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Pipe Creek General Store

While Cheryl and I were driving down Highway 16 on our Texas Hill Country road trip, I spotted the Pipe Creek General Store and Dance Hall out of the corner of my eye. Curious, I turned the truck around to take a closer look. I’m really glad we stopped.

Honestly, we hadn’t planned to visit the Pipe Creek General Store because we had not heard about it. But that quick glimpse made us turn around, and I’m so happy we did. This Hill Country spot turned out to be a real find.


Pipe Creek is a small community in eastern Bandera County, about nine miles east of Bandera on State Highway 16. It was settled around 1870 and named after the nearby creek. The town started as a ranching and farming community, and it still has a peaceful, rural feel.


When we walked into the store, a young woman named Melissa greeted us warmly and happily answered my questions about the place and its history. Like many old general stores, the Pipe Creek store has a rich history dating back to 1911, when E. B. and Carrie Keefe established the first store on the property.


A dance hall was added in 1930, becoming a popular gathering place for dances, movies, and skating. The present store was built in 1936 when Highway 16 was widened. After decades of serving travelers and local families, Bruce Martin purchased the property in 2014. Martin restored the property and grounds, taking pains to preserve its historic 1930s-era character.

Places of historical interest need people like Bruce Martin. Preserving old places requires vision, personal commitment, and a great deal of respect for the past if old buildings are to be saved and given a new life.


Martin did more than restore the Pipe Creek General Store and Dance Hall; he preserved a community gathering place and an important part of Hill Country heritage for future generations to experience and enjoy.


Today, the front of the store houses an inviting boutique stocked with a wide variety of merchandise. The original wood floors, period cabinets and counters, rustic décor, and vintage cash register preserve the building’s historic character and add to the charm of this special place.


The dance hall next door and the three acres behind the store provide welcoming venues for celebrations of life, baby showers, weddings, and family gatherings. Everywhere you look, something interesting catches your eye—remnants of the past that make it easy to imagine the quieter, slower pace of life enjoyed by previous generations.


Communities need gathering places. Big cities may have them in abundance, but few can compare with the small-town stores and venues that connect us not only with one another but also with the generations that came before us. That is why places like the Pipe Creek General Store and Dance Hall matter—and why preserving them for future generations is so important.


I am so glad that a passing glance while driving through the Texas Hill Country led us to the Pipe Creek General Store. If you find yourself anywhere near Pipe Creek, it is well worth taking the time to step inside this charming time capsule and be transported to a simpler era—even if only for a few brief moments.

As Cheryl and I drove away, we talked about how much we hope places like the Pipe Creek General Store will still be around a hundred years from now. The busier and more complicated our lives become, the more we need places that invite us to slow down and remember where we have come from.

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Kendalia General Store

There are still places in Texas where the past has not yet completely surrendered to the present. You will find them along two-lane roads that lead to little communities nestled off the beaten path. No longer fed by the nourishing streams of progress, weathered old buildings stand as quiet witnesses to another time. The old general stores are among the most interesting of these remaining fragments of the past.

The general store was once the heart of rural life. These were the places where neighbors bought what they needed, caught up on local news, collected their mail, and lingered for conversation. Life moved at a slower pace, and folks were not always in a hurry to leave. A visit to the general store broke the rhythm of hard work and the monotony of endless chores.

Most of these old places are gone. That is why the few that remain deserve more than a passing glance. They deserve a stop, walking through a tattered screen door, and spending a few unhurried minutes inside, smelling the unmistakable fragrance of the past. The undeniable reality is that someday, perhaps sooner than we imagine, these remaining pieces of old Texas will disappear.


Kendalia represents a piece of Texas that has largely disappeared. This tiny unincorporated community grew around mills, ranches, churches, a school, a post office, and a country store. Located in eastern Kendall County in the Texas Hill Country, roughly 25 miles northeast of Boerne and about 40 miles north of San Antonio, Kendalia has remained small, rural, and peaceful.


One of the best reminders of its small-town heritage is the Kendalia General Store on FM 473. The store continues the old Texas tradition of the general store. The years have changed the inventory of the little store but have not erased its charm. If its walls and worn wooden plank floors could talk, what stories they might tell.


Cheryl and I stopped by the Kendalia General Store while traveling the winding and scenic back roads of the Texas Hill Country. The weathered old screen door invited us to step into the past. Inside, we met a young man who shared a little about the store’s history with us. Apart from a couple of new full-glass coolers filled with soft drinks and bottled water, it was not hard to imagine what this place must have been like a hundred years ago.


Today, you can order a burger, select your drink from an old Coca-Cola ice chest, grab a bag of chips off the shelves, and enjoy your meal in a time capsule of Texas history. And if you are a local, you can check your mailbox in the adjacent post office that shares the same front porch.


I hope the old store and post office in Kendalia will be around for another generation and retain its yesteryear charm. And I hope travelers who hurriedly drive down the Farm to Market road that passes in front of the store will slow down enough to stop and visit, have an unhurried conversation, and enjoy a Coca-Cola and a Moon Pie.


Places like the Kendalia General Store matter because they give us something a history book cannot: a physical connection to the lives of those who came before us. Walking through the door of an old store like the one in Kendalia can help us imagine a time when a general store was the center of community life.


Once an old building is allowed to disappear, we lose an important connection to our past. While a photograph can preserve what a building looked like, it does not compare to the experience of opening an old door, hearing the floorboards creak beneath your feet, and being in a place that played an important role in the lives of previous generations.


That is why stopping at a place like the Kendalia General Store is more than nostalgia. It is an act of appreciation for our history. The past rarely disappears all at once. It vanishes one old store, one weathered sign, one creaking floorboard at a time—which is why we should treasure places like the Kendalia Store and Cafe while we still can.

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Our General Stores Bucket List

If you have watched enough Westerns, you have likely seen a scene or two play out in a general store. In the small towns of the American West, the general store played an important role in everyday life.


As a fan of old Westerns, I find one of the most memorable general-store scenes in the 1953 classic Shane, starring Alan Ladd. Much of the conflict between a powerful rancher and struggling homesteaders unfolds at Grafton’s General Store and adjoining saloon, which serves as the town’s commercial and social center.

Like so many things in history, the general store occupied a particular slice of time that is now gone. It was eventually replaced by stores that were bigger, broader, and supposedly better—but maybe not.


The closest thing to a general store in my world is the Little Burro Country Store, located about an hour south of Alpine in the Big Bend Valley, just north of Study Butte and Big Bend National Park. Our cabin is only a few miles away, and whenever we need something to get us through, this is the place we shop.

The Little Burro carries just enough essential goods to keep locals from making the hour-long drive to the grocery store in Alpine. More than once, however, what I expected to be a quick visit has turned into a much longer stay. I have enjoyed my share of conversations on the store’s front porch—a reminder that a good country store is still more than simply a place to shop.

The Little Burro is a small surviving example of the role general stores played in the history of the American frontier. It provides essential supplies and serves as a gathering place, with plenty of seating where locals and visitors can pass the time.


Old general stores were important for several reasons, not the least of which is that they helped the local economy. Farmers and ranchers bought supplies there. They also sold or traded their own goods. These stores connected small, isolated communities to the outside world, often acting as post offices, telegraph offices, and stagecoach stops.

Genuine general stores are a thing of the past. What remains are some really cool General Stores around the Lone Star State that, once you walk through the doors, revive nostalgic feelings and take you back to a simpler time. Some of these old stores occupy the same piece of real estate that housed them from their beginnings. Others are housed in old buildings that look and feel like an old-time general store.

Cheryl and I hope to visit as many of the remaining general store locations in Texas as we can on upcoming road trips. I have written about a few of these stores and will follow up with posts on the others as we visit them. The checkmarks indicate the stores we have visited. I hope you will come along for the ride.

Here is our General Stores Bucket List. Leave a comment with info about any missing from our list.

Hill Country and Central Texas
✓ Camp Verde General Store — Camp Verde, near Kerrville
✓ Gruene General Store — Gruene Historic District, New Braunfels
• Luckenbach General Store — Luckenbach
✓ Bandera General Store — Bandera
✓ Fischer Store — Fischer
✓ Kendalia General Store — Kendalia
✓ Garven Store — near Vanderpool
✓ Pipe Creek General Store and Dance Hall — Pipe Creek
✓ Welcome General Store — Welcome, near Brenham


East Texas
✓ Jefferson General Store — Jefferson
• T. C. Lindsey & Co. General Store — Jonesville
• Edge General Store — Edge, near Hearne
• General Mercantile and Old-Time String Shop — Nacogdoches


North Texas
• The General Store — Fort Worth Stockyards
• Texas General Store — Grapevine
• Martin General Store — Granbury


West Texas
• Eggemeyer’s General Store — San Angelo

Gulf Coast and South Texas
• Girouard’s General Store — Freeport
• Morales Store — Morales, near Edna

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Back to the Ranch

My grandfather was sixty-six when I was born at Mission City Hospital in 1956. The hospital was small, but it was just right for our little town of Mission, Texas. I wasn’t his first grandchild, but I was the only one who lived nearby.


By the time I was born, my grandfather had already lived in Mission for over forty-five years. He worked as a real estate developer, served on the Mission City Council, led Boy Scouts Troop 20, and as a Notary Public helped many people in the community.


Yet, throughout all his years in Mission, he never forgot his roots on the family ranch in Duval County. He maintained a lifelong love for the outdoors and returned to the ranch every year to hunt or ride his horse. Although he had left the ranch many years earlier, the ranch had never left him. It remained a part of his heart.

He wrote in his journal about how much he loved ranch life. Here’s part of what he wrote:

Returning to the ranch proper at the end of the day, you feel hungry and ready to eat. Your appetite is plentiful, and by nine o’clock you are already in bed and so sweetly tired that nothing can perturb the quietness of your nerves. The breeze on the east porch where I slept was an ideal location.

Trips of this kind were better than medicine. Your feelings are better served and the next day you have a desire to work vigorously.

And so time was consumed in these routines of ranch life. What a wonderful method of passing your time.


My grandfather shared many stories about life on the ranch. Reflecting on those stories helped me understand how the ranch shaped him. Ranch life helped him develop a strong work ethic and become someone who never complained and always tried to help others.


I also admired how he kept his love for the outdoors and adventure all his life. From his childhood to his later years, the ranch was like good medicine for him. He often talked about riding horses, hunting, and even stretching barbed-wire fences. I was always fascinated.


After my first visit to the ranch, I tried to go back as often as possible. I found that the ranch had the same effect on me as it did on my grandfather. Most importantly, each visit made me feel closer to him. Since the ranch was special to him, it became special to me too.

I feel the same way whenever I visit our off-grid place in Big Bend. When I’m there, my mind feels calmer, my heart feels stronger, and the desert air refreshes me. Time seems to slow down. The hard work is satisfying, sleep comes easily, and life’s routines feel simpler and more meaningful.

Now I understand what my grandfather meant. Places like these truly are better than medicine. Whenever I go back to our little spot in the Chihuahuan Desert, it feels like I’m returning to the ranch and to him.

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Visiting El Frijolillo

My grandfather was a storyteller. From as early as I can remember, he shared wonderful stories with me—stories that made my imagination sit up and pay attention. I loved listening as he told Aesop’s fables, the story of Androcles and the Lion, and other fascinating tales. This was during an age when television was still in its infancy and storytelling remained a treasured form of entertainment.

But the stories I loved most were those he told about his childhood growing up on a ranch in Duval County. To this day, Duval County remains rugged scrub country, populated by mesquite, cactus, and other stubborn vegetation seemingly determined to stick, cut, and wound the unsuspecting traveler.

As a boy, I was captivated by his stories of riding horseback across the ranch. During his teenage years, he worked as a cowhand on the George West Ranch, located not far from his family’s ranch. His stories made me want to be a cowboy, just as he had been before leaving ranch life behind to attend business college in San Antonio.

One day, he told me about being thrown from his horse at a place he called El Frijolillo (pronounced free-ho-lee-oh). He described it as a thick, tangled cowlick of mountain laurel and chaparral at one end of a pasture. The fall was apparently memorable enough to remain vivid in his mind decades later. As a boy, I often dreamed about that mysterious place called El Frijolillo.


When I was barely a teenager, my grandfather arranged for me to visit my country cousins at the ranch. He bought me a bus ticket from Mission to San Diego and sent me off on a great adventure—all by myself, with only a small suitcase in hand.

The only thing I remember about the bus ride was sitting next to an older woman who had doused herself in an overpowering amount of perfume. I could hardly breathe and pressed my face against the window, hoping for even the slightest whiff of fresh air. Toxic fumes aside, I made it to my destination, where my Uncle Florentino, my grandfather’s half-brother, was waiting to pick me up.

Florentino was a towering man. When I stepped off the bus, there he stood—wearing khaki pants, a long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and a straw cowboy hat. He looked down at me with welcoming eyes, shook my hand, took my bag, and led me to his pickup truck for the nearly twenty-mile drive to the ranch. That day marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Florentino.

I told Florentino that while I was at the ranch, I wanted to see El Frijolillo. He laughed and remarked that this was the very place where a horse had violently bucked my grandfather to the ground. Then he assured me that I would indeed get to see El Frijolillo—on horseback. I grinned from ear to ear and could hardly wait.

My cousins made sure that I experienced plenty of great adventures. They took me rabbit hunting, led me on hikes through the brush, climbed with me into deer blinds to survey the land, and introduced me to horseback riding. I killed my first rabbit, and my aunt cooked it for supper that very evening. Unbelievable! This adventure was already more than I had expected.


But the greatest adventure of all was riding a pony out to El Frijolillo, the place that had etched itself into my grandfather’s memory decades earlier. For whatever reason, he never forgot that fall—perhaps because being thrown from a horse was a rare occurrence, or because the impact had bruised itself so deeply into his memory.

I was there. Finally. As I surveyed the place, I could hear my grandfather’s story echoing in my mind. Standing on that very ground made me feel even more connected to him and to the ranch land that had nurtured him. This was part of my history—and now I had become part of the story of El Frijolillo.

Decades have passed since my great adventure on the ranch. When my grandfather told me stories about life on the ranch, he unwittingly gave me a wonderful gift. He gave me a connection to the land and to my family. Best of all, he gave me a connection to the boy he once was. Now, whenever I think about El Frijolillo, I can hear my grandfather’s voice and feel inspired to keep the storytelling tradition he shared with me alive.

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My Buffalo Patrol Flag

There is no denying that I am absolutely captivated by the beauty of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. It is rugged country. Iconic cowboy country. Breathtaking country. It is not for everybody—and that is okay.

There is a saying out here in the wide part of the Lone Star State, where the sprawling Chihuahuan Desert paints the landscape as far as the eye can see: From the outside looking in, you don’t understand it. From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.

As hard as I try to put into words what I feel when I am under the Big Bend sky, I can never quite explain it.

My love for this part of Texas began when I was a member of Boy Scout Troop 68 in McAllen. Our troop was very active, and I enjoyed every hike, campout, and opportunity to learn some new kind of bushcraft.


In 1972, our troop leader, Mr. Connor, told us that we would be attending Buffalo Trails Scout Ranch in the Davis Mountains. As a South Texas boy, I had never seen mountains. The thought of traveling to a place called the Davis Mountains was beyond exciting.

We made the long trek from McAllen to Buffalo Trails in a yellow bus without air conditioning—in the middle of July. It was incredibly hot. But most of us lived in homes without central air conditioning or, at best, with a window unit, so the heat was tolerable. We were too excited about the adventure ahead to complain.


I was the patrol leader of the Buffalo Patrol. Before our trip, I asked my mom if she could help me design a flag for our patrol.

She did much more than help.

She surprised me with what I—and everyone else in Troop 68—thought was the coolest patrol flag ever.

The buffalo-looking hide and horns, the hand-lettered design, and the Camporee award ribbons made our flag one of a kind. We displayed it proudly at Buffalo Trails and later carried it to every campout and jamboree.


That long journey from South Texas to the Davis Mountains was one of the greatest adventures of my boyhood. The opportunity to see and camp in the mountains stirred every adventure molecule in me.


We crossed the Pecos River on the coolest bridge I had ever seen. We stopped in Langtry to visit Judge Roy Bean’s famous “Law West of the Pecos.”

And then we arrived at Buffalo Trails.

Wow!

I was in Boy Scout heaven.


The entire adventure—from McAllen to the Davis Mountains—was a dream come true. It was my first exposure to the vast and beautiful country beyond the Pecos. Years would pass before I returned, but when I finally did, the landscape stirred dormant memories and brought them vividly back to life.


I could never have imagined in July 1972 that I would one day own a small piece of acreage in the magnificent Big Bend region. It is a place where Cheryl and I now find rest—and where we have the privilege of giving other boys opportunities to enjoy their own Big Bend adventures.


Today, at seventy years of age, I still have my Buffalo Patrol flag. It hangs above the door of our guest cabin. Every time I see it, I smile.

I think of my beautiful late mother and the care she put into designing and stitching it together. The ribbons have faded with the passing years, but the memories they hold remain vivid.

I am grateful to have this treasured reminder of my childhood still. It reminds me that boys need adventure—and that adventures can help mold boys into men of courage, character, and conviction.

Thanks, Mom, for my flag.

It will always remind me of you—and of the adventures you and Dad encouraged me to have.

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Boys Need Adventure

One of the highlights of the year for me is hosting an outdoor adventure retreat for boys from the Brookshire community. For the past several years, Cheryl and I have hosted this Spring Break retreat at our off-grid property outside of Big Bend National Park. Watching the boys enjoy and learn from these adventures is one of the best things ever.

A few months ago, my nephew Ryan Rogers and I were talking about how God has used the Big Bend retreat to allow boys and their mentors to build deeper bonds. In our conversation, we talked about giving the boys a new opportunity to spend time with their mentors in the great outdoors.

Encouraged by what he heard, Ryan offered to host a shooting retreat at Flat Creek Ranch in Dimmit County. The sprawling 2,100+ acre ranch offers amazing opportunities for boys to experience the great outdoors in one of the most rugged settings in the Lone Star State.


My friend Dennis Turnipseed, the executive director of Eyes On Me, a ministry that works in some of the toughest communities in the greater Houston area, and I met to plan the retreat. Dennis invited a select group of older boys from the Brookshire community who have previously participated in the Big Bend retreat and other adventures in Colorado.


Our plan for this retreat is to provide the boys with their first opportunity to learn about hunting in Texas. That all begins with gun safety. Dennis and my old friend James Meredith led the gun safety orientation session for the boys. We spent a lot of time teaching about the fundamentals of firearm safety before taking the boys to the shooting range on the ranch.


This retreat, however, is about much more than firearms and marksmanship. It is part of a larger effort to shape the character of boys through outdoor adventure.


Boys need adventure. They need opportunities to step away from screens, enter unfamiliar environments, attempt difficult things, and discover what they are capable of doing. They need challenges that require them to listen carefully, act responsibly, manage their emotions, and persevere when success does not come easily.

The outdoors is one of the best classrooms for teaching these lessons. This is adventure with a purpose.


At the shooting range, the boys learned that every detail matters. They must listen to instructions, remain aware of those around them, and understand that their decisions have consequences. We repeatedly emphasized that handling a firearm requires maturity and self-control.


The boys learned that before they ever place their finger on the trigger, they must know where the muzzle is pointed and be certain of their target and what lies beyond it because a bullet can travel a long way. And they learned that they must obey the instructions of the mentor responsible for the gun range.


The lessons they are learning here extend far beyond the shooting range. Life also requires us to pay attention, exercise restraint, and consider how our choices will affect others. A young man who learns to act responsibly in the outdoors is developing skills that can help him become a responsible man.


Outdoor adventures are important because our culture is making life too easy for boys. Many boys spend too much time in carefully controlled environments where comfort is maximized, and they can avoid failure. But boys do not grow stronger by avoiding difficult things. They do, in fact, need opportunities to experience frustration and learn how to work through it.

That is why the shooting range is a good place for boys. They need to miss the target, adjust their aim, control their breathing, and try again. They need to discover that improvement requires patience, practice, and perseverance.


A key part of this retreat is the time boys get to spend with good men. They need men who will teach them how to handle responsibility and deal with setbacks. The outdoors creates natural opportunities for men and boys to have good conversations about these things.

At the end of this retreat, I hope that the boys will remember the men who stood beside them and took the time to help them succeed and to take another step toward manhood. Over the past couple of days, we have taught boys how to handle a firearm and safely hit a target responsibly. Ultimately, we are helping them aim their lives toward something greater. And that is a key reason why boys need adventure.

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The Horse Crippler Cactus

The Big Bend region of Texas is home to more than 60 species of cacti, giving Big Bend National Park the distinction of having more kinds of cacti than any other U.S. national park. Among them all, none has a more intimidating name than the Horse Crippler.


One look at this small but formidable succulent—with its broad, flattened shape and fierce spines—and it’s easy to understand how it earned its name. Hidden low against the desert floor, it was notorious for injuring the hooves of horses that accidentally stepped on it.

I have found several Horse Cripplers on our off-grid property just outside Big Bend National Park. They are surprisingly easy to miss because they hug the desert floor, blending almost perfectly into the sandy landscape. But the fact that this remarkable succulent thrives in the Chihuahuan Desert tells you everything you need to know—it is built for survival.


Unlike many other cacti, the Horse Crippler stays low to the ground. This helps protect it from the harsh desert sun and drying winds. When drought lasts a long time, it saves water by shrinking and sinking deeper into the soil. After a good rain, it fills up with water and rises a few inches, showing off its crown of spines again.

Like many of the cacti of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, the Horse Crippler produces beautiful blossoms － in particular pink to lavender blossoms with striking reddish centers. These showy flowers appear in the spring and attract a variety of native pollinators. I have not yet been fortunate enough to find one in bloom, but I hope to one day.

Even more remarkable than its beautiful blossoms, the Horse Crippler produces scarlet-red fruit. After the flowers fade, these fruits develop and often remain on the cactus for weeks. The fruit provides an important food source for birds and small mammals who help disperse the cactus’s seeds across the desert.


The Horse Crippler shows that even in the tough conditions of the Chihuahuan Desert, survival goes to those built to last, no matter their size. Its resilience is a sign of the wisdom of its Creator.

For those fortunate enough to see a Horse Crippler in bloom, it offers another lesson: remarkable beauty can emerge from a life built to withstand difficult environments. Perhaps that is true of people as well.

In the meantime, I’ll continue watching where I step while keeping an eye out for this remarkable little cactus. One day, I hope to find one wearing its crown of pink and lavender blossoms.

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Good Food at Texas Tradition

Hungry for a good bacon cheeseburger, Cheryl and I decided to visit Texas Tradition in Old Katy. I had eaten there soon after moving to Katy but, for whatever reason, had not been back in years—probably because it is outside my usual traffic universe.

When Cheryl and I started looking for a new place to eat, I remembered Texas Tradition. Cheryl had never been there, so we decided to give it a try. Texas Tradition is a small, family-owned and operated restaurant that takes great pride in serving a menu packed with comfort food.


Although it is not far from our home, it is not on any of our daily commutes. When we arrived, we pulled into a packed parking lot—always a good sign.

The moment we walked through the door, we were warmly greeted and escorted to a table. The dining room was full of people enjoying good food in a country-Texas setting, complete with metal wainscoting. The place had the warm, welcoming feel of a small-town café.


Of course, we knew exactly what we wanted without even looking at the menu: bacon cheeseburgers, with the bacon leaning toward the crispy side of the scale, two Coke Zeros with plenty of ice, and onion rings instead of fries.

The service was fast. Our burgers and onion rings arrived in paper-lined plastic baskets with no room to spare. The burgers were generously sized, and the onion rings were thick, crispy, and chunky. Everything looked and smelled completely appetizing.


The first bite generally tells the story, and this one did not disappoint. The burger was absolutely delicious. I am not a foodie who can dissect every ingredient in a dish. I am simply a guy who enjoys a good burger and knows one when he bites into it. This was unmistakably an amazingly delicious burger.

And the onion rings were a step beyond. These were not skinny little rings but thick, beefy, almost life-preserver-sized portions. They were so good. I may try the French fries on another visit, but Cheryl and I were glad we chose the onion rings.

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed both the food and the atmosphere at Texas Tradition. The staff was friendly, attentive, and responsive to our every need. We have now bookmarked Texas Tradition as a place we will visit again.


The menu offers plenty more to explore, including several delicious and surprisingly affordable daily specials listed on the back page. We will definitely be back.

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Chasing Clouds in Big Bend

It is rare for me to head to our cabin in Big Bend without a list of projects to tackle. In fact, one of the things I enjoy most about spending time there is planning and completing projects that make our off-grid cabin and property a little more comfortable and enjoyable.

The physical work is always a welcome change of pace. For me, there is something deeply satisfying about working with my hands, seeing progress at the end of the day, and investing in a place that has become a refuge for rest, reflection, and adventure.

However, on our recent trip to Big Bend, my project list was unusually short. Nothing major on my list, just a few projects that could be finished in a matter of hours. It felt a bit strange to arrive with so little to do, but I took it as an opportunity to find new ways to relax and enjoy the beauty of this vast and rugged region of Texas.

Instead of focusing on what needed to be built or repaired, I gave myself permission to slow down. I spent some quality time working on some devotional lessons. Cheryl and I also drove into Study Butte to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Of course, we always enjoy sitting around the fire pit to wait for the golden hour, when the waning sunlight turns magical, and the stars start to fill the vast desert skies.


What I enjoyed most, however, was climbing on my electric mini-bike and chasing clouds. For whatever reason, the clouds captured my attention. They looked so dramatic and beautiful against the deep blue sky as they drifted above the mesas and bluffs. I spent hours riding up and down the dirt roads, chasing them across the horizon and stopping to photograph their ever-changing shapes and shadows.


As the day wore on, the clouds eventually joined together to become a storm, complete with thunder and lightning. Cheryl and I loved sitting on the porch of our cabin and watching the desert storm roll across the landscape. In a place where rain is rare and precious, a storm is better than television. As the winds arrived carrying that distinctive fragrance of approaching rain, we found ourselves thinking of John Denver’s words: “You fill up my senses, like a storm in the desert.”


There are few experiences that compare to that moment. The sky darkens, the temperature drops, the wind begins to stir, and the fragrance of rain fills the air. It is one of those gifts that is difficult to describe. You do not simply see the storm—you feel it, smell it, and breathe it in. For a few moments, the desert comes alive in a way that engages all your senses.


As night fell across the desert, the distant lightning became even more dramatic. Flash after flash illuminated the horizon. Every flash revealed the outlines of mesas, bluffs, and clouds that had disappeared into the darkness. The light show was mesmerizing—nature’s own display unfolding in silence except for the occasional rumble of thunder rolling across the desert.


It was a wonderful way to end the day and to spend our final night at the cabin. Sitting on the porch, watching the storm move across the distant landscape, we were reminded once again why we love this place so much. The rain brought refreshment to the thirsty desert, and in its own way, it refreshed us as well.


Sometimes the best moments in Big Bend are not found in accomplishing a project or checking something off a list. Sometimes they are found in slowing down, chasing clouds, and watching a desert storm roll across the horizon.