Texas Fantastic!

 

September 23, 2024

The last post we ventured north to Carlsbad Caverns, NM and the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas.  For this day trip out of Pecos we are going south to Ft. Davis and the Davis Mountains.  When the itinerary for this trip was put together, three months in advance, the plan was to visit the McDonald Observatory atop the Davis Mountains.  But fate intervened and the observatory was closed on the days we were in the area.  So we just enjoyed the historic fort and Davis Mountains State Park.  Which by the way we were planning on a restaurant meal at their lodge but we found out it had been closed for three years while being remodeled.  Oh, well.  Time for plan B.

The last time we were at Ft Davis National Historic Site the visitor center was barely more than a shack with a few artifacts in it.  Not so now.  They have converted one of the old barracks buildings into a very nice visitor center and museum.

New (to us) visitor center.  A conversion of an original barracks 
building gave it a long, narrow gift shop and museum.

Officers quarters.

Enlisted men's barracks.  One of two intact barracks on site.
The other one has been converted into a visitor center and museum.

Parade ground and officer's quarters.

Since the place we had planned on taking our mid-day meal was closed for renovation we ventured into the town of Fort Davis.  In early 2014 we had enjoyed a retro-diner meal that was part of an Old West main street.  This was our plan B.  But this was not to be either.  The diner was permanently closed and the hotel it was attached to was just barely operating.  It was sad to see the decline.  The Historic Fort had made significant improvements but the Fort Davis community does not seem to have recovered from the pandemic.  It's back to Pecos and prepping for moving to Terlingua.  So ends our touristing using Pecos, TX as our base camp.

September 24, 2024

We're getting an early start to try and beat the heat on the drive to Terlingua, TX.  It will be a short driving day at only 180 miles/2.75 hours.

This move has us heading into country that we lived in during the winter of 2013/2014. We are revisiting places that we day tripped to at one time or another.  In many ways things are familiar but there has been enough time and change that it also has a new feel.

It may be just a 180 mile drive but it wasn't a typical flat, straight Texas road.  There was lots of winding and climbing through the volcanic mountains of Big Bend territory.

Dashcam snapshot of drive into Big Bend territory from Pecos.

Terlingua/Study Butte, our destination, is a loosely organized community of folks that have made a life for themselves in the desert.  There are a lot of places that would be described as "rustic" however our campground, which didn't exist when we were last here, had a bit of a new shine on it.  Paisano RV Village is a small park and only about three years old.  It still has that "new smell".  The roads and RV pads may have been caliche and gravel but there were poured concrete curbs and nicely done patios.  The hookups were well placed and in pristine condition.

Paisano RV Village.  View out our entry door.

Again, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  There was only one other rig in the park for our multi-day stay.  An added bonus was that we were told to use any site we wanted to park our cargo trailer and extra vehicle.  The day did get hot though and we stayed in with the exception of going out after sunset to fuel up both vehicles.

Bright and early the next morning we set out for one of our favorite national parks, Big Bend.

West entrance to Big Bend NP.
The last time I took this picture there was a giant ocotillo on 
the left side of the sign.

From the entrance sign above to the park headquarters in Panther Junction it is 23 miles.  The headquarters and visitor center is essentially located in the middle of the park.  It's 20+ miles to Rio Grande Village to the east and it is 20+ miles to the north entrance.  Any way you go about it you are going to have a nice, long drive through the Chihuahua Desert to get to where you want to go in Big Bend.

Christmas Mountains.
Looking north from Panther Jct. Road.

Chisos Mountains begin to loom large as
you get closer to Panther Junction

We checked in at the Panther Junction Visitor Center and struck up a conversation with the rangers on duty.  We learned that there was but one person on staff from when we were here.  A civilian that is the office manager.  That's a lot of turnover but not unusual.  Park rangers are very mobile, especially when they work in seasonally open operations.  There is a lot of bouncing from park to park.

From Panther Junction we headed southeast to Rio Grande Village, hoping to get there before the heat would discourage scouting out favorite spots.  But it was too late, heat had quickly built and we were headed to lower, hotter elevations.  Still, we thoroughly enjoyed revisiting familiar driving tours.

We had no more than arrived in Rio Grande Village Campground and were greeted with a family procession of javelina.  This was an unusually small squad of four javelina.  Usually there will be at least six and as many as fifteen.  Our squad was made up of two "reds" (juvenile javelina), an adult female and an adult male.

Mom taking point, leading her two reds to a shady spot for the day.

Dad is covering the squad's six

A hunter we found sticking to the shade to do his daily chores was this roadrunner.

A roadrunner scouting for tasty morsels
but sticking to the shade to do it.

And he's off!  Meep-meep.

Next we drove up to Boquillas Canyon Overlook.  Just on the other side of the river is the village of Boquillas del Carmen.  A village that lives off generators and river water.  There is an official border crossing station and when it is manned it stays pretty busy with tourists crossing over to have a beer and authentic Mexican meal at the one and only little outdoor restaurant.  The villagers, for a small fee, will get you across the river in a canoe or on the back of a burro.  When we were here in '13/'14 there were also crafters that made figurines, mostly of animals, from twisted wire and beads.  They would cross the river and place their wares at the turnout of Boquillas Canyon Overlook.  Alongside their "display" there would be a coffee can with a slot in the lid to pay for whatever trinket you wanted to go home with.  Boy how have times changed.

This is now the trinket display atop Boquillas Canyon Overlook.

Quite the spread of textiles, jewelry and fired crockery.

This generation of craftspeople from Boquillas
have taken a page right out of the National Park Service
playbook and installed what are known as "iron rangers". 
Some of these things are deeply staked, chained and padlocked.

In our previous time here we had heard about wild burros but had never encountered any.  Not so this time.  Near Boquillas Canyon Overlook we found this little guy just hanging out.

We watched this burro for a few minutes
and it appeared it was taking a siesta.

Back down in the Rio Grande Village we were taken with how green everything is.  I photographed a lot of birds, some rare, in this area but none were to be had on this day.  It is too early and too hot for the migratory birds to have moved this far south yet.

Birds or no birds, the contrast of the golf-course-green
foreground against the backdrop of the Sierra del Carmen
Mountains is spectacular.

Deep in the interior of the park, well north of the big bend in the river but only steps away to the river is a station called Castolon.  It is 35 miles from Panther Junction but it is worth the drive.  There are so many interesting things to see that the road has been named the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.  The ranger station/visitor center/museum was about as rustic as you could get and still be habitable.  But none of that mattered anymore because in May of 2019 a wildfire jumped the Rio Grande and severely burned many of the Castolon structures.

It was sad to see.  Something that had withstood that harsh environment of the Chihuahua Desert for nearly 100 years was wiped out in a wildfire in just minutes.

Thick stucco walls are all that remains of the Visitor Center, 
Store and Museum.  Many artifacts were turned to ash.

This pre-fab is serving as the General Store until they
figure out how they are going to restore the area.

What was a private home when we were last here is 
now the Visitor Center.

The park service is "analyzing" how would be best to restore burned structures, including doing nothing.  But it has already been 5 years and no sign of a decision what to do.  Let's hope they have not succumbed to analysis paralysis.

In the middle of all this sightseeing we drove up to the Chisos Mountain Basin for a quick look at our old workplace and a bite to eat.

"The Window" as seen from the terrace
of the Chisos Basin Lodge Restaurant

While talking with the current visitor center volunteer hosts we learned that the Chisos Lodge and Restaurant were getting a major overhaul.  The restaurant and lodge is to be taken back to below foundation level and rebuilt from scratch.  It seems that the original construction did not account for the clay soil and was built on insufficient foundations.  The new building will sit on properly built foundations and include modern environmental technology.  To do this work they are planning to completely close everything in the basin (Visitor Center, General Store, Campground, motel rooms, casitas, and trails) for the entirety of the project which is projected to last at least two years.

Our last hurrah for our Big Bend visit is an evening meal at the Starlight Theater in the ghost town of Terlingua.

Being this remote tends to make things expensive.  If you lived in Panther Junction like we did, it was a 109 mile drive to Alpine to a full-size grocery store or a 109 mile drive to Ft Stockton (we called it Fort Stockup) to a Walmart.  With those kinds of logistics it is easy to see why things cost so much.  Regardless, the menu at Starlight caused a bit of sticker shock.  Once we got over price watching it was easy to make a fun choice for supper.  We ordered just one "The Famous Diego Burger".  This burger is a behemoth with a 1lb beef patty, 2 fried eggs, 4 slices of bacon, 3 slices of cheese, and pickled jalapenos.  It comes with a side of your choice.  We split this bad boy and still took leftovers home!

In a previous life the Starlight really was a theater.  The stage is still there and used for live music performances most nights.  This place draws a crowd, expect to spend some time on the porch outside waiting for a table if you come during prime dining hours.

That's it for Texas.  Tomorrow will be a day of rest and travel preparation to Alamogordo, NM.