Day 24: Fort Stockton, TX to Elk City, OK

Stops:

Amarillo, TX

Conway, TX

Shamrock, TX

The drive between Fort Stockton to Amarillo is quite mundane, but the fast speed limits help it go by faster.  There aren't really any interstates that run North to South in West Texas, so you have to take many isolated state highways.

Amarillo is in the panhandle of Texas, which is also our inflection point to Oklahoma.  It is also known for an ever changing art exhibit known as Cadillac Ranch. 10 Cadillacs buried at an angle, nose first into the ground, where the public is allowed to become graffiti artists and paint what they want to.  Every day, the installation is unique because of this.

A lesser known exhibit is in Conway, TX, known as Bug Ranch, where 5 VW bugs are buried in a similar fashion.

There is also a famous steakhouse in Amarillo called The Big Texan. If you can eat a 72 oz steak and all the sides in 1 hour, you get your meal free. If you fail, you pay $72. Only 1 out of 10 attempts succeed.  Everyone from a young boy to a 69 year old grandma have won.  

I40 follows part of Route 66 and there is great old historic ConocoPhillips gas station in Shamrock, TX that is worth a quick visit.

We finally arrived in Elk City, OK where that darn storm caught up to us again.  After parking in Wal-Mart, the edge of the storm caught us, rocking the van with 60 MPH winds and large amounts of rain.  For a moment, I thought the winds would push us over on our side.  Finally, the worst of the storm was over and the sounds of the rain hitting the roof if the van put me to sleep.

Day 23: Marathon, TX to Fort Stockton, TX

Stops:

Big Bend NP

We woke up in the morning with the electricity back on. A quick shower and we were rolling down the road towards Big Bend NP. We passed up another Immigration checkpoint.  We'll have to deal with them on the way out.

The storm from last night had passed with the sun breaking through the clouds. It was going to be a beautiful day. 

Big Bend is full of wildlife at dawn.  We saw turkey vultures, a western coachwhip snake (non-venomous), a pack of javelinas, road runners, rabbits, and many species of birds. We even saw some cows trying to illegally cross from Mexico to the US.

Yes, the Rio Grande river is a natural border between the US and Mexico which would explain the high concentration of US Border Patrol agents.

The Chisos Mountains dominate the backdrop to the park, but you can also see the canyon walls of Mexico which were carved out by the Rio Grande. The crack in the canyon walls is where the Rio Grande forks. The area is known as the Santa Elena Canyon.  The left side is Mexico and the right side is the US. 

We wanted to hike the right side, but the storms of the previous night flooded the trailhead making it impassable for at least a few days.

Just outside of the park is the Terlingua Ghost Town. When you come upon it, the first thing you see is the cemetery followed by the ruins of houses. Terlingua was a once a mining town.

The Window Trail, which starts off by the Chisos Mountain campground, leads you to a crack in the rock which overlooks the canyon floor.  The rock was almost glasslike, thanks to the running water that was once there. Some of the rocks look like stacked thin layers stuck together.

Here, we encountered monarch butterflies, very loud cicadas, dragonflies, and mule deer. There were sightings of a small black bear, but we didn't come upon it. BTW, every region of Big Bend is covered by at least one mountain lion.

The trail also has large agave plants. For comparison, you can see how tall one is. Everything's bigger in Texas, even the centipedes

The Boquilles Canyon is near the Rio Grand Village in Big Bend. You can see houses in Mexico from there and it makes for a beautiful place to watch the sun set. On our way there we spotted a rattlesnake next to the road. Did you know that the coachwhip snake actually eats rattlesnakes?

Time to leave the park and head out to Fort Stockton, TX.  We finally came across that immigration checkpoint that I mentioned earlier.  With 3 agents checking out Moby and a drug sniffing dog, we carried a short little conversation before being allowed to continue.  Should be the last one we need to deal with.

Day 22: Carlsbad, NM to Marathon, TX

Stops:

Guadalupe Mountains NP, TX

Marfa, TX

Marathon, TX

As you enter Texas from New Mexico, you'll come upon the beautiful, tall stalks with red and yellow flowery pads on them known as the agave plant.  They are really quite unique, but we will get more into those tomorrow.

You'll come upon the Guadalupe Mountains and a rocky outcrop known as El Capitan.  Guadalupe peak is the highest point in Texas at 8751 ft.  Here you will also find the Texas Madrone and Texas Mahogany trees.

This is mostly a hiking park, but most the good hikes are 9 miles and uphill. We just didn't have time for it this time around. Maybe a future trip us warranted as the movie at the visitors center made it seem so.

Our next stop is a Prada storefront in the middle of nowhere Texas.  It is an art installation commissioned by Ballroom Marfa. You can't actually enter the store. The door doesn't open. It is a neat and random thing to come upon.  People leave their business cards on it on the backside of the exhibit. It is complete with shoes and purses from the 2005 collection and hand picked by designer Prada herself.

We also ran across this playboy bunny art exhibit.  I believe it is still in progress.  Hugh Hefner owns the land and the exhibit. The locals mostly don't like it though. 

Marfa's big thing is its artist studios. Lots of galleries to visit.  When we arrived, we took a break in a nearby DQ and shortly after, the air siren was blowing indicating a possible tornado warning.

We decided to not hang and find out.  We quickly left town and headed towards Marathon, TX, the town along the road to Big Bend NP.  Just outside of Marfa was another strange phenomena known as the Marfa Mystery Lights.  These lights mysteriously appear in the pictured area of the mountain, below, where the range goes down on both sides. No one has a definitive answer as to what the lights are, but many have speculated.

There's not much in Marathon, TX, but it does have the historical Gage Hotel, a cattleman's house that was converted to the hotel.  It has a very western theme.   We  decided that with sore and sweaty bodies, it was finally time to relax and pamper ourselves with a dip in the pool, a hot shower, and dinner and drinks.

Remember that storm I told you about earlier in Marfa?  Well, it finally caught up to us.  We managed to get our dip in the pool, but when we returned to the room, the lights started to flicker before it finally went out......FOR GOOD!  We tried to make the most of the evening light, catching up with other guests at the bar before heading to our room.  Still no light and the sun was setting.  

It was actually kind of fun, moving around the resort with nothing but flashlights, and luckily it didn't get too hot. However, it was a resort and we couldn't fully use it without electricity, so we finally just went to sleep.  

In the morning we found out that the storm knocked down one of the main power poles into town and it takes a long time for anything to get fixed when you are in the middle of nowhere.