. He recommended an adorable little retreat called the Smoke Tree Resort. We called, they had 1 room available, less than $100 and it proved to be a whimsical little layover.
I wore a dress for the first time in over a week, Banana Republic sent this boho chic cutie it was 100% perfect for a night of romance and "resorting".
We took in the aroma of the jasmine, dined outside on our patio with a crew of cotton tail rabbits and shared an evening walk by the oasis like swimming pool.
After that day we would be back to the outdoor life, but for that moment there was a twinkle of glamour.
Who knew where we'd land after the Grand Canyon, we certainly didn't. We took off from Scottsdale, headed north ready to meet our 3rd National Park - this one perhaps the most famous of them all.
p.s. after 10 hours of driving, and a sunset in the Grand Canyon we crossed the Utah border. We landed in a real Cowboy roadside motel, more Rodeo star than Glamour girl but we'd made it through to the next night. I'll save that story for another post! Thanks for following along you guys.
xoxo,
Andi
Banana Republic provided free product in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.