The River Road

January 19, 2013

Well, no Marfa Lights last night. We checked a few times, but we did discover that when we came back in at 11:30 we brought goathead burrs with us. The rug at the top of the steps was covered in them, and then we checked the soles of our shoes and found a bunch more! We had to pick each one out by hand. It turns out they are an invasive species that are all over the southwest and a bane to people and livestock. Those darn burrs are really sharp and dig into your soles. They also quickly flatten bike tires (at least the thin, expensive racing tires, Greg's cheap heavy tires have not had a problem even with many goatheads stuck in the tread).

We left the burrs and the lights of Marfa behind this morning and drove the 60 miles to Presidio on the Rio Grande. Back to the border again. From there we headed southeast on Farm Road 170, which has been called one of the most scenic roads in America. We followed the river for 50 miles through spectacular scenery. Greg was driving, but we should have switched so that he could truly enjoy the geology. We made several stops at Fort Leaton State Park and then at overlooks in the Big Bend Ranch State Park, the largest in the state.

The first stop that took us to the river tantalized us with the chance to touch it. I walked down to the river and got within 5 feet of it, stepped again and my shoe came up with five pounds of mud on the sole! The other one had a similar amount of mud by the time I realized what I had done.

The next stop put us on the side of the Big Mountain and a view 500 feet into the canyon of the Rio Grande. By our last stop we finally had a chance to get close to the river. It was at a village manufactured for movies. Nine films had been shot there, including two in Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove series. We could walk right up to the river and dunk our hands in. We could have easily walked across the small river to Mexico, but didn't want to be fined $5,000 each for doing so!

At the end of the 50 mile drive we had reached Lajitas which is a private resort with a golf course. We drove another 14 miles to Terlingua which is a ghost town repopulated by old hippies. The RV park there looked pretty rough, so we continued on to Study (Stoody) Butte. We were able to get a space at the Big Bend Resort RV Park and Greg topped off the diesel at the gas station. We hadn't seen one for 70 miles and won't see another for another long stretch. We are now 3 miles from the entrance to Big Bend National Park. The 50K foot race is in another section of the huge park, so we are hoping that it will not interfere with our driving around tomorrow. We won't be able to go on the 4 wheel drive roads, so we'll see what will be available to us. If we feel like we are missing too much, we may sign up for a jeep tour on Monday. After our second night in this RV park, we may move over to the park at Rio Grande Village on the other side of Big Bend.

Enjoy some pictures from the drive. The camera really doesn't do the scenery justice, but it will give you a glimpse of the rugged beauty of this area. It was hard to edit down the photos to post!