bigbendnationalpark

An electrifying jolt shot through my leg like a bolt of lighting, and yet the air still crackled with dryness. We yearned for a storm to soften the West Texas elements, but more immediately a four-inch cactus spine lodged in my blood-soaked pant leg stung like crazy. It was the first of many of this wasteland’s formidable defenses. The spine that had pierced deep enough also penetrated my psyche otherwise preoccupied with the pervasive silence only broken by loose desert rocks trodden by weathered boots and the paws of a single-minded puppy.