(Did you know the US Census Bureau still has it classified as “Frontier" land?)
Headed straight to Midland, where we visited the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum. Then onto Balmorhea to our Hotel: El Oso Flojo (Oasis in West Texas) what a WONDERFUL PLACE and GREAT people!
Breakfast at hotel - cereal/fruit. We went back to DMEC for Cowboy History Lecture with Bill Leftwich. He is a local veteran, cowboy, author and artisan. After checking with his wife, Mary Alice, Bill invited us to their home and gallery. Wow! talk about a "GREEN" home. It is beautifully simple, cool (in the 100 degree day) and comfortable. What a TEXAS Welcome! But before we visited their home we ate lunch, and stopped by Fort Davis for a quick talk and a self-guided tour of the fort. I really liked the "hospital" with the big, scarry implements and the "hygenic", "medicinal" Whiskey. That night we ate at Jett's Grill in El Pasaino Hotel in Marfa. Paul gave us a tour of the hotel and all the gossip about the filming of "Giant". We capped the night off cruising the highways hoping to see the Mysterious Marfa Lights! And you know what...WE DID! VERY COOL!
Good-bye to Florinda and Joel as we checked out of El Oso Flojo and continued our adventure. We rustled up some vittles and then visited the Sul Ross University (Alpine) for their museum exhibit of Cowboy Culture and Trappings, along with some Big Bend stuff at The Museum of Big Bend. Downtown Alpine we had great fun shopping and visiting various restaurants for lunch (The Reatta, Sixth Street Bakery,) then we were on to Big Bend... We checked into our hotel, El Dorado Hotel in the Ghost town of Terlingua, Texas. We met our area-guide Sarah there and she took us over to Big Bend National Park. We did some driving around, stopped by the Bosquillas Canyon and went to the Chisos Basin Lodge for a view of the Window, dinner, and a beautiful sunset. Back to the Ghosttown.
(This is Frontier Country…the critters out number us, 15:1!, and the creature comforts are few). BUT there's a bar! And that is where we enjoy our morning cereal, fruit and coffee. After breakfast our guide arrives and we are off for another journey. Spent the morning touring Big Bend National Park and checking out Santa Elena Canyon. We had a picnic lunch with a bird-wathcing tour. Then back on the bus for some more sight seeing of the park. We met our guide back in Terlingua for dinner at the Starlight Theater Restaurant; then back to our temporary residence for the evening’s rest.
We left Art and El Dorado Hotel with a wave good-bye and continued on down the road to Lajitas. David at the Warnock center did an excellent job of guiding us around the dessert flower gardens and giving us information on the flora/flauna and their medicinal purposes. We left Big Bend behind as we drove back to Alpine for a lunch stop and then onto Odessa for our nights stay and our journey back to Dallas.
Free Centipedes were included with the price! That’s right, you read it correctly…we want our travelers to REALLY EXPERIENCE the places we visit.
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