Chickens N Things

 

Trust me we are not totally insane ... ok, part way. On the way back from the Big Bend trip we decided to take highway 67 as far as we could back to the Dallas area. Again while that was a 600 mile trip we broke it into two parts and stopped in San Angelo for the night.

 

Again after a bit of computer research and ratings we settled on The Inn at the Art Center which is part of the art colony named the Chicken Farm. Yup.

 

As you come off MLK drive in San Angelo you enter the art compound.

 

This place is a working art colony with a dozen or so full time artists and many more who have shops here selling all sorts of ware. Below is a brief description of the two individuals, artist and handyman, who have developed both the art colony and the Inn.

The Inn is comprised of 4 rooms in the old chicken house proper. The view below is of the front entrance where you meet the hosts and get your keys. It also is the little breakfast room, fully stocked with whatever you may need for your stay, including fresh baked items in the morning. Our room was inside the two windows you see here to the right of the entry door.

From the view above if you turned right you would see the view below of the tremendous volume of personal art work that is available from the resident artisans.

Our room was so "way over the top" as to be unbelievable. It was about 500 square feet of hand made and polished wood and stone; absolutely remarkable. All the knot holes in the wall were drilled out so that you could put your wine corks in them adding to the ambiance. The inlay work on the wood was so clever and appeared to be very time consuming ... the room was a true work of art.

Inside the shower stall I referred to as the "grotto" was this hand laid stone pebble floor surrounded by ceramic flooring and other stone work ... all items reclaimed from nature or other wood projects.

After a great night with our friends, Sandy and Lawrence, we departed the Inn at the Art Center and passed by the highly regarded restaurant on the grounds. Unfortunately it was closed while we were there but the menu looked very eclectic and the ratings of it were excellent.

Fun trip and another must repeat place. We had never stopped by San Angelo even with Goodfellow AFB there, but will now put it on the list to do again.

After the wonderful night at the Art Center we got hungry as we approached Commanche on highway 67 and stopped into Rockin' J's Restaurant and Tavern for a burger. We weren't disappointed at all once you get by the ex gas station exterior, with the ambiance being quite nice and the food very good.

This concluded our trip with our great friends Sandy and Lawrence who got a taste of Texas that I think was far more than they were expecting. This trip really highlighted the distances, food, weather, and spectacular scenery that the western part of Texas has to offer.

Presidio

 

After touring the park we decided on a different road trip to the west of Lajitas some 40 miles to the border town of Presidio. This road is claimed by Texas Highways as one of the top 10 scenic in the country, so we had to give it a go.

 

This is a beautiful two lane road that follows the Rio Grande all the way from Lajitas to the little town of Presidio with views like below all the way. There are plenty of pull over spots to take pictures and on the day we went little to no traffic ... nice easy pace.

 

Arriving in Presidio we did some restaurant reviews and settled upon the El Patio place below. There were only a couple of choices for places to eat so we ventured in. This is a very typical place for a small town in very west Texas.

 

The place was busy but the owners hustled at an unbelievable pace; one owner here taking orders in rapid fire English and Spanish alternatively. We all had representative Mexican egg or brunch type dishes and everybody thought it was excellent ... especially for about $8 for a large plate of food.

 

On the way back down the same highway we did stop at one place for photos and here is Jo-Anne getting to wade across the Rio into Mexico.

At the same spot an adobe structure that represented the mud brick construction used successfully here for many hundreds of years.

And a rather prolific and beautifully shaped cactus ... wow!

Arriving back to our B&B we were greeted by this guy who enjoyed the last evening at the place with us.

 

This whole area of southwest Texas is a beautiful and spectacular piece of the world that should be on everyone's bucket list; but our time was up and the next day we piled into the trusty Terrain and began the trip back to Dallas.

 

The Park

 

We entered Big Bend National Park via the western entrance at highway 118 at Maverick Junction and the entrance station there. The park host was very knowledgeable and gave us our pass and a map of the place. Keep in mind that there are over 150 miles of road in the park so you'll only select a few during your stay.

 

We chose to do the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive first and were not disappointed. The first stop on the trip was at the Sotol Vista. This vista has spectacular views toward the Rio Grande about 20 miles away and is named for a particular cactus variety, the Sotol.

 



 

For thousands of years the natives would cook these plants for food and drink and use the fiber for ropes and sandals ... really neat. There was no explanation for the rock below but we assumed it was used in the preparation of this cactus for eating and other things.

 



 

After that vista we motored another 20 miles down to the river and the Santa Elena Canyon. The picture below is still from a vista above the canyon but you can actually keep on going down right to where you can walk to the river. It had just rained and was pretty muddy so we opted out of the hiking part, but spectacular nevertheless.

 

 

Now hungry we headed to the park headquarters in the Chisos Basin Area another 30 miles or so. The park headquarters, hotel, and restaurant are located there at about 7,000 feet altitude and really spectacular.

 

The view from our table to the north was great even if the local locust appeared to want to join us for some of the good food. The food was good and the gift shop well stocked with neat stuff representing all the aspects of the park. Next to the restaurant is also a small nature museum.

As we departed the Chisos area one more rocky outcropping with some pretty hardy trees caught our attention.

 

The park is so huge that you need to spend a lot more time than we did to really enjoy all aspects of its varying terrain, foliage, and animal life ... did see four road runners though. A wonderful day trip and we'll be back to see more ... maybe in a different season.

 

After a long day of touring and a large lunch all we needed was a snack for dinner back at the B&B. We stopped at the Lajitas store and were impressed by the huge selection of food and other articles; including some excellent freshly made deli sandwiches. Super day!

Terlingua and Lajitas

 

After our great overnight in Big Spring we headed southwest toward Pecos on I-20 and then south on 17 toward Fort Davis. The actual fort was manned by the Cavalry until the late 1800's as the US expanded westward and is a wonderful restoration of the harsh lifestyle that the Army personnel endured during this time. We've highlighted this place in earlier blogs so on to our destination.

 



From the town of Fort Davis we took 118 to the south until it intersected with 170 and then another 16 miles to Lajitas, Texas. Total miles for the day was about another 300 or so through ever changing west Texas landscape.

We arrived at our AirBnb, the Villa Sierra Rica, where we stayed for the 6th, 7th, and 8th of October. The 2 bedroom 2 bath house is in Lajitas which doesn't have a town hall per se but just a bunch of residences and a small store. The Lajitas Golf Club and Spa is the big draw there.

The house was not very clean and could have used a lot of work and updating and we wouldn't stay there again. The temperature was about 98 and the A/C in the place could barely keep up ... would be tough if we had come here in the summer!

The location though was what we were there for and the sunrise the next morning was awesome.

One of the quirks of the house was this policy ... I'm not sure why the owners just didn't put a port-a-potty out back and not expect the guests to go through this ... hey you learn, eh.

The next morning we headed toward the Big Bend adventure but had to stop for refreshment first. Our house was about 16 miles to the west of Terlingua so that was our first stop for the day. The La Posada Milagro restaurant was highly rated so became our choice. There is seating inside and out so we picked a table to look to the east and toward the park in the distance.

You walk up to the window and order your breakfast and because of customer comments we picked the eggs Benedict below. Wow ... now that's a pretty plate! For about $7 each this was a special treat so far from any large metropolitan area.

Behind our table was this "window" scene which would be a lot better if the gray sky had cooperated a bit more, but you can't make photo excellence happen.

And as we left Terlingua Ghost Town this cemetery really highlighted the stark scenery, the hard life 100 years ago here, and simplicity of it all.

Just one more thing caught our eye before heading over to the park and it was this collection by an obvious Navy veteran out here in the desert ... "Passing Wind"

After all that we will finally get to the purpose of the expedition and that was to explore the Big Bend National Park.

Big Bend Bound

 

More on that trip in a second. Toward the end of September we motored into the Flower Mound area to get set up in our apartment for the winter. First we had to put the Flying Scotsman to bed and that involved emptying it out including our faithful "Mr. Chicken" who has been with us for the last 11 years and 100,000+ miles of RVing.

 



Once all the stuff was out of the bus and it safely in its garage at the Preferred Storage place in Double Oak, we were able to think about future adventures. Well ...

Our good friends Sandy and Lawrence with whom we toured Ottawa last year suggested we go out to west Texas and the Big Bend park and view some stars ... OK. They arrived on 2 October and spent the night with us in Flower Mound and then the four of us piled into the Terrain (no RV for this one) and headed west toward the "Bend".

Because the park is about 600 miles from Dallas we broke up the trip into two days of driving ... old guys you know. A convenient stop about half was in the town of Big Spring, a town of about 25,000 folks. In the village is a completely renovated art deco hotel that we chose from their website. Good Choice!

This place was wonderfully restored into its 1930's elegance and was a favorite stop between Dallas and El Paso for many years.

These shots of the lobby above and below show the attention to detail in the restoration of this Texas landmark. The restaurant is through the door to the left in the pic below and next to it is an original phone booth.

The rooms have the finest furnishings with all the modern tech amenities yet blended with the marble and gilt and dark wood common in the 1920's before the crash. There are only five very large (500 sq ft) rooms on each floor and our room on the 12th floor offered a super view of the gorgeous pool area with waterfall ...

... and spectacular views of the west Texas region in the sunset.

The town of course is named for a large spring discovered in the mid 1800's  which offered an oasis to travelers heading along the same route we were to follow. The park is done very nicely and the spring area has some super viewing places. The temperature was about 95 degrees but on the dry side.

This choice of town was a really great place to stop. There are some neat things to see and we will always highly recommend the Settles Hotel to anyone who needs a formal place to rest along this route.

 

Finally to Flower Mound

With the Birds

 

We got unhooked from Memphis on Sunday the 9th and hit the Interstate toward Texas. This was another 290 mile day and quite comfortable with a bit of a shower on and off but the temps in the lower 80s.

 

We landed at the Sunrise RV Park just before you get to Texarkana proper and it was a new place for us. Been through Texarkana many, many times but the timing for this evening was just right.

 

This is another nice en route park and the hosts are really super.

 



The park is a fairly new remake and laid out with wide drives and nicely compacted gravel, even with the recent rains.

Here's the Flying Scotsman as we packed up the next morning and got it ready to roll. Easy hook ups and parking. No trees or other stuff but for the big rig folks that want an easy stop on the way without mud and tight spaces this is it.

That was Monday the 10th and we rolled uneventfully toward home in Flower Mound just to the northwest of Dallas. We booked 4 nights at the Twin Coves RV park and our patio view was below with two of our old friends there to greet us after another 210 miles. At first they were content to fish ...

... then recognizing us and that we were back in Texas for the first time in over 5 months, they began a synchronized welcome dance.

Then they got a bit less synchronized or amorous eh.

And then tiring of all that they gave us a final wave and were off to the other side of Lake Grapevine to continue their greeting and mating dance in private.

Gorgeous animals and what a show that just we could see upon our arrival. Much more from our place here in Flower Mound now that we are back ... and the adventure doesn't stop!

Navy Time

 

On Friday the 7th we again freed the Flying Scotsman from its mooring and continued to head southwest toward Texas. But first we stopped at the Camping World near Cave City to get the final supplies including new sewer hoses.

 

This was a smaller store but now that Camping World bought out Gander Mountain this is the new look in a much larger and combination store ... really great idea.

 



After about 290 miles we arrived in Millington Tennessee and the Mid-South Naval Support Activity, a favorite oasis for us in the center of the country. The RV park and all the facilities there offer a really nice secure place to spend a couple of days and do the needed shopping and rest before the final run; at $21 a night a really great bargain for all Canadian and US military and government retirees.

Across from us was this really fascinating RV with a lot of apparent features in a really compact space for an off road experience. We looked at several of them on line yet couldn't find the make or manufacturer of the thing; but obviously it has a grey water outlet and power connections. The owner came by shortly and opened the rear which houses the kitchen area with fridge, stove, and sink.

 

Then a really neat visitor just beside our RV came to graze. We have spent many hours and miles in Canada looking for animal life and yet here on base were two of these small deer ... wow!

 

And it does rain a bit. The owner of the small rig across from us came home and spent the stormy night in the little mobile cabin ... you can just see the Jeep in front of it ... cozy I guess.

Off on the 9th for Texarkana as the final stop before getting to the Dallas area.