Busy Traveling

As mentioned in the prior posting, Sunday was a day to travel into the Big Bend area.  We stopped for two nights just to the west of the national park in an area called Lajitas, at a nice resort type campground.

 

This is not really a town, but it does have a mayor (who is a goat)

 For more details of Mayor Henry, see https://www.nationalparkreservations.com/article/lajitas-mayor-clay-henry/  

On Monday we passed through Terlingua, a former ghost town which has become famous for its chili cookoff competitions, on our way to the park itself.  Big Bend is a huge park and is so far out of most peoples’ way that it is also lightly used, see https://www.nationalparkreservations.com/park/bigbend-national-park/map/ for more information.  One of the park’s highlights is the mouth of the Santa Elena Canyon.  This is where the Rio Grande comes out of a narrow rock canyon into a wider flood plain.  Mexico is on the far side of this river.  To save 30 miles of paved road, we got there on a 13 mile dirt road; 4 wheel drive was not required, but high clearance helps and it was dry today.

 

Another highlight is the Windows View Trail.  We drove the paved Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to get there, including driving up a mountain to the nearby visitors’ center.  The top was socked in by clouds with a heavy mist in the air making it hard to see across the parking lot, so we skipped the hike and returned home.

Tuesday was another moving day.  Many cactus were in bloom:

 

The Texas Hill country was too far away for a single day, so we stopped in Sanderson TX.  We learned that the Big Bend Open Road Race is scheduled for later this week and Sanderson will be the turn-around point.  There were 2 RV’s in the campground with us that brought cars for the event.  After a week full of registration, inspections, qualifying and meetings, on Saturday US 90 is closed to all public traffic and becomes a timed road course for about 59 miles.  The drivers’ objective is to maintain a particular average speed and get to the finish line at the right time.  Target speeds range from 85 to 150 mph.  Cars leave individually in the order of their target times, so there shouldn’t be any need for passing.  After every one has gone south, they turn it around and every car is timed north.  We didn’t stick around to watch someone roar past, but we did cruise by the tech inspection area:

 

On Wednesday we left Sanderson, headed to Hill Country.  Just after a mid-day stop in Del Rio we crossed the 100 degree Longitude line, leaving the West behind.  Now we are in an area where rivers actually contain water, row crops are planted, and the real color of green exists, not the desert’s pale shade.  It is also quite humid, something we haven’t felt for many months.

We planned to sample some of the Hill Country’s scenery on the motorcycle, but the sky was dark and the forecast was for rain.  The V-Strom went back on the lift and we jumped into the truck, and had a gorgeous sunny day, but no photos.