From Marfa we drove south to the border at Presidio and turned left to follow the Rio Grande to Lajitas - Mexico on our right and the Big Bend Ranch State Park on our left. This drive was incredibly scenic. When we arrived at the Badlands Hotel, designed to look like an old town from the Wild West, there were not many other guests, and of those there we were definitely the youngest. Seeing as we were in Texas, we figured we should learn how to shoot and ride good. That afternoon we were taken out to a shooting range that looked like an old film set of a town from a Western. We learnt how to shoot a colt .45 revolver, a Winchester .45 lever action rifle, and a sawn-off shotgun. We were all very good shots, and the rifle and revolver were the favourite weapons. Shelly definitely looked the part with her boots and her Stetson hat, and Jon's practice at first-person shooter games seems to have paid off.
The next morning Shelly and I embarked on a sunrise horse trail ride. I was very happy to be given the disabled kids' horse (Clovis) given my lack of equine familiarity, and Shelly got a pretty and feisty horse called Poncho. It was just us and the instructor (the lady who taught us how to shoot) wandering along canyons and up on mesa tops in the early morning light. It was nice to see the desert landscape and the birds (including a roadrunner! They're everywhere at Big Bend!) from a different perspective. It was also cool to ride a Western-style saddle.
The rest of the day was spent playing phone tag with a birder I was hoping could take us out the following morning, and we ventured down to check out the Rio Grande up close. That evening we went to the old ghost town of Terlingua to the Starlight Theatre (spelling is correct!) for a great dinner with live music and awesome margaritas. It was here we tried our first meat-fried-in-other-meat-fat dish - antelope fried in chicken. The Starlight was the local cinema in the olden days (1930s and 40s) when the local mercury mine was still active. After the mercury mines were no longer profitable, everyone left the area and the town became a ghost town. Recently, people have returned and started reinhabiting the buildings and it seems to be quite an arty and free-spirited community.
Very early the next morning, we returned to the Starlight to rendezvous with Betty the birder. It turns out that Betty helped work on saving peregrine falcons and Californian condors in the US, and so knew exactly what raptors were present and nesting in the Park. She took us to Cottonwood Campground in Big Bend NP and we saw many new birds, such as summer tanager, nesting grey hawks and yellow-breasted chat. We continued on to Santa Elena Canyon and had lunch with a spectacular view in the Chisos Mountains in a very nice 1970s dining room. We then went to the Rio Grande Village Campground to see nesting common black hawks.
We then drove out of the Park to Marathon, via a Border Patrol station. This time they did want to see our passports, and although they were happy with me and Jon getting out of the car to present them to the armed officers, Shelly was instructed to immediately return to the car. Clearly an untrustworthy alien. Upon arrival at Marathon, we decided we needed some road-trip ice-creams. Except Americans don't really seem to be into ice-creams. So our choice was somewhat limited (surprisingly for American consumer goods), but Shelly and Jon did find the frozen Snickers bars appealing. Jon also bought some Mexican candy, which had salt, sugar and tamarillo in it, and tasted as good as that sounds. We then continued along the border to Del Rio, where we were greeted by gorgeous scissor-tailed flycatchers. Dinner was at a suburban family-run Mexican place where Shelly unknowingly ordered two plates of food, one of which was a plate of steak. The food here was very tasty, and Shelly even managed to eat most of her food. We sampled cool Mexican soft drinks here too - pineapple and strawberry flavoured.
From Marfa we drove south to the border at Presidio and turned left to follow the Rio Grande to Lajitas - Mexico on our right and the Big Bend Ranch State Park on our left. This drive was incredibly scenic. When we arrived at the Badlands Hotel, designed to look like an old town from the Wild West, there were not many other guests, and of those there we were definitely the youngest. Seeing as we were in Texas, we figured we should learn how to shoot and ride good. That afternoon we were taken out to a shooting range that looked like an old film set of a town from a Western. We learnt how to shoot a colt .45 revolver, a Winchester .45 lever action rifle, and a sawn-off shotgun. We were all very good shots, and the rifle and revolver were the favourite weapons. Shelly definitely looked the part with her boots and her Stetson hat, and Jon's practice at first-person shooter games seems to have paid off.
The next morning Shelly and I embarked on a sunrise horse trail ride. I was very happy to be given the disabled kids' horse (Clovis) given my lack of equine familiarity, and Shelly got a pretty and feisty horse called Poncho. It was just us and the instructor (the lady who taught us how to shoot) wandering along canyons and up on mesa tops in the early morning light. It was nice to see the desert landscape and the birds (including a roadrunner! They're everywhere at Big Bend!) from a different perspective. It was also cool to ride a Western-style saddle.
The rest of the day was spent playing phone tag with a birder I was hoping could take us out the following morning, and we ventured down to check out the Rio Grande up close. That evening we went to the old ghost town of Terlingua to the Starlight Theatre (spelling is correct!) for a great dinner with live music and awesome margaritas. It was here we tried our first meat-fried-in-other-meat-fat dish - antelope fried in chicken. The Starlight was the local cinema in the olden days (1930s and 40s) when the local mercury mine was still active. After the mercury mines were no longer profitable, everyone left the area and the town became a ghost town. Recently, people have returned and started reinhabiting the buildings and it seems to be quite an arty and free-spirited community.
Very early the next morning, we returned to the Starlight to rendezvous with Betty the birder. It turns out that Betty helped work on saving peregrine falcons and Californian condors in the US, and so knew exactly what raptors were present and nesting in the Park. She took us to Cottonwood Campground in Big Bend NP and we saw many new birds, such as summer tanager, nesting grey hawks and yellow-breasted chat. We continued on to Santa Elena Canyon and had lunch with a spectacular view in the Chisos Mountains in a very nice 1970s dining room. We then went to the Rio Grande Village Campground to see nesting common black hawks.
We then drove out of the Park to Marathon, via a Border Patrol station. This time they did want to see our passports, and although they were happy with me and Jon getting out of the car to present them to the armed officers, Shelly was instructed to immediately return to the car. Clearly an untrustworthy alien. Upon arrival at Marathon, we decided we needed some road-trip ice-creams. Except Americans don't really seem to be into ice-creams. So our choice was somewhat limited (surprisingly for American consumer goods), but Shelly and Jon did find the frozen Snickers bars appealing. Jon also bought some Mexican candy, which had salt, sugar and tamarillo in it, and tasted as good as that sounds. We then continued along the border to Del Rio, where we were greeted by gorgeous scissor-tailed flycatchers. Dinner was at a suburban family-run Mexican place where Shelly unknowingly ordered two plates of food, one of which was a plate of steak. The food here was very tasty, and Shelly even managed to eat most of her food. We sampled cool Mexican soft drinks here too - pineapple and strawberry flavoured.
yay for antelope in chicken! actually, i'm quite dim and didn't realise you could actually get antelope in the US :S Where was the pub-like place in the picture with michelle's well groomed head?
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