George (photo by Leo Wesson—George walking in the rain Big Bend)

One of my dearest friends ever loved Big Bend more than any place on Earth. He would go down every chance he got. Near the end of his life he wouldn’t go anyplace else, and I guess he didn’t want to waste a trip on anything less than Big Bend. He was 77 and he would go down every summer and camp out in the back of his truck (not a camper) for 3 or 4 weeks. He would go in August because there was no one else down there.

Somehow I never made it down there with him and now I’m sorry for that. He died a year ago from bladder cancer.