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.