Wintering in Texas - Huh
WINTERING IN TEXAS
Huh?
Most people from my home state of Colorado and my new base camp in Montana wouldn't necessarily think of Texas as a place to visit in the winter to escape the cold. And Texas can have its cold days too when Canadian fronts blow south. This February and March, I did experience some very mild weather as I visited West Texas. I am beginning to think of myself as a piasano. It's a Spanish nickname for “greater roadrunner” but literally means countryman or peasant.
Specifically, I visited Ft. Davis, Big Bend National Park and North St. Padre National Seashore Corpus Christi and Indianola so far. I took hikes in all these places wearing shorts and a t-shirt most days. It doesn't get much more pleasant than sitting in a lawn chair, reading a book, listening to the gulls and crash of the waves all the while coloring up the winter white pasty skin.
I spent about three months in Southern New Mexico as I have written about earlier, namely in and around Columbus, Deming and Las Cruces. By and large the weather was OK for winter but during a cold period in January, maybe it was February, it was down right cold, below freezing in fact. RVs and trailer parks all had frozen pipes. Locals said that it was a thirty year cold record.
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| Raleigh & Raleigh, Victor Ft Davis Mountains State Park |
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| Ft Davis, Texas |
The post had a beautiful setting, it was in a narrow canyon with perpendicular sides, the walls of which were about 200 feet in height. It was also set in one of the most desolate and dangerous parts of the Southwest. The necessity for the post, located some 400 miles from San Antonio and 200 miles from Franklin (present-day El Paso). (1)
The Ft. Davis Mountains State Park is located 4 miles north of the Fort. It is situated in a nice little canyon with lots of cottonwood trees. There is a wonderful, quaint lodge and restaurant in the park, run by the Texas State Parks. The camp and all the buildings were built by the young CCC men during the great depression.
The town of Ft. Davis, is about a mile high, so it is cooler in the summer time, making it a favorite escape from the hot Texas cities. Very small and quaint in size, the town has some historic old buildings and lodges. Hotel Limpia is a restored country inn built in 1912. It has sturdy, turn-of-the-century oak furniture, second-story veranda and glassed-in porch with rattan rockers. A relatively large library is housed in the town's old mercantile. It served as the village's focal point for many years. (2) Now most people drive thirty miles south to Alpine to buy their groceries and other things.
Finally, nearby is the famous McDonald Observatory run by the University of Texas. It is located atop 6,791 foot Mt. Locke.
Traveling a few miles south found me in the town of Marfa. The town was established in 1881 as a water stop for Texas and New Orleans Railroad. Today, it is a trading point for many large ranches in the surrounding mountains. Superb climate makes it a popular tourist center. It is also the country seat for Presidio County with a fine looking courthouse. Built in 1886, this elegant domed structure is topped by the Goddess of Justice. The El Piasano Hotel served in 1955 as the base of operations for the film making of the movie “Giant”. It's stars where none other than Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Clarke Gable.
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| Lobby Marfa Hotel |
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| Hotel Piasano, Marfa Texas |
Still heading south, I was headed for Big Bend State Park via “The River Road” which is billed as the most spectacular drive in Texas by the Texas travel guide. First you come to the Spanish settlement of Presidio (Spanish for fort). I spent an hour touring Ft. Leaton Historic Site, an historic massive adobe fortress built in 1848 after the Mexican War. This area is Texas' most mountainous area averaging over 5000 feet. The scenic drive took me though Big Bend State Ranch Park. This park has more than 300,000 acres in the Chihuahuan Desert wilderness encompassing desert, mountains, canyons and the Rio Grande River.
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| Rio Grande River, Big Bend National Park |
Arriving late in the day, the cliffs and buttes in Big Bend National Park were getting that warm soft pink color from the sun. I found the park breath-taking. It encompasses 801,163 acres of magnificent constraints. I traveled from the spectacular canyons and jungle-like flood plain up through the Chihuahuan Desert, which constitutes the majority of the park, to the cool woodlands of the Chisos Mountains. I camped in the Chisos Basin for the first two nights. Its variation in elevation and temperature makes Big Bend an ideal year-round park.
I spent five days in the park, camping at each of the principal campgrounds. Javelenas and coyotes are unfortunately quite tame and they wander into the campgrounds looking for handouts. Pet owners have to be very careful their fido doesn't become dinner by a pack of coyotes. A volunteer host at one campgrounds told me that coyotes have brazenly spent the night under a motor-home and then snatched a poodle when it was let out the next morning. One day, I saw a bobcat hunting for food near where I was throwing a ball for Raleigh. I need to be more careful.
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| Cottonwood Campground, Big Bend NP |
As it had been three years since I had been to the beach, which had been in Mexico, I had the itch to hear and see some crashing waves, seagulls, pelicans or other shore birds again. My destination was Corpus Christi. It was necessary to go back north 70 miles before I could start east again. At Marathon, I hit highway 90 which started my journey eastward. When I crossed over the famous Pecos River, I stopped to view the magnificent automobile bridge that spans it. It was also the location of a railroad bridge spanning the river and the site where two railroad companies building from east and west and drove their silver spike commemorating the accomplishment.
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| Pecos River |
The Southern Pacific, the nation's second transcontinental railroad when completed in 1883, crossed what is not park property. Sections of the old rail bed line the park’s landscape. The Southern Pacific served to unite the east and west coasts and established an important route for commerce and settlement.
Bustling but short-lived tent cities that included facilities like stores, restaurants and saloon housed railroad workers nearby. A large baking oven from one of these sites, constructed of locally-quarried limestone, stands re-constructed at the park today where it recalls the hard work and sacrifice of early railroad workers.
With the railroad came a ranching boom. Sheep, goat and cattle producers could easily ship livestock to markets, and the new technology of the day-barbed wire and windmills-allowed them to fence their ranches and provide all-important water for stock. Seminole Canyon was part of the Lower Pecos stock industry from early 1880s until it became a state park in 1973. Although livestock no longer roam within park boundaries, ranching remains a vitally important activity within the area. (3) The park has a very well done interpretive building and frequent canyon tours are given by the staff.
The following morning I headed out, Del Rio being my most immediate destination. Just before arriving there I passed by the huge Amistad National Recreation Area. It is administered by the National Park Service, borders the Mexican border and is well know for its boat ramps, campgrounds and marinas. It was also, unfortunately, the place were an a American citizen was shot by Mexican drugs gang members. This person and his wife had taken their jet skiis to the Mexican side of the border to visit a historic site. His wife excaped but his body has yet to be found. Del Rio bills itself as the “Best of the Border”. I don't think this recent incident helped its tourist business much.
It was Sunday February 27, the afternoon I parted Del Rio, fully stocked for another week. I was getting a late start, for my coastal destination and it was hot. My air conditioning doesn't work to well, so I had to drive with the windows open to keep cool. Now, the countryside turned into bushes to high to look over but frequently I would catch site of oil/gas drilling rigs and pumps. Numerous little roads head out into brush often gated with a guard. It made me aware that I was now really in oil country. The little country roads that I was now taking were crowded with may oil/gas servicing vehicles all in a hurry to go some place. I guess, they were hoping to get to their job site just in time for Monday's work. No doubt, these workers might stop for a burger and beer along the way.
It was dark when I hit the outskirts of Corpus Christi. I hate trying to find my way in a strange city at night, reading a map in the dark and not sure where I am going to camp. Since I knew that Mustang Island had a state park, I pushed on through Corpus Christi until I found the park. I wasn't to pleased with the campsites as they were very close to each other so I decided to look at the beach but was uncomfortable with it. I was afraid in the dark that I might get stuck in the sand. I finally decided on the overflow lot, took a hot shower and called it a night. The next morning I paid my camping fee, the office staff wasn't to accommodating and a little rude...I think I was overcharged as well. I decided to go check out North St. Padre Island.
Padre Island is designated a “National Seashore” administered by the National Park Service. That means that with a Golden Age Pass, park entrance is free. Campgrounds charge a modest fee but I choose to camp on the primitive beach which was also free.
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| Raleigh the house on San Padre Island |
Once again from the interpretive brochure “ Located along the south Texas coast, Padre Island National Seashore protects the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the world. [It] embraces 70 miles of sand-and-shell beaches, picturesque windswept dunes, seemingly endless grasslands, tidal flats teeming with life, and warm near shore waters. Providing habitat to a wide variety of organisms, the national seashore is the most important U.S. Nesting beach for endangered kemp's ridley sea turtles, and is globally important for migrating birds.” (4)
Daily ranger and volunteer talk and tours made my visit very rewarding. I learned a little about sea life and birds. On the bird tour, in a couple of hours, our guide pointed out thirty-five different species. My appetite now whetted, I have decided to order a good bird book and begin a bird log. As the guide said, “ it can become an addiction”.
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| USS Lexington and Corpus Christi Skyline |
The City is a major deep-water port and one of Texas' most popular playgrounds. The first European to have visited the area is believed to have been Spanish explorer Alonzo de Pineda in 1519. The first settlement was a frontier trading post founded in 1839 by impresario-colonizer Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney. It was an obscure settlement until about 1845 when accelerated growth began. (5)
The original site of the Irish section of Corpus Christi now is the home of a number of period homes that have been relocated from other areas of the city. I spent a few minutes snapping a few pictures but had to leave as it was getting late in the day.
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| Victor K. Ray visiting USS Lexington |
Talking to a fellow camper one day, I learned about and old port, now abandoned called Port Indianola. It was up the coast from Corpus Christi only about 70 miles so I thought I would get visit and explore this place.
In the 1840s, German colonists landed here led by Prince Carol of Solms-Braunfels. In the 1850s, an army depot supplied the frontier forts of all Texas. Two shiploads of Arabian camels landed here, beginning that imaginative experiment of Jefferson Davis. Warehouses stored ice, that had been winter-cut on the Great Lakes.
The bustling, prosperous town survived shelling, capture and recapture during the Civil War, yellow fever epidemics, and a storm thought severe in 1866. In 1875, a hurricane wreaked havoc, killing 300 residents and destroying three-fourths of the city.
Residents rebuilt the community, but 11 years later another storm devastated the city. The county seat was moved to Port Lavaca.
Today, the tide laps a few stones of the courthouse foundation. Inches above the smooth sand, outlines of a few shattered concrete cisterns remain. Some fisherman's homes have come of late, and the state has erected a historical marker: a solitary rose granite statue of Rene Robert Cavelier, Siur de la Salle. The French explorer was first to leave a boot print on the sands of Indianola more than 300 years ago.
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| La Salle Statue, Indianola, TX |
A park is maintained along the coastline with covered picnic tables and restrooms. Free camping is allowed in the park and at Magnolia Beach two miles north. The latter park was the temporary winter home of a number of folks from Canada when I visited.
In a few days, I plan to head northwest to San Antonio,Texas to revisit the Alamo and then west and north to Guadalupe National Forest. So this is what this piasonio has discovered here this Winter in Texas. Leave a comment should you care to.
Hasta La Vista.
Su Amigo Victor
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Sources:
Sources:
- Interpretive Guide, Ft. Davis Historic Park
- Texas State Travel Guide
- Interpretive Guide Brochure, Texas Parks and Wildlife
- Brochure, National Park Service
- Texas Travel Guide
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