A Whole Nother Desert

Conde Nast Traveler has a feature on the Chihuahuan Desert (Web content lags the print version by a month), including the author's trip to Big Bend.

It was a vacation in 1997 to visit Steffen in Marfa at The Chinati Foundation that first brought us to the West. And our first afternoon in that small town showed us a double rainbow where we could see both ends.

It's fair to say that that first trip we took to the region, and then the two subsequent ones, were pretty magical, eye-opening experiences. Spending time in Marfa and Chinati, traveling around Alpine and Fort Davis, hiking and canoeing in Big Bend really exposed us for the first time to the beauty of the open desert. An appreciation for the land and the way of life set the stage for our continued trips the desert southwest, and, ultimately, our move.

The author looks to have had a different kind of experience, covering more ground and experiencing (as could be expected with that publication) fancier accommodations than we did. From his stories and what we've heard from other folks, things have changed a lot in Marfa and around Big Bend — but seems that the power of the desert to change people is still stronger than people's power to change the desert.