After a disturbed night – a “girls weekend” or similar were staying in the room across the hall from us and after loudly leaving to go out about 8.30pm, came back with a few too many under the belt about 2am – 10 times as loaded ! – the weather had improved to a sunny morning.
Sunday morning on the roads around San Antonio were very quiet and there was very little traffic around all day really. We had been surprised how green Texas had been, given that a lot of the area and the US generally was experiencing drought. However as we headed west it became more like we expected – scrubby, barren, brown. And you know you are in the “wild west” when you drive over a crest and scatter a pack of about 12 vultures all devouring a roadkill carcass in the middle of the road !
Border Protection
We stopped to get a bit of petrol not knowing what it would be like as we went west and the towns got smaller. Then next stop was Del Rio very near the Mexican border. It was the last sizeable town for a while and it was only about 11 so we stopped and bought Subway so we could take it with us and find somewhere to stop later for lunch. This section of highway US 90 is very close to the border in some parts and even as it gets further away it is still the first real road away from the border. All alongside of the highway is a graded dirt track which has US Border Patrol vehicles stopped or patrolling at various intervals. Sometimes you see some vehicles towing large truck tyres behind them. Apparently they do this to detect any use of these tracks after them when they come back to patrol that area again.
Along the highway out of Del Rio, we were actually stopped by a border control checkpoint. The road is blocked by 2 guards , one with a sniffer dog. Each car must stop. At our turn we were asked whether we were US citizens and where we were from. We told them we were Australian and they wanted to see our passports. One guy looked at our passports and checked our photos matched us. Whilst this was happening the other guy took his dog around the car. Then all hell broke lose ! (not really) Adrienne had started videoing and the guy with the dog quickly yelled “no photos maam !” Adrienne apologised profusely whilst he explained they were potential targets for Mexican gangs and did not want their photos circulating anywhere.
Pecos River Bridge
(What they didn’t know was that Adrienne had already taken photos whilst we were stopped waiting for them to check the car ahead and that my in car camera was going the whole time !)
Anyway they let us go with a “have a nice trip” and we continued on. Not far along we came to the Pecos River and a spectacular bridge crossing. The river is quite big hear as it joins the Rio Grande not far away and the river walls are quite sheer. The bridge is the highest road bridge in Texas. Earlier lower bridges had been washed away in floods.
A little further along we came to the town of Langtry which was the seat of justice of the legendary Judge Roy Bean – the “Law West of the Pecos”. Roy was apparently a bit of a rogue. He had been in trouble with the law and always seemed to be one step ahead of it. He married, had 4 children, then left his wife and ended up opening a saloon here. At some stage he managed to convince a local governor to give him legal authority in the area and was made a notary. Besides judging, he ran the saloon, a billiard hall, and arranged a boxing match eventhough it was illegal in Texas – he staged it on a sand bar in the middle of the river to get around this ! He was infatuated with the great Lily Langtry and this is how the place got its name. There is now quite a sizeable visitor center around the original court house/saloon/billiard hall (all of these together about the size of your lounge room).
We had our lunch here at picnic tables which were part of the visitor center. We had stopped at a Subway in Del Rio earlier as we weren’t sure what we would find in the “wild west” ahead. There is nothing much else in Langtry except a lot of derelict buildings – and the gas station was closed. The next sizeable town was called Sanderson and I began to get grilled about how much petrol we had. Sanderson was no problem – we would make that easy. Arriving in Sanderson we pulled into the gas station on the edge of town – but realised it was closed. Further into town we found the next one – but it was also closed, in about 1955 by the looks of it. The look of panic was starting to show on Adrienne’s face. What made it worse was she had no internet connection on her Ipad or phone reception. Just when I thought I was going to be in big trouble, around the next corner revealed a huge gas station – about 10 pumps ! So what’s to worry ?
Window View lookout
Having filled up – and peace restored – we headed on toward Big Bend. At a town called Marathon, we left US 90 to drive south into the park. It is a very big park and it has 4 main areas. Two of these are closed as it is the quiet season. Once into the park, we drove on to the first major visitor center. Here we found some disappointment. One of the major sights – Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande river – was not accessable as the heavy rain of the last couple of days had flooded the canyon and washed away some of the access road. They wouldn’t even be looking at the damage until tomorrow (Monday) so didn’t expect it to be open again until probably Wednesday. So we will have to revise our plans a little tomorrow.
Chisos Basin Lodge
We headed on to Chisos Basin – our stop for the night – and arrived just before 5. The basin is just that – sitting in a dish surrounded by mountains. It is actually the centre of an extinct volcano. There is a gap at one end – called Window View – and we walked along a short trail to take some photos. The Lodge is the only eating option so we headed there about 6.30. The patio at the lodge also provides a prime view to observe sunset through the Window View. The Lodge had quite a good menu and we finished our meal just as the sun started to disappear. We thought we might not get much of a show as a few clouds – and we could see rain in the distance – appeared. But as they moved across they actually added to the great sunset.
Sunset
It must have been pretty good as even the staff from the gift shop and restaurant were out taking photos as well.
Sunset & sky
We then settled in for a quiet evening – no phone reception, no internet reception, (except a little at the lodge) no television. So preparing our blogs for later uploading was the only option. We can also work on our revised plans for tomorrow.