Miles and Miles of Texas

 

That Texas can be daunting is in no doubt.  Crossing the border from Louisiana into Texas, the first mileage sign I saw was 880.  Yes, had I stayed due west on the interstate, it would have been 880 miles to the New Mexico border.  But, as you know, I headed south to see the whooping cranes, before turning west for a 600 mile dash to Van Horn, Texas.  I had considered going to Big Bend National Park, but it was quite far south, and a tad closer to the sometimes chancy border with Mexico than I felt comfortable going solo.  And there appeared to be places of interest near Van Horn.  So off I sped, for 600 miles, around San Antonio (ugh), through Houston (Ugh), and then through miles and miles of clear desert.  Central Texas might as well be wiped off the face of the earth; from Houston to Dallas to San Antonio to El Paso, it's practically a megalopolis.  OK, I exaggerate, but you understand.  Fortunately, Van Horn is different.  

My housing choices were limited, though again I'm overstating, as is my wont.  One choice was lodgings which had been acceptable back before cars were air-conditioned:  aka long ago. 

Choice #2 didn't seem to accept canines.

So I went with #3.  After 600 miles of driving, I knew I would be in no mood to put up the camper, yet I didn't really want to stay at the Hampton Inn, and KOA is pet-friendly.  Ergo, A KOA Kamping Kabin although my English teacher heart sinks at the alliteration.....

A Kamping Kabin has electricity and beds, but no water.  It's BYO linens, blankets, pillows, which of course I had.  And this one even had a heater, which was fortunate as it was quite chilly that first night.

It did warm up sufficiently during the day that I could take advantage of the swing.  Any astute blog readers remember where you another swing?

Nor was it without its own wildlife.  Pretty colorful rooster.  Glad the canines never saw these fowl.  The air would have been foul with their barking.  OK, bad pun.  But there aren't too many Holiday Inns that feature chickens pecking around.

Obviously, Van Horn is a sleepy little town, although this photo is a tad misleading.  I'd been looking for the post office when I came across this:

Cars last forever out here, whether in good operating condition, or as art.  Note that the saguaro cactus is geographically mislocated...and metal.

Heading up to Guadalupe National Park, this warning.  You can see by the wind sock that the warning is to be heeded.  

Guadalupe Mountains National Park seems to be a little known treasure.  It has room for backpackers, wilderness lovers, naturalists, and historians.  I had time only to dip in my little toe, and even that was marvelous.

The Overland Butterfield Stage, the coach, shaped in our minds by John Wayne westerns and many songs, ran only for about eleven years, when  the "iron horse" of the transcontinental railroad made it obsolete.     

 And what country is was!  So vast, so lonely.

              

The Pinery Station faced the plains, with its back to El Capitan.

Constructed of shaped stone.

From the floor plan, there appear to be three small rooms which might have served as sleeping quarters for passengers.  Regardless, a coach ride was a miserable experience.  I made a one mile stagecoach trip in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and even with a state-of-the-art in-the-1880s springs, it was not pleasant.  And with open windows, dust blowing, unwashed bodies... the iron horse would have been a relief...and faster.   From Missouri to California would have taken close to a month via stagecoach. 

The Pinery Station was in the saddle of the Guadalupe Mountains for only a year before it was relocated nearer to the Davis Mountains, to the east of Van Horn, probably as that location was more convenient to Interstate 10.

I adore living history.

Frijole Ranch , in the 21st century, may not be the desert oasis the NPS claims it to be, but had I been a Texas traveler or range rider, it might well have seemed like heaven.

Tucked away in the trees is the original Frijole Ranch, with that foreboding peak looming above. 

I'm uncertain as to whether this barn is original, though original means many things when a place has been owned by different people over the years.

I can say with some certainty that the metal fence is not original, and that the sidewalk was probably added either very late during private ownership, or by the NPS.

The Frijole Ranch did not overlap temporally with the Butterfield Stage.  The first house was built around 1878; the stage had been moved around 1859/1860.  The house that we see today is built around that first house from 1878.  There were three owners of the property, the first being of fairly short duration, the second selling out to the wealthy third owner, who never lived here, but whose foreman did, up until the 1940s.  One thing to keep in mind is how isolated was this part of the United states, well into the 20th century.

While these trees are calm, soothing, and provide much needed shaded, 100 years ago, they would have been mere saplings.  I have to remind myself that what I see today is not a photograph of the original, either the house or the environment in which it sits.

These two photos are of the water source, which is not only in this shed, but covered with a screen, neither of which would be original, though the water source would be, as it would have been a primary reason for settlement here.

Lacking electricity and running water well into the 20th century, one owner of the ranch installed gas lights and figured out a way to pump the gas to the fixture.  It was explained to me and I was impressed, though it was beyond my comprehension.

Ya'll may have realized by now that I'm intrigued by rock structures (and adobe).

Notice that smoothed, shaped rock on the left abuts unshaped rock.  I asked the NPS volunteer if she knew why one was shaped but no the other, and she'd never noticed it.  It was an oddball question for sure, and I wouldn't have expected her to know.   My guess, based on complete ignorance, is that perhaps the difference in stone reflects different phases of add-ons, but the roof line makes that hypothesis questionable.

Storage shed.

The horse for the teacher is a definite perk.

The nearest town of any substance, Van Horn, was 60 miles away, generally a two-day journey by buggy.  This family had both enough money and a desire for education that they hired a teacher for their children.

 

The very nice NPS volunteer took my photo.  Note that I'm wearing my POEM sweatshirt, gift of cousins Ron and Suzanne.  POEM, as most of you probably know, is the Garrison Keilor acronym for the Professional Organization of English Majors, of which I am a proud member.

And the high winds continue as I wend my way down the mountain back to Van Horn.