Texas has a wonderful National Park – Big Bend National Park! We made an autumn trip to that area a few
years ago. Since that last part of our
big adventure included many of our National Parks, I thought it only fair to
include Big Bend.
Our trip out west took us first to the town of Ft. Stockton, which is nestled
in the foothills of the Davis Mountains.
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| Jeff Davis County Courthouse |
Nearby historic Fort Davis
was a key post in the defense of western Texas from 1854 until 1981. In the mid-19th-century it was
part of the US Army Camel Experiment where camels were used as pack animals.
In a post earlier this year I mentioned the Davis Mountains State Park
and Indian Lodge.
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| Indian Lodge |
This is a great place to stay to attend a Star Party at the McDonald
Observatory! We visited the Observatory
during the day to explore the Visitor Center and then returned later that night
to see stars through the many types of telescopes available.
After exploring the Davis Mountains area we headed south to Marfa.
Marfa has become a major tourist destination for art with the Chinati
Foundation as its gem.
The Chinati Foundation, located on the old Fort Russell military base,
is a contemporary art museum founded by Donald Judd. The emphasis is on how these large-scale
installations are linked by the surrounding landscape. The permanent collection features Judd’s outdoor
works made of concrete and 100 works of aluminum in 2 of the converted
artillery sheds.
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| Donald Judd |
Dan Flavin’s work is also featured at Chinati in 6 former barracks
buildings. His installation of colored
florescent lights are my favorite!
Other
favorite sculptors of mine are Claes Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen. They were friends of Donald Judd and when
they visited in 1987 they noticed a marker on the grounds and Judd explained it
was the grave of the last cavalry horse.
As a gift to the museum, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created this equestrian
sculpture!
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| Monument to the Last Horse by Oldenburg & van Bruggen |
The
town has many artisan shops, galleries and historical architecture and is fun
to explore.
On
our way to Alpine we had to make a stop at the Marfa Lights Viewing
Center. Sadly we didn’t see the famed
Marfa Lights that evening. ☹ However, the 3 intoxicated guys standing next to us did see the Marfa Lights!
Alpine
is a great home-base to explore Big Bend National Park -unless you get lucky
and get a space within the park. Home of
Sul Ross University, Alpine has a number of motels and restaurants as it’s a
college town.
We
visited the Museum of the Big
Bend which is located on the campus of Sul Ross University. The permanent exhibit, The
Big Bend Legacy, presents the natural and human history of the Big Bend Region. They offer a variety of special exhibitions
and when we visited we saw the exhibition Tom Lea: A Retrospective. I was very much aware of Lea’s murals and illustrations
of Western scenes. At this exhibition I
learned more about Lea’s work during WWII as an artist-correspondent for Life magazine. He traveled more than 100,000 miles to
document troop activities from Greenland to China and throughout the Pacific. What
a treat!
From
Alpine we headed toward Terlingua, now a ghost town.
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| Cemetary |
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| Starlight Theatre |
We
entered Big Bend National Park
from the west and headed toward Chisos Basin, in the heart of the park. As
we climbed on Chisos Basin Road the landscape became more mountainous and was
covered with many varieties of cactus:
At a
height of 5401 feet we had one of the most spectacular views through “The
Window”:
After
our visit in the park we headed north to Marathon. A popular hotel and restaurant is the historic
Gage Hotel & 12 Gauge Restaurant. A hidden
gem in Marathon are the Gage Gardens. We
took a leisurely stroll through these beautiful gardens after dinner.
We
opted to stay at a fun Bed & Breakfast instead and this was our reward – a beautiful
sunset to end our beautiful journey to the Big Bend region!
I WISH YOU ALL A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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| Wendy & Penelope wish you a Merry Christmas, too! |
