Author Archives: Chandler O'Leary

Ka-bloom

The Tailor and I visited Big Bend in mid-April, our best chance to catch the cacti in bloom. When we got there, a park ranger warned us not to get our hopes up. He told us they’d been experiencing a record drought—the park had only received about three inches of rain, total, over the past two years.

And then, that night, the wind picked up and the skies opened.

It absolutely poured on our tiny two-man tent (which miraculously stayed dry). Half an inch in four hours. Now, if you live in a naturally stormy place, you’re probably thinking, “That’s nothing!” But in the Chihuahuan Desert, after a prolonged drought, that storm gave us just cause to worry about washed-out roads and flash flooding.

The next morning, we thought our best reward might be cooler temperatures—until we went on a hike, and discovered what was waiting for us:

These guys wasted absolutely no time. Nearly every plant in the park went from zero to peak bloom in just a few short hours. I have never seen anything like it.

That day the phrase “painted desert” had a whole new meaning.

Desert oasis

This place really felt like an oasis, after driving for over sixteen hours—the last three in a raging West-Texas lightning storm—to get here. When the Tailor and I pulled in after one in the morning (an interesting quirk about Van Horn, TX: it’s lies about one mile inside the Central time zone, so we lost yet another hour at the finish line) and collapsed face-down in our room, we didn’t get a chance to really appreciate the “Capitan.” But in the morning, in the cool shade of the courtyard, surrounded by blazing desert color and the understated 1930s opulence of the hotel, I realized we’d found a real gem. Maybe a grueling trek is required to gain admittance to (or at least appreciate) a place so lovely as this.

On a mission

Someday I’ll get to all 21 missions along El Camino Real, but for my first-ever mission visit, I had to choose a starting point. Who wouldn’t pick the one used in an Alfred Hitchcock film? And one starring Jimmy Stewart, no less! I mean, come on.

Though you’d never know it from the sun and balmy temperature, I was there in late winter. So I only had to share the place with the birds. (Not Hitchcock’s Birds, thankfully…)

Actually, I was so bowled over by the beauty and tranquility of the place that I was sorely tempted to ditch my itinerary and spend the rest of my ~~life~~ trip here.

I think I picked the right mission, don’t you?

Crack of dawn

Hitting the road two hours before sunup is never exactly my favorite way to travel. But with a cup of strong coffee, some loud sing-along music on the stereo, and a worthy goal to shoot for…

…it can be well worth the effort.

Have sketchbook, will travel

You know when you’re on a road trip, and you see a highway billboard that says something like, “World’s Largest Two-Headed Calf, Exit Now!” and you consider stopping, just for a moment? And then your spouse looks it up on the map, and you discover that yeah, it’s this exit, plus maybe another 140 miles of dirt-road switchbacks in the opposite direction? And then you laugh, because who on earth would ever actually go there?

Well, that’s me. I am the one who goes there.

And I bring my sketchbook and a little box of paints with me. This is what I do. I’ve logged a lot of miles in my life, visiting as many patches of earth as possible and getting as much down on paper as I can. And for the first time, I’m putting these sketches out into the world. So here we are: I’ve collected all my drawings of crazy tourist traps and Paul Bunyan statues and hidden gems and panoramic vistas, and I’m sending them out like postcards. To you.

Welcome to my world—let’s hit the road, shall we?