We suggest you Do mess around in Texas (and Mexico)

Aloha all,

if you made it all the way to the end of the last post (or at least looked at the picture), you might have had a deja vu moment when you read the newspaper the next morning. At least if you live in West Texas and read the ‘Hondo Anvil Herald’. We actually made it into the newspaper there:

Our road trip is now officially a "Happening"!

And I don’t want to hear any jokes about how little there must be happening in Castroville if two Germans traveling through town make it to the top of the “Happenings” page in the local newspaper. Because meeting our new friends was a big deal to us, too…even though there was plenty else happening on our road trip this week. 

So read on if you want to read about our bear encounter, our mountain climbing adventure and our little side trip to Mexico.

The newspaper mentions that we are traveling through America to see Presidential Libraries. While that is correct, there are none of those in West Texas and we had already been to LBJ’s home. But we did find an interesting little museum about Governor Dolph Briscoe and his political mentor “Cactus Jack” Garner, who was at least vice president under FDR for the first two terms. I also want to report on the continuing adventures with our new friends from Castroville that did not make the newspaper: Elisa and her mom actually drove all the way to Uvalde to meet us again. We had a lovely 3 hour lunch together and then got a tour of the Old Opera House in Uvalde. Even though she did not go up the stairs, the trip turned out to be a little much for 92 year old Dorothy. Elisa already had my favorite quote of the road trip when she first greeted us with “It will be so much more fun talking to you than ordering this John Deer tractor!”. But when her mom became a little confused, she also spoke my second favorite quote of this trip. As the loving daughter and caregiver she is, Elisa was concerned about her mom and said: “Mom, look at me. What day is it today?” and quickly added: “Oh well, forget about that - I have no clue what day it is myself!”. Dorothy happily recovered soon thereafter. Let’s just say that if we are aging as well as she is, I am not going to be too concerned if I don’t know what day it is 44 years from now, when I am her age.

I want to be like Dorothy when I am 92 in 2062.

Sometimes we pick a campground just because there’s a good deal. We did not even think about the name “Fort Clark RV Park” until we arrived and noticed that it was in an actual old fort. Our friendly campground host told me that Fort Clark was established in 1849 as the most western outpost after Texas became a state. Today, it is mostly a retirement and snow bird community (or “Winter Texans” as they are called here). When he noticed that I was actually interested in the history, he suggested we should call Phil, the president of the Fort Clark Historical Society, to open up the Fort Clark Museum for us. Sure enough, Phil was just as happy to open the museum for us as we were happy to get a privat two hour tour. We learnt that Fort Clark was mostly established to fight “hostile Indians” (even though it can obviously be argued who the ‘hostiles’ were!). The fort played a smaller role during the civil war and as a training post for both world wars. 

We love all the volunteers, who bring historical places alive,
 like Phil at Fort Clark.

Phil even invited us to the meeting of the Historical Society the next morning where we watched an interesting film about the Texas Rangers…the actual rangers, not the baseball team. We also took advantage that Fort Clark has a huge spring fed swimming pool, a shuffle board and a disc golf course. Maybe not the most exciting course we ever played, but a fox came by to make things more interesting. 

We thought Memorial Day weekend could get a little busier. But we were almost the only ones in the interesting Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio and at the campground at the Amistad Reservoir. I guess there are two ways to avoid the crowds: Travel at the right time or to the right places. The temperatures might be cooler earlier in the spring, but we enjoy how uncrowded even some of the better known places are.

The eccentric Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio, TX

We have seen a few petroglyphs before, but the rock art at the Seminole Canyon State Park is some of the best we have seen. Even better that our guide Jack seemed to know everything about the paintings, the history, the geology, the flora & fauna and even about spear throwing, which he demonstrated quite impressively. 

Rock art at the Seminole Canyon State Park

In the afternoon, we did our first bigger hike of this trip along the Seminole Canyon rim to the Rio Grande, we met a nice couple, saw Mexico and got back to Joy just in time before the thunderstorm started. That didn’t last long and was followed by a perfect sunset for our almost daily BBQ dinner.

We love Joy and she poses so nicely!

Our only stop the next day was at the Judge Roy Bean Museum and visitor center in Langtry. In case you haven’t heard of Judge Roy Bean: He was an eccentric saloon keeper and Justice of the Peace, usually performing both duties at the same time by holding court in his saloon, which we were able to visit. He called himself “The Law West of the Pecos” and apparently one of his favorite penalty was to order law breakers to buy a round of drinks for everybody, including his pet bear.

The saloon that doubled as a courthouse in Langtry, TX

From there all the way to Big Bend National Park, even we will agree, there is not that much to see, even though the scenery was more interesting than we expected. But we did spend a lovely evening at the RV Park in Marathon, TX. There might not be much to see there, but there are plenty of nice people to talk to: First our friendly neighbor at the campsite, then at the super fun White Buffalo Bar at the Gage Hotel and then with fellow travelers at the fireplace of the campground. Fun and friendly folk all the way around.

We spent the last three days in Big Bend National Park. Climbing to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park, was literally and figuratively the high point for us. We got lucky with relatively cool weather and a little cloud cover, but the 10 mile hike with 2600 feet elevation gain was still quite the accomplishment for us, especially with an extra half mile of rock climbing to get to the actual peak. But what a view! We felt like we were at the top of the world, 360 degrees of Wow!

At the top of Emory Peak, the highest point of Big Bend NP

The Lost Mine Trail the next day was almost as scenic and a lot easier. Except that only half a mile from the trailhead, we encountered a black bear with three little cubs just next to the trail. We kept our distance since we know how protective momma bears can be. We were almost ready to turn around since she did not move away from the trail. But a large family of other humans came, which made passage a lot safer. First by making enough noise to get the bears to move up the hill, but also by the fact that they had young children. You know what they say: “You don’t have to outrun the bear, just the slowest member of your group.”

Probably as close as you ever want to get to a bear with cubs in the wild.

Thankfully, with the help of that family, we got to complete the hike after all. It would have been a shame missing out on this great little gem of a hike. On the way back, we hiked with a young journalist traveling all of the Mexican border to research how local coverage of the border differs from national coverage. Not a bad job that includes an office like this:

Dramatic scenery on the Lost Mine Trail in Big Bend NP

One of the advantages of traveling with a lot of time is that we were able to spend a couple of days in the cooler, higher elevations of the park until the lower, hotter areas cooled down at least a little bit. The Rio Grande campground was surprisingly comfortable and there is a great nature trail to a hill to watch the sun set over the Rio Grande. It’s a great place to contemplate where exactly we should build the wall here:

Mexico in the back, the US in the front....and such serenity!

Today, we did a short walk along the Rio Grande into the Boquillas Canyon and we took a quick side trip to Mexico. Big Bend is the only national park with an official border crossing. The approximately 200 residents of the very remote town of Boquillas on the Mexican side seem to depend heavily on the few dozen visitors (I assume more in the winter) who make the trip from Big Bend. It is all very pleasantly organized: A row boat takes you to Mexico for $5 round trip and a donkey takes you into town for $5 round trip. 

At $2.50 each way, the donkey ride was basically the cost of a bus fare.

We got a short tour of the village; overall it looks colorful, but a bit 3rd world. For example, there are no paved roads and the town shares one single phone line. Some people have cell phones, but there is no service. However, a few years ago they got a solar power plant that powers the whole town, including batteries to get them through the night. Obviously a little easier on a small scale, but still very impressive for such a remote place. The restaurant we chose (there are only two and they are owned by the same family) was also surprisingly pleasant. With the next real store over 150 miles away, of course you can’t expect a gourmet meal, but the margaritas were cold, the food was good and everybody was friendly.

Lunch in Boquillas, Mexico

We’ll have to see more of Mexico some day, since obviously, this does not really count as seeing Mexico, but it was a much more pleasant experience than Tijuana, the only other place we were in Mexico for a few hours many years ago. I was really impressed by the row boat and donkey shuttle service. I don’t quite understand why there seem to be several times as many souvenir stands as daily visitors, all selling practically the same simple embroidery art. But then again, only one of them had the cutest image of the donkey Sandra rode. So we actually brought home a little souvenir from our quick side trip to Mexico, even though our main purpose was to drink a couple of margaritas there. 

Back in the US, we saw a fridge that was about to be loaded on the little row boat heading for Boquillas, but Joy could not make the journey, so we will continue our tour north of the border.

One of Joy's favorite overnight spots at the Rio Grande campground 

For the second night at Rio Grande Village, we opted for the less scenic RV Park with hook ups, due to the heat. We are not huge fans of air conditioning…until it’s over 100 degrees. Then a thunderstorm came through, cooled things down and added this nice little lake as a new campground feature:

Joy reflecting in the newest lake in Big Bend NP

Hola from the Rio Grande, where all the people are friendly, all the nature is majestic and walls seem to be even less necessary than average.

Chris & Sandra