Big Bend Trip Report

What a great trip. Texas continues to amaze and surprise me with great roads and sights. We traveled 1517 miles in 4 days. An early start Friday with us leaving the house about 5:45 am. We ended up in Ft Davis after miles and miles of West Texas travel, traveling a total of 551 miles that day. Those last 50 miles or so sure made the long trip enjoyable. We passed through Balmorhea State Park and along route 17 through the Davis Mountains. We had a couple of brief showers which actually made the trip that much more beautiful as we experienced not one, but three rainbows, one of which was incredibly brilliant. Of course once we landed at our hotel the skies really opened up, but even that was relatively short and the skies cleared up to a starlit night.

Saturday was a shorter and local day with the Big Bend Loop planned for Sunday. Darlene and I took off on our own, we went to get our Balmorhea point and went into the part to check out the scuba divers, who were of course, diving but we did chat with Karen and some others. One of that day’s highlights was our trip along 118 from I-10 back into Ft Davis which was a great road through the mountain range. We were going to continue on the shorter loop around Ft Davis, Alpine and Marfa, but on the way to Alpine we hit some rain and decided we’d done enough for the day and headed back. A 170 mile day, short but packed and once we got back to the hotel we did some work on the LOH yellow book. Saturday night several of the group went to the Ft Davis observatory for the star party and apparently had a great time.

Sunday was another long day, taking the long route and traveling about 480 miles to San Angelo, via Presidio and Terlingua, where we got out other challenge points. Presidio is a border town and the taking highway 17 / Hwy 67 down to it. We started the day with Breakfast at Indian Lodge before sunrise and had a great view of the sunrise. We even saw a mountain goat up on the side of the hill. Our ride down was incredible, some low fog in the fields, plenty of wildlife, I saw a couple of deer, several antelope and even saw a javelina, the first one I have seen, unfortunately he was heading away from me so did not see its ferocious head and teeth.

On Hwy 67 we passed through the ghost town of Shafter, a former mining community. I would have liked to have spent some time there, the road was very interesting as were the sights. A bit further we got into flat barren desert coming into Presidio. I think old cars go there to die….
Hwy 170, the River Road, what a great road, through the Big Bend State park. We passed those pesky Miata’s numerous times again. Why is it whenever we go on a ride we invariably meet up with some car club? We did not stop in Lajitas, an interesting town on the ride, but did get our challenge points both in Presidio and Terlingua. Next stop Alpine for lunch then on to San Angelo for the night. Hwy 17 was a more interesting ride than 118 into Alpine. We hit some more showers on this leg of the loop.

Monday Darlene and I headed home on our own, wanting to get back quickly. Of course it was very foggy, and I didn’t get good directions before we left so we “took a few extra minutes….” getting out of San Angelo. We had a bit of rain, with the constant threat so we had our rain gear on for a portion of the trip. About 318 miles and we were home just after 3:00 PM.