Big Bend- Chisos Mountains

Our fourth day we decided to head toward the Chisos Mountains. The Chisos are one of the biggest attractions at Big Bend. They are incredibly beautiful and in the basin of the mountains they have a campground which we will be staying at. The Chisos are about 7325ft above sea level, the basin is about 5400ft, the road in warns RVS of steep grades and sharp turns and does not allow any rv over 24 ft to enter. We are only 21 ft so we didn't think much of it.. oh boy... the drive in wasn't bad, it was pretty gradual and only steep at times. The way down was so steep and had these crazy switchback turns. After we got to the bottom we were both very scared that we wouldn't be able to make it out. Even the amazing view of the mountains couldn't distract us from the fact that we may not be able to get out there. We even considered just paying to get towed out because if we tried and failed we wouldn't be able to turn around and go back down. After about an hour we decided we would just try to get out, even though we had just paid for the night I couldn't handle worrying about it all night. And, if we got out no problem we could always come back down and not worry about it any longer. So, we started up the mountain. The first part which is about a half mile long with a steady incline, has no area to get a running start so we start the incline only going about 20. About a 1/4 of the way up we are going about 10mph and it quickly went below to about 5mph.... I had a nervous giggle going on and Gregg was dead silent. But, we made it up the first part at a crawl. The second part is a mile long, extremely steep and has switchback turns which slow you down.  But, there's an area to get area head start. Again we powered on, trying to get as much speed as possible. Gregg was like a professional race car driver taking those crazy turns at about 20 mph and trying to keep the speed up. As we neared the top Gregg was holding his breath and I was laughing,  haha. Neither one of us could believe we did it. We figured since we did it once we could do it again so we headed back down to the campground to enjoy the rest of the day.
When we reached the campground we were notified that a mountain lion had been spotted in the basin the day before. It sound's really cool but also scary, these mountain lions can be aggressive towards humans and there were signs everywhere about what to do if attacked. They also warned you to keep children close... and to not even bring them on the trails.
Through all the craziness Adam had a great time here, there was lots of room for him to run around and play. He is really getting into collecting rocks and playing with his animals that Grammie and Grampie gave him for christmas. He loves setting them up on just about any flat surface.