Out of Texas

2014/04/08

Departed Uvalde Texas on Tuesday morning and drove west on highway 90. We passed through hill country, the terrain still a mix of mesquite and scrub brush until we passed Del Rio. As we entered the Big Bend region it became increasingly desert. We stayed on 90 until we reached Marathon, a small dusty town made memorable for the $3.77 we paid for 87 octane gasoline.

Highest we've paid for fuel, so far!

Turning south on SR 285 we headed to today’s destination, Big Bend National Park. As we entered the huge park the first noticeable change is the mountains rising on each side of the road that winds through the valley. I think young and healthy hikers would like the trails that lead off into the mountain passes and plateaus, the rest of us just drive through and enjoy the scenery.

The campground in the park with electric hook ups was full so we stayed in an RV Park just outside the west park entrance. ($29 for one night) Mileage driven today 320+/-.

2014/04/09

There are two parallel roads that go from Highway 90 to Big Bend, we went to the park on one (SR385) and returned north on SR 338. Millie and I both agreed 338 is the more scenic road, even nicer than the views in the park. The only determent is the fences, power poles, etc that line the public road while the park road has no modern utilities along its road.

Big Bend Region of Texas

The beautiful mountains continued all the way to the New Mexico border. A lot of Texas we’ve seen both on this trip and previous visits looks the same, all are varying degrees of dry arid landscape. The big Bend region is also dry, but the low lands are covered with prairie grass rather than desert scrub and the mountains are rugged.

In the upper part of the Texas Big Bend region and continuing over the border into New Mexico the oil drilling and oil wells were evident again. The same operations as we had seen in the south so I’ll assume they are also Fracking for oil here too.

We drove about 30 miles into New Mexico and are camped at Brantley Lake State Park. ($18 a night) Next attraction is Carlsbad Caverns, details in next entry. 

The zig-zag route thru Texas