FLORIDA TO ALPINE, TX: ALL-DAY TRAVEL

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On November 26, 2016 Pyra-Danny and Fiance Shoes got married. This is the second part of their honeymoon travels to southwest Texas: Big Bend National Park, Terlingua Ghost Town, Study Butte, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and Alpine, TX.

Let’s get our marriage compatibility tested early by travelling to middle-of-nowhere Big Bend National Park where getting there itself is a marriage tester! It can’t be treated as some slight detour “While we’re here, why don’t we…” There are no big cities, Walmarts, or Starbucks in sight. You can’t expect to land at the airport and go hiking that evening.

… or any airport. Well, we had our choice of airports… in El Paso or San Antonio. Landing there still required a 4.5 hour drive to the Park.

Saturday was an all-day affair of wedding cakes, bad dancing, and partying while Sunday was spent pretending to be tour guides to all the visiting family and friends. At 11pm that night, my stint as an impromptu genius of all things Christmas-light-display related in Downtown St. Petersburg ended and I rushed back to my apartment to pack, grab Hubs Shoes (no more ‘Fiance’ anymore!) from his home, then onwards to the airport at 3:30am.  Siiiiiiiigh.

Of course, direct flights don’t exist- that would be too easy. Somehow in our zombie-like states we successfully flew from Florida to Houston then from Houston to El Paso.

Why El Paso? Because we’d be taking the Amtrak next and El Paso was the only station in its path on a Monday. Although we could’ve completed the 4.5 hour commute by driving ourselves, why would we torture our sleep deprived selves to driving when we could both be passengers in a train with plenty of foot space, sockets at every seat, and… wait for it… a dining car?

By the time the Amtrak deposited us in Alpine, TX (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen bathrooms bigger than the Alpine Amtrak station) the sky was already black… and it was cold! Obviously our brown-skinned Floridian selves were not comfy, but even the natives were hiding indoors under layers of apparel.

We were still a 2 hour drive from Big Bend National park. Thankfully we anticipated our travel weariness and stepped between buildings in the little downtown to find the small yet cozy Alpine Guest Lofts. Our keys were already waiting for us at the door around the courtyard garden and tiny bags of the local Last Frontier Coffee Co awaited us.

Instead, it was hunger waiting for us. Thankfully the Century Bar & Grill was a short walk away. We celebrated the first night of our honeymoon getaway with a Texas Flat-Iron Steak on a bed of Green beans and Potatoes for Hubs Shoes while I happily slurped down a Vegetable Napoleon.

Even though we weren’t the ones at the controls, sitting as passengers can be equally tiring especially when you consider I barely slept the past few nights in anticipation of the wedding and aftermath. I was very grateful to have Hubs Shoes at my side for all of this. Travelling can be tiring, but at least it wasn’t boring.

Tomorrow was another day of travelling. We had no idea what was in store for us but we knew it would be awesome.

We wouldn’t be disappointed.

Edit added June 11, 2017: Finally! Here’s the (5 minute) combined video of my Big Bend visit footage. I hope you enjoy!

Follow me on Instagram at @Pyra_experiences!

On November 26, 2016 Pyra-Danny and Fiance Shoes got married. This is the 2nd part of their honeymoon travels to southwest Texas: Big Bend National Park, Terlingua Ghost Town, Study Butte, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and Alpine, TX.

To read my introduction of taking a honeymoon to this area of Texas, click here. A whole day was dedicated to travel here from Florida (this story) as well as to Terlingua (read here), but we finally saw the southeast area of the Park (here) as well as the southwest (here). We also explored by canoe (here) and around Alpine (here).