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Jan 17 2017

Wander West Texas

Why we wentSnapseed-e1479581884600 Wander West Texas

The Hipster (my son) was turning 29 and longed to visit West Texas.  I’m the hippie in this buddy movie, newly unhooked from 36 years of looking at the ass of the mule (my media career) and plowing endless rows.  Not sure how long I would elect to be unemployed, I was taking time to travel and blog about poking around peculiar places.  My son and I loved the idea of train travel and wanted to see if the reality lived up to the fantasy.  It was up to him to find a week that worked for him to take time off from his land survey job.  When he found out that Thee Oh Sees were playing on his birthday (11/2) and in El Paso, the planets seemed to line up for us to finally get to ride the rails in the west.

How we traveled:

It might seem strange but El Paso was a perfect starting point for this adventure.  It was 745 miles from Houston, in a different time zone and seemingly in a different country.  It was easy to fly there via Southwest Airlines from nearby Houston Hobby airport.  Most importantly, it was a major stop on Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. The afternoon after Thee Oh Sees concert, we could hop the eastbound train back for a three-four hour ride to Alpine, which was the gateway to Big Bend.



We’d rent a car in Alpine from the one car rental place in the region then meander through Terlingua, Big Bend National Park, and Marfa before returning it four days later.  Back in Alpine on Monday evening, we’d once again catch the Sunset Limited.   This time we’d travel in a sleeper car for fifteen hours throughout the night and the next day back to Houston.  Check back for more to come about our train experiences .

 

Where We Went:

El Paso –

We had no firm expectations of El Paso for anything  more than an overnight stop before we started our real adventure in the Big Bend area of Texas.  This turned out to be so wrong.  Discovering El Paso  was like going into to your closet and finding that a shirt you had passed over for years turned out to be right with your new pair of jeans.  I’d always considered El Paso just a place to bookend the Texas portion of 1-10 on the west, like Beaumont did to the east.   El Paso wasn’t  just a bookend.  It was a gripping first chapter.  Outlaws, affairs, alligators and more. Read more here  on our El Paso adventure .IMG_2438-1080x530 Wander West Texas

Alpine –

Because there are no p.a. announcements on the Sunset Limited between 10p to 7a, Alpine snuck up on many people, the hipster included.  We were snoozing in our reclining seats as we whizzed through West Texas.  Shane was wearing his earsbuds and missed the car attendant walking thru  and softly telling us that we would stop in Alpine for a few minutes.  The stop would be  just long enough for the smokers to light up on the platform.  Shane startled and struggled to catch up as I grabbed my luggage and practically leaped off the train.

IMG_2488-e1479591435318-900x530 Wander West TexasAlpine was our jumping off spot into Big Bend country.  We’d arrived at the Alpine station in a cold mist around midnight and found our 1920’s hotel just across the street.  Too late to visit the bar, we picked up our keys from the deserted front desk and made sure we could get into our room.   Then we went downstairs to explore the sleeping old hotel with parlors and a courtyard and photographs of a cowboy walking a full-grown javelina.  Like El Paso, Alpine offered more than we had anticipated.  From an earless pocket pitbull waiting for adoption behind the hotel reception desk to eating in the original humble home of what was now one of Ft. Worth’s most colorful restaurants, Alpine set the stage for “western” part of our foray.  Read back to learn more about our day(s) in Alpine.

Terlingua – The Ghost Town –

When I planned our trip, Terlingua was the main destination.  Lots of “signs” and omens were pulling on us.  We’d visited Terlingua when Shane was 12 and explored it  during a crowded day.  Since then, I’d met a man who did a documentary about the “quicksilver” miners from the 20’s.  The filmmaker gave me an old flyer about the film.  Days later, a friend was visiting and saw the flyer on my desk.  The friend had worked on that very documentary while a student at Rice many years ago.

Also, I’d lost a mentor around this time two years ago.  That mentor had not only taught me  media, she’d introduced me to the Chili cook-off culture.  The huge CASI Chili cook-off (Chili Appreciation Society International) was celebrating it’s 50th annual event in Terlingua during the weekend we were going to visit.   We would base out of Alice the Airstream, just 170 steps from Terlingua’s boot hill cemetery.  It was funky, frightening and felt like we had left this dimension for a few days.  Read more about Terlingua here.IMG_2589-1080x530 Wander West Texas

Big Bend National Park –

While we spent casual evenings in Terlingua, each day we put on hiking stuff  and drove 20 miles to the entrance to Big Bend National Park.  For $25 per car, you can take seven days to explore the 800,000-acre national park, which contains three different landscapes: river, desert, and mountains.  Think of it as a triple pass at an amusement park only this park’s thrills present real danger. 

Recent rains had ushered in the berry and nut crop and the bears were “active” to put it mildly.  The wall map in the visitor center at Chisos Mountain looked like an “ideation” board in a corporate brainstorming session.  Z dozen or so little yellow post it notes covered the map, all pinpointing bear-sightings with date and time (many that same day).  Some popular campsites and trails were closed to keep backpackers from having a closer relationship with the bears than was safe for either species.  A ranger stressed that there were only about 25 or so bears in Big Bend and the same limited number of mountain lions.  The problem was that most of these animals lived in the Chisos Mountains area.   And it would only take one bear to have me screaming down the mountain.  Read more about our Big Bend time here.

The River Road, Marfa and Fort Davis –

IMG_2631-1-e1479592125546-960x530 Wander West TexasWe left Big Bend in the afternoon of the first day of daylight savings time.  That could be unnerving because you should  make this next drive during daylight –  River Road through Lajitas and the 300,000 acre Big Bend Ranch State Park all the way to Presidio.  It is hard to find a more remote roadway .  The trail straddles the rugged shared frontier between Texas and Mexico.  The area has been called El Despoblado, or “The Uninhabited.” And makes you feel like you feel like you are driving through an establishing shot in “No Country For Old Men”.

Marfa suffered from our high expectations and the fact we arrived on a Sunday evening.  Better to have no or low expectations.  But disappointment in Marfa drove us to Fort Davis.   Here we lunched with  a view of the old fort that we shared with the ghosts of the CCC builders of that state park.    Check back for more about our the River Road, Marfa, Fort Davis and a return to Alpine .

 

signature Wander West Texas

Filed Under: Past, Places, Texas, West Texas · Tagged: Sunset Limited, West Texas

Jul 14 2016

Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel Lighthouse

A_view_of_So_Padre_Island_from_atop_the_Lighthouse_in_Port_Isabel_TX._8147249508-300x194 Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel Lighthouse
View of South Padres Island from Lighthouse by By Isaac “AYE MIRA” Sanchez from Austin, TX, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

I hadn’t set out to climb the Port Isabel lighthouse so why was I gripping the cold rail on its  highest landing, trying to slow down my breathing so I wouldn’t pass out and tumble down the 75 iron steps?  Ted was to blame.  And it was getting worse.  This last landing was too small for more than one person to stand on.  There were two people up in the light chamber above me who needed to come down and I was blocking their way.  It would be humiliating to climb back down the stairs when it was obvious I had come all this way and decided not to climb the short ladder to the chamber.  “We’ll stand back against the glass so you can on climb up.  Then we can climb down,” the couple said.  They were waiting.  In a fog, I let go of the landing railing and reached up to grab the last ladder.  My strappy sandals made my feet wobble on the rungs.  Pulling myself up over the lip of the chamber floor, I faced the friendly couple.  They loved this lofty view of South Padre Island  across the Laguna Madre.  They pointed out their family five stories below on the lighthouse hill.  I faked enthusiasm until they climbed back down one by one. Then I exhaled and walked quickly around the circumference of the light chamber, looking out and across but never down.


lighthouse Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel LighthouseOf the 16 lighthouse structures still around, the Port Isabel Lighthouse was the only one open to the public.  Built in the early 1850’s, it had been manned by both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.  I walked over to the lighthouse just to get an inside view of it.  My 90-year-old mother was “at work” that Tuesday at the dog resale shop on the island.  I had just been let go after 36 years in Houston media and was visiting my mom for a few days to reboot.  Walking around old Port Isabel was a chore for her, so I took advantage of her work schedule to drive across the Queen Isabella causeway and meander.

“It is $2.50 to climb the lighthouse and there are just two people ahead of you so you can go right up,” said a young woman sitting  at a desk partially hidden by the first spiral of the stairs.  I was ready with an excuse when Ted caught me unaware.  “Pay the lady and get your ass up those steps.”  “Can I climb in these shoes?”  I asked the woman, hoping not.  “Sure,” she said as she reached out for the money.

The cool concrete walls hugged the  spiral stair structure.   As I counted off the first few dozen stairs, I was surprisingly calm in this cocoon.  “Maybe I’ve outgrown this height thing,” I thought.  “No,” panic answered, “Just waiting for the halfway point, right about …now!”  I went from bounding up the steps with one hand on the railing to carefully placing my foot on each step and gripping on to the support with both hands in an uncomfortable sideways position.  Upward progress almost stopped as I mimicked the slow, halting way my mom handled the stairs of her beach house.  When I got to that last landing, the friendly couple took over from Ted to get me up that last ladder.

I was still shaky on the way down and while walking over to the little beer garden in the shade of the lighthouse.  After a glass of wine to settle down, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Ted’s mom, Katie.  “Happy Ted Tuesday.  In true Ted fashion, I faced my fear of heights and climbed the Port Isabel Lighthouse by myself.  I was scared to death but I did it.  Grab life, face fear!”

full-frame-ted-e1468513735587 Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel LighthouseI had not heard from Katie in many years but now we had been in regular contact since two weeks before Christmas.  I got a text early that Saturday morning to call her.  “Ted was killed last night,” she said when she answered my call.  I did not think I’d heard her right.   Ted was a recent graduate of the A&M maritime college in Galveston and was working on tugboats out of Corpus Christi.  He worked one week on and one week off.  He was at home in Galveston and died in a one-car accident near Jamaica beach the night before.

“I need you to break it to Molly so she can tell Clark,” said Katie.  Clark was Ted’s best friend. Clark and his wife had had just had a baby and Ted was to be baby Everett’s godparent.  My daughter Molly was part of this foursome that hung around together.  They had reconnected when Molly returned from five years in southern California.

“Call me,” I texted Molly.  She immediately called back.  “Is it Earl?”  Earl was our very old terrier that defies the years.   There was no way to make this news any better.  “No, It’s Ted Harrison.  He was killed last night.  Katie would like you to break it to Clark.”  The silence was her brain seizing up before it had to turn in a new direction.  “No Mom. No, not Ted, It can’t be Ted,” Molly was crying.

The next few days are still out of focus.  A gathering happened at Katie’s house.  George, a family friend from the Cleburne Cafeteria showed up and filled the small kitchen with pans of fried chicken, squash casserole, macaroni and cheese, green beans and other comfort food.  After all, this was Greek gathering and there is always lots of food.

Ted’s little sister worshiped her big brother and took videos of him.  Here was one of Ted screaming at Nia to “MAKE COOKIES” like piratical cookie monster. At Christmas, he had been surprised with a Yeti cooler and could not stop shouting the f-word in delight.  “It’s a f—- Yeti!” he roared.

w0143210-1_20151215 Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel LighthouseAnnunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Montrose was filled to capacity with people up in the balconies and leaning  against  the walls across the back and down each side of the church.   Ted’s mother, father, brother, sister and yaya all stood on the altar before the service for over two hours as we all  lined up to hug them and pass by Ted in his open casket,  dressed in his maritime dress whites.

That crazy Zach Galifanakis beard was gone.  He still had that beard in the last photos from the night he died.  Three priests presided over the ceremony.  A bus took Galveston friends to the cemetery and back to the church for a reception.  I had known Ted as a little boy.  That day, through his friends and family I was meeting Ted the man, who lived life full out.ted-collage Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel Lighthouse

“Tuesdays are going to be the hardest,” Katie said when we had a moment to hug.  “He’d call me each week as he shipped out or came back.”

A few days later, my son, Shane and I went to Galveston to spend some of the Christmas vacation.  I was conscious of how lucky I was to have my son healthy and here with me.

Most nights, something in me triggers a period of wakefulness around 3 am.  Tonight it was thinking about Katie and how hard Tuesdays would be from now on.  I reached for my phone and set a recurring reminder for every Tuesday at 8a.  Since then, every Tuesday, Katie and I exchange a text about what each “Ted Tuesday” holds for us.  It has become a mid-week mediation on how life is to be lived, dreams acted on, and fears faced.  Ted was to blame for trek to the top of the lighthouse.  May he curse me with many more motivations.

 

signature Ted Tuesday and the Port Isabel Lighthouse

Filed Under: Attitude, Places, South Padre Island, Texas · Tagged: fear of heights, Port Isabel Lighthouse, Ted Harrison

Aug 19 2014

Boca Chica Beach – Why you should visit before SpaceX lands

POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.

Wish your kids or grand kids could experience how a day at the beach used to be?  Remember crowding into your parent’s station wagon with all your gear, looking for the perfect spot?  Spreading out for the entire day.  No t-shirt or fast food joints.  No crowds.  That’s exactly why you should visit Boca Chica Beach before SpaceX lands.  ‘Cause it is all going to change.

Boca-Chica-why-visit-before-SpaceX-lands-sea-turtles-nesting-ground-1-350x400 Boca Chica Beach – Why you should visit before SpaceX landsIs there anything special here?

Ever since 2014, when SpaceX confirmed plans to build a launch facility on Boca Chica, I’ve been worried. What will happen to this isolated gem when tourism takes over? 

Right after the announcement, three of us loaded into a Mini-Cooper to visit the area before those rockets arrive.  With a Civil War battlefield, nearly abandoned settlements, and a big open coastline, you want to see it now, before everything changes.  Or worse, before some things are completely lost.

[Read more…]

signature Boca Chica Beach – Why you should visit before SpaceX lands

Filed Under: Boca Chica, Places, South Padre Island, Spring Break, Texas · Tagged: beach combing, Boca Chica Beach, German American Northern Sympathizers, Mouth of the Rio Grande River, Old Baghdad in Mexico, Space X

Aug 12 2014

Boca Chica Texas – From the Civil War to SpaceX

SpaceX and last battle of the Civil War

The unluckiest Union Soldier in the Civil War saw combat on the road between Brownsville and the Gulf of Mexico.  Just a few miles separate the new launch site of SpaceX and the very last battle of the Civil War, fought at Palmito Ranch.  Here  John Jefferson Williams (1843 – May 13, 1865) became  the last Union soldier to die in a skirmish that took place 37 days after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.  Poor John.

 

 

7393936578_4df175847e_q Boca Chica Texas - From the Civil War to SpaceX
By US Army Center for Military history – The last battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch By Jeffrey William Hunt, Published by University of Texas Press, Public Domain, 

Bad dirt or bad timing?

The battlefield area is as lonely as it probably was when Pvt. Williams fought here, only four miles from a barely alive ghost town on TX SH 4.  That settlement is now named Boca Chica Village.  Boca Chica Village has gone through three names since it was founded on this far south Texas coast in 1967, just months before Hurricane Beulah paid it a visit.  Sounds like in each case, timing was not in Williams or Boca Chica Village’s favor.

Maybe timing is right for Elon Musk’s  SpaceX .  This sparsely inhabited stretch of coast is priced right and ready for some recognition.  When the SpaceX deal was announced in 2014, it felt like time  to visit  this Battlefield, Boca Chica Village and the  beach that stretched to where the Rio Grande River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico.  Our adventure starts here.

[Read more…]

signature Boca Chica Texas - From the Civil War to SpaceX

Filed Under: All Categories, Boca Chica, Places, South Padre Island, Texas · Tagged: Battle of Palmitto Hill, Civil War, Hurrican Buelah, Last Union Casualty of American Civil War, Palmito, Space X

Apr 29 2013

Todd’s Farewell Journey – El Venado Ranch, Laredo, Texas

big-head-todd-270x300 Todd's Farewell Journey - El Venado Ranch, Laredo, TexasI had a complicated relationship with Todd, the younger of our two rescue terrierists but still I was sad to find out his immensely swollen belly was not the result of another Buccee’s fudge raid.  It turned out to be an aggressive kind of spleen cancer.  Never at his best when he was scared or uncomfortable, we decided to make it as pleasant as possible for all of us during Todd’s remaining days – strangely estimated to be 19 to 37 days from the research we did on the web. He rode in the red truck, got Wendy’s kids meals and went to ranch in Laredo, Texas

 

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signature Todd's Farewell Journey - El Venado Ranch, Laredo, Texas

Filed Under: Laredo, Places, Texas · Tagged: Dogs, Hunting, ranch life

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