Ft. Davis is
located in the Big Bend Country region of Texas. Our friends from Kerrville
suggested we stay at Davis Mountains State Park as it would be closer to Big Bend National Park and the
McDonald Observatory, so we drove a little further to enjoy this beautiful
location. The weather was perfect,
the mountains around us were amazing and we anticipated that the night sky
would be full of stars! The Davis Mountains rise above 5,000 feet from the Chihuahuan Desert.
Sense of Humor Required
We arrived at the
Davis Mountains State Park on February 15, 2015 for one week. We have a routine and checklists (imagine
that!) when we arrive and depart from RV parks. Sharon checks into the RV Park
office while Mike unhitches the toad (Jeep). Sharon then follows Mike to our
site. Usually we follow a park volunteer
who takes us directly to our site, but in this case we just followed the site map.
This site was a curved pull-through site. We tend to prefer pull-through sites
as opposed to back-in sites, as it is just easier.
Our routine
typically calls for stopping prior to pulling into the site and put on our
headsets that we usually wear to communicate with each other so Sharon can
direct Mike into the site. Sharon’s
directional hand signals have much to be desired! In this case though, the site
seemed easy enough to navigate into, so Mike just pulled into the site while
watching above to avoid tree limbs. Sharon was waiting for Mike to get out of
the RV so she stayed back and noticed that Mike wanted to back up and re-position
the RV to straighten it up a bit.
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| Notice large boulder with cable post |
What he didn’t
notice and could not see was that there were boulders that lined the curve of
the site. When Mike backed up and pulled forward again, one giant boulder with
the cable box next to it was in his blind spot.
All Sharon could hear was a loud crash/crunch sound that could be heard
throughout the park!! She thought Mike pulled up onto a boulder! Mike comes
running out of the RV to Sharon who is still in the Jeep and Sharon throws her
hands up in disbelief! It was then that Mike realized it was not Sharon who
crashed into him, but that he crashed into something! OMG, he was not going to
be happy when he walked back to the front of the RV. Sharon gave him a moment to calm down and then
got out of the Jeep to comfort Mike!
Mike was so upset
with himself that he concentrated on tree limbs above the RV rather than
following our routine to get out and walk around and assess the site before
pulling into it. And of course, our RV neighbors and a pair of park volunteers showed
up like bees on a honeycomb when they heard the crash. It was probably a good
thing as they consoled Mike and told their own unfortunate but funny stories.
So we had to have a sense of humor and although this was a new RV, our pride
and joy, things happens! Needless to say the RV stayed put where it was and we
proceeded to set up. Sharon just thought…thank goodness it wasn’t her!! LOL
The 2700-acre Davis Mountains State Park was one of the earliest CCC projects in Texas. One day we took a drive through Davis Mountains State Park and stopped at the Indian Lodge for lunch at the lodge’s Black Bear Restaurant.
Indian Lodge represents the pinnacle of CCC construction at Davis Mountains State Park. The original 16-room structure was considered an architectural masterpiece when completed in 1935 and has withstood the test of time. Utilizing centuries-old adobe construction techniques, the CCC men molded earthen bricks from a mixture of water, straw and soil excavated on-site.
They muscled tens of thousands of these 40-pound blocks into place to form 18-inch-thick walls rising as high as three stories. The lodge was finished with locally harvested, hand-hewn pine vigas and river cane latilla ceilings that still add rustic charm to the historic lobby. Now expanded to a 39-room full-service hotel and restaurant, Indian Lodge retains its original flavor; ongoing restoration efforts ensure that its rich legacy will remain intact.
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| Indian Lodge set in the Davis Mountains at Davis Mountain State Park |
Sharon took a walk one morning with her coffee and camera to the park's bird blind.
Marfa
On our way to Alpine, through sweeping plains, we stopped in art-mecca Marfa, a quirky little town in the middle of nowhere. It was established in 1883 as a water stop and freight headquarters for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. Marfa is an area that has been called one of the last American frontiers. We walked around the town and gallery district, most of which was closed - it must have been Monday!
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| Old Jail being restored |
Until the 1970s,
Marfa was best known for the “ghost lights” and the film location for James
Dean’s final picture that “Giant” also starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor
and Dennis Hopper. The classically beautiful Hotel Paisano, designed by
Architect Henry Trost and built in 1930, served as the center of activity
during the making of the movie.
On the way out of
town we stopped at Chinati, a contemporary art museum founded in 1971 by artist
Donald Judd. It is located on 340 acres of land on the site of former Fort D.A.
Russell in Marfa. We took a self-guided tour of 15 works in concrete that run
along the border of Chinati’s property. The first works were installed at the
museum and were cast and assembled onsite over a period of four years. We thought it was an interesting study in space on a barren landscape with the shadows that were cast by the sun.
In 1938, the U.S. Military constructed the artillery sheds from brick and reinforced concrete. The buildings served as a chemical warfare center and prisoner of war work facility. Between 1980 and 1986, Donald Judd completed renovations of the artillery sheds and adapted the buildings specifically for 100 works of milled aluminum. The changes were in keeping with Judd’s vision for the museum as a place for exploring the relationship between art, architecture and the land.
Alpine
We headed to
Alpine to check into the Maverick Inn for the night. Sharon found the place
on-line and what drew her to this place was their tagline “a roadhouse for
wanderers - where deep inside each person lies the maverick spirit of
adventure.” Our room was tastefully decorated with Southwestern and Mexican allure.
Adorning the walls were framed prints by legendary photographer, Edward S.
Curtis.
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| Maverick Inn - A Roadhouse for Wanderers |
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| Our cozy room |
Alpine had at one
time been a campsite for cattlemen until a town of tents was created,
consisting of railroad workers and their families. It was once named Murphyville, and it
remained as such for five years until a petition by townspeople rendered a name
change to Alpine in 1888. It already had
a dozen houses, three saloons, a hotel, rooming house, a livery stable, a
butcher shop and a drugstore, which also housed the post office.
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| Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering would take place after we left! |
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| We didn't have time to see Fifty Shades of Grey! |
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| Didn't have time to go to the Railroad Blues either! |
For lunch we stopped at a local Chef Shack food truck for a fried chicken and waffle sandwich…that raised our cholesterol levels! We ate next store inside The Stable, an auto museum that had tables set up for food truck customers. What a great way to get people into the museum. We took the $1 tour and talked to the owner who won numerous awards and also raced cars in the nearby town of Terlingua!
We also toured the
Museum of the Big Bend located on the campus of Sul Ross State University. For the past 90 years, the museum has been
“Telling the Story” of the vast geographical and historical record of the Big
Bend region. We were happy we stopped! Here is a sample of the exhibits.
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| An entire section was dedicated to Big Bend National Park |
After that we enjoyed dinner at The Century Bar and Grill at the historic Holland Hotel. Built in 1928, the Holland Hotel was designed by Trost & Trost at a cost of $250,000. A cultural, social and historic center of the area for decades, it was completely restored, updated, and modernized with an architectural reboot starting in 2011.
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| Inside the Holland Hotel |
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| Dinner at The Century Bar & Grill |
It was getting
dark, so after dinner we wanted to view the colorful sunset, brilliant stars and the Marfa ghost lights that we heard so much about, so we drove about a ½ hour toward Marfa.
Accounts of strange and unexplained phenomena just outside of Marfa began
during the 19th century and continue to this day. Ranchers, Apaches
and famous meteorologists alike have reported seeing seemingly sourceless
lights dance on the horizon southeast of town, an area that is nearly
uninhabited and extremely difficult to traverse. The mystery lights are
sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes white, and usually appear randomly
throughout the night, no matter the season or the weather. While the source of
the mystery lights is still a point of contention, the show goes on. We marveled at the starry night and Mike took
a closer look at the lights in the distant mountains, which to him appeared to
be from cars driving the mountain road. But the family and kids next to us
insisted they were the Marfa Ghost Lights! So you will have to visit and decide for
yourself!
Jeep Tour in Terlingua
We had purchased
tickets for a Jeep Tour with Far Flung Outdoor Center in Terlingua, Texas. The three hour jeep tour was called “Camp
360” and it would take us on private land via rough dirt roads in Big Bend National Park. Since we spent
the night in Alpine, the drive to Terlingua this morning was a lot shorter than
it would have been from Davis Mountains State Park where we had our RV.
Our tour guide was
somewhat of a survivalist, very knowledgeable in the local plants and what they
are used for. It was an interesting half
day tour!
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| The road less traveled |
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The "Kissing Rocks"     |
After our Jeep tour we headed to historic ghost town of Terlingua. We enjoyed lunch at La Posado Milagro Café and stopped in at The Terlingua Trading Company. This quaint ghost town was set in spectacularly primitive Texas landscape and featured windswept remnants of the old mining town, a landscape stripped away of all life save for a few resilient residents.
On one occasion we were headed down an interesting road to take a photo of a neat old building, but the sign said “private” and as we were about the turn around, a local man in a pick-up truck stopped and muttered under his breath “can’t you read the sign!” Thankfully we turned around before we got shot!
On the way out of Terlingua, Sharon finally saw the Texas Bluebonnets!
Big Bend National Park is the highlight attraction in the entire region. The 800,000-acre national park contains three basic habitats: river, desert and mountains. It encompasses the largest protected area of the Chihuahuan Desert in the United States. The Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River forms its southern boundary, and it’s the only park in the United States that contains a complete mountain range – The Chisos. Because of the distance from our park and our short stay, we didn’t have time to see all that Big Bend National Park had to offer, so we will definitely go back again.
The Town of Fort Davis
We toured the
little town of Fort Davis with many restored public buildings dating back to
the late 1800s. At 5,050 feet Fort Davis is the highest town in Texas. We stopped at a few shops, ate lunch at a
local café and stopped at a rock shop for Sharon to pick out some gemstones to
add to her growing collection!
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| Ate lunch at the Fort Davis Drugstore where the locals ate |
Fort Davis National Historic Site
This Fort was one
of the most fascinating we have seen so far. The site is a U.S. National Historic Site that
was established in 1963 to protect one of the best remaining examples of a U.S.
Army fort in the southwestern United States.
As we walked the grounds, a self-guided tour took us into some of the 24 restored historic buildings, including the Enlisted Men’s Barracks, Officers’ Row, Officer’s Kitchen and Servant’s Quarters and Commissary, Post Hospital, Two-story Officers’ Quarters, a Chapel to name a few. There are also over 100 ruins and foundations that exist on the site. Five of the historic buildings have been refurnished to the 1880s, making it easy for us to envision ourselves being at the fort at the height of its development. We can’t imagine living in those times!
The museum tells the history of the Confederate period, the re-building of the fort after the War between the States, and the men and women who served or lived there. The exhibits explained the need for the fort to protect travelers along the newly established San Antonio-El Paso road, many on their way to the California gold fields. In addition, Apache, Comanche and Kiowa artifacts are displayed.
McDonald Observatory
We had heard about
the McDonald Observatory located in the heart of the Davis Mountains, so prior
to visiting, we purchased tickets months in advance and hoped it would be a
clear night! A world leader in astronomical research, McDonald Observatory atop
Mts. Locke and Fowlkes benefits from some of the darkest night skies in the
nation.
We arrived at the Frank N. Bash Visitor Center and toured the educational exhibits while we waited for our tour. The sky was cloudy and we were hoping it would clear up before our viewing at the 82" Telescope Dome.
We learned that after extensive upgrades such as automated pointing and a brand new focal reducing system, the original McDonald telescope – the 2.1m Otto Struve – is arguably, one of the largest and finest telescopes in the world through which routine viewing is allowed.
The night sky had cleared and the stars were now apparent. Our group of 12 took a shuttle bus to the observatory, climbed two flights of stairs and entered the telescope room. When the dome opened to the sky we had to climb a step ladder up the platform to view the planned targets scattered around the night sky. We were able to view various nebulas, Jupiter, and Saturn and stars in the Orion constellation. It was a great evening that ended around 11 p.m.
There are also viewing nights available on the 107” telescope and 36” telescope. They also offer public Star parties.
Scenic Drive
One day we took
the Scenic Loop Drive, a 75-mile loop drive that reveals stunning vistas along the
Davis Mountains. Formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity, the Davis
Mountains rise up in green slopes punctuated by pine and oak trees, carpets of
golden grasslands that wander through the canyons, and jumbles of rocky spires
and escalating peaks. At more than 8,000 feet, they are a dramatic contrast to
the flatness of the surrounding desert.
Along the drive is Dead Man’s Canyon which got its name from an incident back in the 1880s, when the snow-covered body of a young man named Horace Powe was found propped against a boulder with 11 bullet holes in him! And along the way we spotted a group of Mule Deer.
During our stay in
Davis Mountains State Park, Mike was on the phone calling our insurance
company to take care of the $6,000 repair, taking photos of the RV damage, and arranging for repairs while we are
in Tucson, AZ where we would be for the month of April. By now Mike resigned
himself to the fact that no matter how careful we are, things happen! It was
just our turn. Life goes on, lesson learned!
Join us for our next adventure in Carlsbad and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Adios friends!
Mike & Sharon
“Inside myself is a
place where I live all alone, and that’s where you renew your springs that
never dry up.”
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
