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    Crown Mountain in the Big Bend National Park, with desert flowers and blue skies.

    Sometimes You Just Need to Get Away

    by Ben H. English May 21, 2024

    It was the morning of a fifth day some years back, I was on one of my solitary sabbaticals and had chosen Juniper Canyon as a base camp. This last hike was a somewhat shortened one, I would be pulling out for Ozona in a…

    Big Bend National Park, Memories
    Rimrock of red stone with white soil beneath. Beautiful blue sky in above with desert flora in the foreground.

    The Endless Beach of Time

    by Ben H. English May 11, 2024
    On the western fringes of Tule Mountain, above where Alamo Creek winds its way down to the Rio Grande, runs a rim rock of red stone delineating the softer soil above from the exposed whitish ground underneath. Now I am no geologist by any means,...
    Big Bend National Park, Memories
    Desert canyon view from the top of Anguila Mesa near Lajitas, TX.

    Tough Men for a Tough Land

    by Ben H. English April 20, 2024
    Anguila Mesa is a special place for me. After all, I spent many of my growing years studying every visible nook and cranny for hours at a time, sitting on the front porch of the Lajitas Trading Post. It was the mesa that provided the...
    Big Bend National Park, Memories
    Barry English riding his favorite horse, Cando.

    Ode to a Cowboy

    by Ben H. English April 2, 2024
    “Well, I know some day, farther down the road, I'll come to the edge of the Great Unknown; There'll stand a black horse, riderless, And I wonder if I'm ready for this”… --Chris LeDoux, ‘The Ride’   Since learning of my brother Barry’s passing, folks...
    Memories, Uncategorized
    Man and small child visit a remote cemetary.

    It’s a Family Tradition

    by Ben H. English March 4, 2024
    SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Life is an odd thing, full of twists and turns and ironies that we mortals only have the briefest of experiences in. It tends to slip past us way too fast, even when we thought we were paying attention....
    Big Bend National Park, Memories

    I’ll Never See It All

    by Ben H. English January 9, 2024

    SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND:   Stink Spring has been dry for several decades, nothing more now than a brush infested run with some decaying horse troughs amid rusting sections of water pipe. At one time the spring was important enough to be fenced…

    Big Bend National Park, Memories
    Boy on Porch of Lajitas Trading Post dressed as old west cowboy - circa 1962

    Christmas Memories of Lajitas Trading Post

    by Ben H. English December 26, 2023
    SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: To All, As the same for many others, Christmas has taken me somewhat by surprise. With that I am reposting an essay from my third book ‘Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Bend.’ I hope you enjoy this...
    Memories

    The Past is Future

    by Ben H. English October 24, 2023

      23 October 1983 In quiet solitude amid the pine trees of North Carolina a lone sentinel stands in frozen repose, a lasting testament to a worst case scenario born from the best of intentions. On one side of the bronzed statue are a few…

    Memories
    A lonely grave in Big Bend National Park

    A Lonely Grave Where Nothing Lives Forever

    by Ben H. English August 23, 2023

    SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: “On a hill far away, Stood an old rugged cross”… A graveyard is a lonely place, and an abandoned one makes for the loneliest of all. For some reason people congregated at a certain spot, dreamed dreams, lived life…

    Big Bend National Park, Memories
    Watercolor of the Hot Springs Trading Post in the Big Bend National Park painted by Cathy O'Neal

    My Roots are Here

    by Ben H. English June 15, 2023

    SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Since starting my writing efforts some six years ago, there have been so many things to be grateful for. Chiefly are those readers and friends who have encouraged, as well as supported, my new found endeavors. Their acts of…

    Big Bend National Park, Memories
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