UNEVENTFUL DRIVE TO DEL RIO ELKS LODGE

Saturday, February 17 – We had an wonderful and uneventful trip to Del Rio, Texas, today. We began our travel by heading North on TX-118 which is rated as a scenic highway. It lived up to its reputation. What a beautiful drive. There was some pretty significant climbing for the first ten or so miles, but it then leveled out through Texas prairie country until just south of Alpine, Texas. We then finished the climb through beautiful mountain vistas until reaching US-90 in Alpine. This area has some spectacular views that we really enjoyed.

There was an awesome cloud cover. We have no idea what this
might be called. Any ideas?

Once on US-90, it was typical Texas prairie until we crossed the Pecos River near Langtry, TX. We traveled the up and down hilly foothills again through the Texas canyons until we reached our destination in Del Rio. We are staying at the Del Rio Elks Lodge.

The Elks Lodge has ten RV sites with newly installed 50/30 amp electric and water at each site. There is a dump station that is easily accessible on the 7.8 acres here at the Lodge. The sites are side by side gravel and about 40 or 50 feet wide. They are as deep as you need because they are situated along the edge of a field. We did not unhook our truck. We were also the only RV in the campground. There are also smoker type grills at each site. The cost is $15 per night or $5 for dry camping. The folks in the Lodge were typical friendly Elks members.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We are only here overnight and are then heading about 175 miles Northeast to San Antonio, Texas. We'll be floating down the river, enjoying the River Walk, and seeing the local sites. This is our third time in San Antonio, a town that never gets old. So stop back and enjoy some city life with us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

TERLINGUA GHOST TOWN

Friday, February 16 – We spent our last day here in Terlingua, Texas, just relaxing around the RV, doing some cleaning in an attempt to fight the ever-present dust in this desert environment, and visiting the Ghost Town in Terlingua.

Once home to 2,000 people, Terlingua was a thriving mercury mining town. Abandoned in the 1940's and then repopulated in the 1970's, it is now an active community of artists, musicians and free thinking individuals. This was once a thriving town with a butcher shop, ice cream parlor. Today it appears to be a community family or “hippie style” community from the past. The folks are living for today and enjoying life one day at a time.

The Terlingua Trading Company is a touristy/variety type store and also seems to surviving economically. Marsha even helped their bottom line by purchasing some agate stones for her pine needle basket hobby.

All the structures are historic and very fragile. Many built of adobe and slowly wearing away as a result of the environment. Many of the building are privately owned and used as bars, restaurants, or artsy shops.

The Starlight Theatre is a restaurant/bar that is probably the most profitable business in the small ghost town. We enjoyed several drinks there the other night and understand the food is pretty good but maybe a little expensive. They also have local entertainment nightly which we enjoyed.

Most of the remaining buildings are in a state of severe deterioration. Someone seems to be trying to save the church by replacing adobe and stucco. Hopefully the funding will hold out, and the church will be saved.

Saint Agnus Church was serviced by a priest that came once a month.

Perry Mansion, named after the mine owner.

The Perry School started as a “tent house” with one teacher. It became a
five-room  building with four teachers, a principal, and 80 children.

This shaft is one of hundreds that were hand dug.

He acts so dumb sometimes….lol


The Terlingua Cemetery is another interesting area. Over 400 graves inhabit the cemetery, the oldest from 1903. Many of the inhabitants died in 1918 from influenza. Not a single person died from mercury poisoning as a result of working in the mine. This cemetery is still in use today. We enjoyed strolling among the tombstones and reading about some of these pioneers and quietly paying our respect.

US Marine Corp, Korea, Purple Heart.

Died in 2014.

1886-1945.

A big thank you to Erin/Mui, Two To Travel Phaeton, and Laurel/Eric, Raven and Chickadee, for all their wonderful suggestions for hikes in Big Bend, super blog posts and lots and lots of emails. Y’all made our visit fantastic! Tomorrow we head back East stopping in Del Rio, TX. Come along for the ride!

The photo below was taken through our screen door. We both heard someone talking. When Marsha looked out the door, there was some man sitting at our picnic table having a conference call. Not only that, but his dog was laying at the bottom of our steps. What is wrong with people?

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

ONE LAST HIKE…CHIMNEYS TRAIL

Thursday, February 15 – We hiked our last trail here in Big Bend National Park this morning. The weather report called for high temperatures this afternoon, so we hit the trail a little earlier this morning planning to be out of the hot afternoon sun. It did reach temperatures in the low 90's by late afternoon, but we were home relaxing. It didn't feel near that hot. It's a “dry” heat, you know!

Sunrise greeted us before our hike.

We were hiking the Chimneys Trail this morning. The "chimneys" have always been an important landmark in Big Bend. It is rated moderate, but it was fairly easy in our opinion. It is a flat scenic desert trail to rock formations of an eroded dike.

The trail.

Through a wash.

More beautiful scenery on today’s hike.

We love seeing the “purple” or “mauve” prickle pear cacti.

We made it.

As we hiked around the chimneys, we discovered a delicate arch. What a nice surprise.

There are numerous Native American pictographs in one of the sheltered areas and awesome rock formations.

There is no shade so take plenty of water if hot weather is predicted. We traveled 5.21 miles with 14,868 steps with only 373 change in elevation. If you want to crawl around the mountain, you will have to do some rock scrambling at the end of the trail.

We enjoyed this hike, especially climbing around the mountain at the end of the trail to check out the pictographs and to take numerous pictures. We sat on some boulders and enjoyed a water break and a snack before returning to the trail head. As customary, we saw no one at the time spent on the mountain but did cross paths with three or four couples on our return hike.

We have one more day here in Terlingua, Texas, and Big Bend National Park. Could a ghost town be in our future? You'll have to come back and see.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

MULE EARS SPRING…BIG BEND

Wednesday, February 14 – We continue to have wonderful weather here in Terlingua, Texas, and Big Bend National Park. We also can't get over the beauty of Big Bend NP, and the number of different environments in the various parts of the park. We experienced this changing environment and geography up close today on the Mule Ears Spring Trail.

The Mule Ears Spring Trail is a desert hike to a small spring with spectacular geology and magnificent mountain and desert views. It is rated moderate in difficulty in the trail guide. There is very little overall elevation gain, 254 feet, but we were continually traveling up and down short grades the entire length of the hike. We traveled 4.4 miles with 12,811 steps according to our “Map Your Hike” app.

See the mule ears.

Like most of the hikes in Big Bend the trail surface is quite rocky. This hike was unusual in that the trail surface changed numerous times during the hike. It started out with a rocky surface of rocks ranging from small to about 6” in size. It then switched to small sandy gravel, and later we had to maneuver over rocks the size of basketballs and then through an area of volcanic slate type rocks. And this surface changed back and forth throughout the hike. There were the ever-present trail stairs and numerous switchbacks.

What really surprised us was the change in geology. As we moved back in the mountains and closer to the spring, the plants appeared to increase in size and variety, numerous types of cactus, shrubbery, grasses, and small trees. And everything looked so fresh, green, and healthy. We were told that the spring continues its flow underground, and near the surface over a large area in this part of the park. It was so beautiful.

Ocotillos are beginning to bloom.

The spring appears just past a stone structure used in the past as a stone corral. It is among some very large boulders and was trickling out of cracks in the stone wall of a mountain. It is surrounded by ferns, cactus and many beautiful plants, as discussed above. This is truly an oasis in this dry desert and mountain environment. We were very quiet and the sound of the water flowing over the rocks was mesmerizing.

Difficult to see, but this is where the water trickles down.

We paused here for a light brunch and enjoyed some cool water from our water bottles. It was getting pretty hot under the blazing sun, even though the temperature was only in the high 60's. Tomorrow we'll each carry a second bottle of water.

Mule ears.

Snack time.

We then headed back toward the trail head. We were reminded why we like to hit the trail early as we passed numerous hikers just heading out. We joke that it must be getting closer to noon because the youngins are appearing on the trail. We really enjoyed this hike. Because of the changing geography and beautiful surroundings, we feel this hike was one of our most enjoyable hikes in the park.

We have one more big hike planned for tomorrow so come on back and enjoy the day with us!

We are now back in Houston at the Elks Lodge. Because we didn’t have WIFI for ten days, we are way behind in our posts. We are going to continue to post our adventures as we experienced them. We will eventually get caught up.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!