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BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK - DAY 1

THURSDAY

TRAVEL DAY
STOP #264

We are so excited today for so many reasons, but the top two have to be that for the first time in 2 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 1 day we will be visiting one of our 63 National Parks, but who's counting!

Secondly, with tonight's discounted camping fee of just $8.00, our overall average per night camping fee will fall below the $20 a night level for the first time since we hit the road, 3 years, 9 months and 5 days ago, but again, who's counting!

We got off to an expensive start back in 2018 averaging over more than $38 a night for our first month while staying in the state parks down in the Florida Keys. By the end of the year we had our average down to about $23 a night thanks to all the inexpensive camping in Shenadoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

In our second year our average went up again as we visited state parks all along the east coast, with their costly surcharges for out-of-state visitors. By the end of 2019 we were above the $24 a night level.

In 2020 and 2021 we started to whittle down our costs and now in February of 2022 we are getting closer to our ultimate long term goal of averaging just $15 a night. Of course while we work on minimizing our camping costs, the gasoline prices keep going up and absorbing everything we manage to save.

For the next two weeks the blog posts will appear a little different. We have no cell phone signal anywhere in the campgrounds so we have to drive some 40 miles to get signal to upload posts. For that reason I'm going to try and tell the story within the captions of the photos.

DAY 1

Before we even made it into the park we pulled over at a picnic area to eat lunch.
Here we are at the northeastern entrance of Big Bend National Park.
Tricia thought it would be cool to stick her head out ROVER's sunroof to snap this photo while we were traveling 45MPH. It was cool, but it also cost her a pair of $30 sunglasses!
Mountainous scene from inside Big Bend National Park.
To get to our campsite we first had to pass through this short tunnel.
But what a beautiful horizon was waiting for us on the other side.
Finally all set up in our home for the next 6 nights.

HOW TO TAKE CONTROL OF THIS SLIDESHOW

Option 1 - Do nothing and cycle through the photos at the predetermined speed.

Option 2 - Hover over any photo with the cursor and use the forward and reverse arrows that appear on the left and right centers to speed through the photos. Photos will still change at the predetermined speed if you wait too long. Keep your eye on the clock in the upper right hand corner.

Option 3 - Hover over any photo with the cursor and click on the pause button. You now have full control to go forward or reverse at your own speed. You can also select any of the little round buttons under the photo to navigate through the photos.

WANT TO SEE THE PHOTOS AT A LARGER SIZE?
1st - Click near the center of any photo and it will open to a larger size than what appears in the slideshow.
2nd - Click on it again and it will open to it's original full resolution size.
3rd - You will have to use your browsers back button to return to the slideshow after viewing the full resolution size photo.

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Until next time

TWO PEAS

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