In the middle of our Spring 2015 wedding season, Dylan decided it was time for a vacation.  While the idea of leaving my computer in the midst of engagement sessions, boudoir shoots, bridal portraits, and shooting weddings scared me, we went!  We hopped in the Jeep with some of our friends and I’m so glad we took the time away for ourselves!  Being a small business owner can get a little overwhelming at times, since I do practically everything on my own.  I don’t have anyone to share the workload with or to pick up the slack when I’m out of the office.  The crazy thing is: as a small business owner, you NEED to step away sometimes no matter how much you love your craft – and believe me when I say I know how blessed I am to be doing something I LOVE and am able to provide for my family with it.  It’s fabulous!  It was also fabulous to step away in the midst of wedding season to take a breather from everything that comes with running a business.  It really helped me to refocus and come back to serve my brides refreshed and rejuvenated!  While I was originally not so happy with the date choice of our trip, it turns out Dylan’s intuition for scheduling a vacation when he did was PERFECT timing!

We left on a Sunday after after getting about 5 (maybe?) hours of sleep post-wedding.  Dylan usually prefers to drive and drove the first 6 hours.  About that point, we found a spot for a leisurely lunch in a small town that had only one restaurant open.  That was when the couple we went with said they took turns driving and gave Dylan a hard time about always being the one to drive.  With that, he handed over the keys and let me drive the last few hours into Big Bend!  I secretly think he was ready to nap (and to tune out the only 3 CDs we had in the car since we lost radio about 5 hours in).

Dylan couldn’t help but take pictures through the windshield of the Jeep.  He was as excited as a kid in a candy store and could NOT stop smiling!

After we set up our first night’s camp site, we went to Santa Elena and hiked the Canyon at sunset.  Dylan and I mistakenly wore tennis shoes and weren’t able to get the BEST view, which is by standing in the water.  It was crazy to think that we could have easily crossed into Mexico here had we only been wearing the correct shoes!  This is THE border between the USA and Mexico.

The second day, we checked out the Visitor’s Center and lots of other sites around the park.  Since the couple we went with had already been, Dylan was able to stop the Jeep wherever his heart desired to check out the sites.  

I thought I was a little crazy when I thought the bluebonnets in Big Bend looked different, but it’s true!  These beauties were as tall as the door of the Jeep – just where the window starts.  It’s actually a species of Bluebonnets found only in Big Bend and is about 4 feet tall!  I took a picture of them specifically for my grandmother, who LOVES Bluebonnets and has a beautiful patch of these flowers in her front yard each year.  You get in trouble with her if you mow the yard too closely to the plants at the wrong time of year! HA!

I think one of the main attractions of Big Bend for Dylan was the primitive trails that REQUIRE 4-wheel drive vehicles.  We bought a Jeep when we lived on the beach, but haven’t gotten much use for the 4-wheel drive since moving to the Austin-area.  It was DEFINITELY put to use during this trip!

The second night ended at the natural hot springs on the Mexican border AND a shower!  Although there wasn’t hot water and we were timed at five minutes, it was a much-needed shower that I was so thankful for!  That night, we slept at the Basin and the temperature DROPPED!  It got pretty cold that night and no one wanted to leave the warmth of the sleeping bags to start our day, but this is what we woke up to.  So pretty!Our third day there, I was tricked into hiking Emory Peak.  When I say “tricked,” I mean no one told me how far the trail REALLY was and they may have purposefully left out that the trail is marked as “strenuous.”  For a girl that doesn’t hike on the regular (since local hike and bike trails that are paved and fairly level don’t really compare), that is considered tricking!  It was HARD and I wanted to give up about a mile in.  About three miles in, I found the grove of the hike, but was let down every time there was a false summit.  At the third false summit, I was really tempted to turn around.  I kept going because I knew it was important to Dylan.  We did make it to the top still married (HA!) and loved the view!  I don’t love heights, so it was a little scary.  The trail took up the entire day, but we can officially say we hiked to the highest peak in Big Bend!  Before getting back in the Jeep to drive to our campsite, we stocked up on blankets to protect us from what would be an even colder night than the one before (thirty something degrees!).  These blankets are our souvenirs from the trip!

The next morning, instead of eating the breakfast we had planned, we ended up going to Chiso Mountain Lodge’s restaurant to get out of the cold and eat a warm meal.  Dylan and I were in charge of breakfast each day and had only packed quick meals.  Most of them were cold, except for the pancakes and oatmeal, but even those were cold before you could eat them with the temperature being so close to freezing.  Since we were the breakfast chefs, Dylan also took the opportunity to buy a french press!  He tries to claim it was “only to make sure I had my morning coffee,” but I secretly think it’s because he’s a coffee connoisseur and had been wanting a french press for a while and took the first excuse he had to buy one!

We made it back on Wednesday evening after stopping at Cooper’s BBQ for our final vacation dinner – pecan cobbler included!  Our puppies were excited to finally have us back (but probably not as excited as our puppy-sitter, Dylan’s dad) and we missed them way more than we should have – we’re SO attached to those Great Danes!  We are so thankful for that vacation and for the rest/reset it allowed us.  We’re even more thankful to our friends who went with us, guided us around Big Bend, made us dinner every night AND lent us their tent.  A shout-out and HUGE thank you goes out to Dylan’s dad who volunteered to puppy-sit our sweet fur-babies.  Thank you!

– Mylah Renae

Austin Wedding Photographer

www.Eureka-Photography.com