Hello all…It’s been a while since you have heard from me but that is because I kinda fell off the internet map for a while. Left on Friday, April 5 for a 7 day photo junkie journey to west Texas’ Big Bend region. About 80% into the drive lost cell, internet and anything else we have all grown so accustomed to…yeah, basically all communication with he outside world ended. Really wasn’t all that bad! 🙂

Thought I’d journal our days beginning with the official day one being Saturday when we all arrived…Let me digress for a moment. The “we” are four other photographers that are part of a Dallas photo meetup group; really didn’t know each other well other than to say hi at a meetup. An idea to go to Big Bend was thrown out there a few months ago, Dave and Greg really pulled it all together and it ended up that Dave, Jeremy, Lety, her son Matt and myself were the only ones that could make it. We each drove separately and met up on Saturday afternoon at our first lodging.

I left Ft. Stockton at 6am wanting to get an early start on the final leg. Ft. Stockton would be the last “city” on the journey as I was heading southwest past Alpine, Marfa and then to the border town of Presidio…these are small towns with small populations….and lots of miles in between. I choose the longer scenic route thru Big Bend Ranch State park. This drive has been rated as one of the best scenic routes in America. It follows the Rio Grande for 70 miles with an average speed limit of about 40 due to the curves and hills. (most rural roads in TX have a 75 – 80 MPH speed limit).  All along route 170 there are trails thru the park, overlooks and just absolutely beautiful scenery. Took me about 4 hours to drive

that 70 miles because I kept pulling over to take in the sights.  If anyone of you ever head down that way be sure to take the ride!  One of the stops was at Contrabando Movie Set Sight; this was a small village  (about 4 buildings) on the river built to shoot the movie “Streets of Laredo” in 1995.  This site has been subsequently used for about 5 other western movies…really cool place!

Ended the drive at  Terlingua Ghost Town where we would be lodging for 2  nights at the fascinating home of Cynta.  She built the house from ruins pretty much only with her own hands….it was just fantastic.  There is a porch on every side of the house so no matter what direction you want to look you have a place to relax and enjoy it all!  (check out the website  villaterlingua.com).

Everyone had made it by 6pm, pretty tired from the drive so we just wandered the town that evening and enjoyed the porch until about 11pm.  Our first sunset of the trip…

 

Tomorrow…Day Two