Category: Traveling

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Today was an exciting day because we finally made it to Big Bend National Park. And by “finally”, I mean that it was a very long drive to get here, and also it took us 17 years of living in Texas to finally visit the state’s sole national park.

We didn’t rush to get here, but instead took a short driving tour of the city of Alpine and then drove to Terlingua to check out the famously quirky town and grab a bite to eat and a coffee. From there, it was a 40 minute drive to reach the Chisos Mountain Lodge where we are staying for the next 2 days.

The Chisos Basin is an amazing place, with the massive Casa Grande looming on one side, and the beautiful Window on the other side. At sunset, we walked the short Window View trail and took a bunch of photos, then had a nice dinner at the restaurant before heading to our room for some relaxation and star viewing.

Big Bend has a spectacular sky so I did a little bit of astro-photography using Mariko’s X-T10 and kit lens. I think the photos turned out pretty good. I even saw a beautiful shooting star!

Tomorrow will be a full day of sightseeing and hiking, so I’ll end this post here and get some rest.

おやすみなさい！

– B 

こんばんは！How’s it going?

I’m writing this post as I sit by the fireplace in the lobby of The Holland Hotel in Alpine, Texas. Today we started our vacation in which we will visit Big Bend National Park for the first time! But to get out here, it takes forever… Texas is so darned big. 😜

So this first day, we decided to drive to Alpine which is a 6-hour journey by car. Luckily the speed limits on I-10 in west Texas is 80 MPH so we cruised along and made good time. 💨

We arrived in Alpine around 3:30 in the afternoon (we got a nice, late 9 AM start) and wanted to go to the Big Bend Brewery, but unfortunately they are closed on Mondays 😔 so we just checked in at the hotel, shot some pool, and relaxed before heading out for dinner. We decided on the Reata restaurant, which is known for their steak and it was only a few minutes walk from our hotel.

The steak was delicious (we split a 16 oz. between three of us) and we also got a sour-cream enchilada plate which was also yummy. A great meal to start the vacation! Oh, and we toasted with a couple of Big Bend Brewery draft beers, so we did get to taste the local brew. 🍻

And that brings us up to date with the trip! I’m going to finish my glass of wine (we brought a couple bottles along with us) and then get some rest.

Hope you had a nice day!

おやすみなさい！

– B 

こんばんは！How’s it going?

We made it to the weekend! Yay! The weather was so nice today… sunny with wispy clouds and cool enough that I could drive with the windows rolled down and hang my arm out the window in super-relax mode. It was great. 🌤

I was chatting with my friend about motorcycles 🏍 a bit and I started cleaning up my bike, making a mental list of things I need to do, such as replace some dash bulbs, re-check my maintenance supplies, and bleed the brakes among other things. It’s fun to work on the bike and I can save a bit of money too. 😀

Today’s photo is of the stickers on my bike, which are of the states I have ridden to. We live in the middle of Texas, which is a huge state, so to get to the border it takes something like 4 hours. And if you travel west to New Mexico, it will take about 8 hours. Isn’t that crazy?! 😖

But I’ve done it a couple of times and it was a lot of fun. I once rode east to Louisiana, then up to Arkansas and spent the night there, then rode the entire next day to Oklahoma and then back home to Austin. It was fun, but tiring as you can imagine. And my motorcycle isn’t the most comfortable for long-distance touring because it lacks wind protection and had a pretty strong vibration (because of its single-cylinder engine design). However, I have pretty good endurance for riding (and driving) so I don’t have a problem with it. I kind of get into the groove and can just keep going and going!

BTW, if you are interested at all in motorcycles, I have another blog where I post about rides, link to motorcycle videos, etc… it’s at motofuji.net.

I’m kind of getting excited about going for another long-distance ride, but now with two cats and a dog it will be a bit more difficult to do an overnighter. Oh well, day trips are fun too!

I hope you had a nice Friday!

おやすみなさい！

– B