{"id":19000,"date":"2019-03-03T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=19000"},"modified":"2019-04-01T16:11:51","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T23:11:51","slug":"an-outlaw-christmas-on-the-rio-grande","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2019\/03\/03\/an-outlaw-christmas-on-the-rio-grande\/","title":{"rendered":"An Outlaw Christmas on the Rio Grande"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many reasons we choose not to take big trips. \u2018It\u2019s not the season.\u2019 \u2018There\u2019s too much going on.\u2019 \u2018There\u2019s not enough time to plan.\u2019 Especially around the holidays. And yet, three weeks before Christmas I found myself planning my first eight-day, expedition-style river trip on the Rio Grande. <\/span><\/p>\n

My fiance and I had spent Thanksgiving with our respective families and decided to keep Christmas just to us. My wanderlust kicked into overdrive as I brainstormed for a holiday adventure. Something \u2018new,\u2019 somewhere \u2018exotic.\u2019 For weeks, I crunched the numbers on plane tickets across the globe, but nowhere felt right. Hoping for the prospect of warmer weather, we turned our sights toward a road trip instead. I\u2019ve lived in Texas for the past two years and Big Bend National Park is one of those places you just keep hearing about\u2014everyone that\u2019s been there holds it in high regard and has their own special story about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The idea for a trip to Big Bend took root, but ultimately, we are river people. When one of our potential travel companions mentioned the Rio Grande flowed through the park, we decided, enthusiastically (and fairly last minute), to spend our Christmas vacation on a river between the U.S. and Mexico border.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rio Grande has 191 miles in Texas designated as Wild and Scenic. From those we chose an 83-mile stretch through the Lower Canyons, frequently acknowledged in our research as the most remote and scenic part of the river that a paddler could tackle. According to the National Park Service<\/span><\/a>, approximately 1,300 people paddle the Lower Canyons each year. \u201cIt\u2019s not for the faint of heart,\u201d some warned, while others exclaimed it to be a \u201cthe trip of a lifetime.\u201d I\u2019ll admit, I was nervous. I\u2019d gone from pricing tickets for a beach vacation in Mexico to planning a no-holds-barred river adventure.<\/span><\/p>\n