Day Thirty Six: The Long Road Through the Desert.. 13/11/08

Apologies for the lack of posts, but we've been in an Internet and mobile phone signal black-spot for the last few days. Day thirty six was really just a day of travel. We left Fort Clark just before lunch and made our way towards Big Bend National Park. It was a long but interesting journey.. Considering we were travelling along the Mexican border, it was no surprise that we came across a couple of Border Patrol checkpoints. We are four non-nationals travelling in a big RV, so it was inevitable we were going to be stopped at some point, and three miles from the border we were indeed told to pull into the side of the road. While one Border Patrol guard inspected our passports outside the RV, the other fella, along with his lovely dog had a thorough sniff around inside. They were actually more than friendly, and having found no illegal Mexicans or any other illegal contraband, they sent us on our way. At this point the GPS was telling us to "continue 167 miles", and we all decided it would be a good idea to get some fuel considering we were below the last bar on the gauge. However the further along we went, the more it became clear that there wasn't any gas stations around. After a quick check on the GPS we learned that the closest one was more than 100 miles away!!! So we were really sweating and this point, and it wasn't just the heat in the desert!! We were on this highway, and all we could see for miles around was scorched earth, hundreds of cacti and the distant hills of Mexico. No water, no phone signals and on the verge of running out of fuel.. It was the kind of situation we all joked about before we landed over here. Thankfully however, by the good grace of God and not a moment too soon, we stumbled upon a real shack of a gas station that didn't even register on any satellite. It was a hell of a lot more expensive than we're used to paying... but did we care!!!! Breathing regularly now, we carried on down the road and the final bit of drama we had was when we were taking a sharp bend, our Ragu sauce flew out of the press and smashed against the wall of the RV.. Spaghetti was off the menu for the night. We we finally got to the gate of Big Bend National park we were relieved to say the least and we all thought we could finally relax. The feeling was short lived however when we discovered that it would be another 50 miles before we reached the campground. It's a really big National park!!!!