Mountain Getaway
Category: Travel...
Posted Monday, October 24, 2005 at 09:25 PM [GMT-6]

I started to document last week's trip with a mind-numbingly detailed account of each day and then I came to my senses. The only thing more boring would be for me to recount my last surgery (which, thankfully, was several years ago...although the scars are still there, and you would not believe the pain...let me tell you, if I ever again have to...um...never mind...). So I had this brainstorm. Everyone likes lists, right? Letterman has built a career around them. Even the most mind-numbingly detailed accounts can be presented in a relatively non-snooze inducing list, if done properly. Unfortunately, I have no idea what "done properly" means, but here goes, anyway...

Click on the thumbnails to see the uncropped full-sized images, some of which are up to 150kb in size.

• October weather in west Texas is unpredictable, especially around the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. But, for the third consecutive year, we were blessed with beautiful conditions for our outdoor activities: warm-but-not-hot, calm and clear.


• Given those great conditions, we were surprised to be the first hikers on the trail to Guadlupe Peak. In fact, we didn't encounter another human on the 4.2 mile trek up the mountain, and we had the summit to ourselves for twenty minutes before another group of hikers appeared.


• For you non-Texans, Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8,749'. The 8.5 mile hike to the top has an elevation gain of about 3,000'. It's not a particularly taxing climb -- thousands of people make do it each year -- but there are sections that are steep and/or treacherous enough (due to loose rock) that it's not something to undertake without some preparation. We made it up the mountain in 2.5 hours and cut 30 minutes off that time on the way down.


• The view from the top is amazing. The photos at right show the view from the peak and the trail. The large hunk of rock MLB is overlooking is El Capitan; the cliff face on the other side can be seen from fifty miles away.


• We finished our hike mid-afternoon, and after fortifying ourselves with chicken salad sandwiches and M&Ms, headed for the next destination: Fort Davis. The drive from the national park to Van Horn was lovely in the desolate way you'd expect from a road that runs along a range of mountains known as Sierra Diablo. The road construction from previous years was completed, but it's still a rough drive. We noted evidence of fairly recent flash flooding across the roadbed. The relative verdancy of the countryside testified to the abundant rainfall the region had finally received following more than a decade of brutal drought.


• Van Horn is just a wide spot in the road, snuggled up next to I-10 (but the people there are great!). I pulled into a gas station to top off the tank, figuring prices would be better here than in Fort Davis. But, how spoiled am I? There was a sign on the pump informing me that "Pay at the Pump is unavailable; please pay cashier inside first." I left without getting gas; I don't need no steenkin' "pay inside first" routine. (As it turned out, prices were just as good elsewhere. So there. I still got The Look from MLB, though.)


• The next leg was interstate mileage -- nothing to note except that very few people were exceeding the speed limit and most, including big rigs, were driving under the limit. Gas prices? But we hit the turnoff at Kent around 5:00 p.m., just as the sunlight was getting juicy and the backside of the Davis Mountains was picking up that golden glow that I've never seen even the best photographer do justice to. The grass covering the hills was eye-high on a steer and simply driving through that countryside made you feel like you were where God intended you to be.


• Twenty miles from our destination we encountered a truly amazing thing, although you have to be from west Texas to appreciate it. The low water crossing coming up out of Madera Canyon actually had water in it...a lot of water! I've never seen water running across the highway in that spot. People were setting up lawn chairs next to the creek, I assume in anticipation of the wildlife that would soon come down out of the hills to drink around dusk. According to the locals, there's now a herd of elk in those parts, after who knows how many decades of being absent.


• We arrived in Fort Davis around 6:00 p.m., tired and hungry. Eleanor was waiting to give us the tour of our accommodations at The Veranda -- a tour was apparently in order since we were staying in The Carriage House, a two-bedroom dwelling with two-foot thick adobe walls and hardwood floors. We didn't necessarily want The Carriage House, but it was the only available lodging in the whole area, thanks to the presence of the members of the Native Plant Society of Texas ("NPSOT"), whose annual meeting was being held at the Mitre Peak Girl Scout Camp between Fort Davis and Alpine.


• The Veranda was built around 1883 and is one of the oldest bed and breakfasts in the state. Kathie Woods has owned and managed it for the past decade or so, and her gourmet breakfasts are the highlight of the stay, but the beautiful grounds and charm of the compound itself run a close second.


• After a quick clean-up, we had dinner at the Limpia Hotel, where I indulged in a chicken-fried tenderloin (!) with grilled jalapeños, and MLB had the muy piquante meat loaf.


• We were joined at breakfast the next morning by a woman whose husband was attending the NPSOT meeting, which had its own catered meals. In the course of visiting with her and Kathie, the B&B owner, we learned that she was on a quest to find somewhere to print a document that her husband needed to sign and Fed Ex somewhere in order to finalize a consulting gig he was about to undertake. He is retired military and the document had something to do with his security clearance. Anyway, she had the document on a USB flash drive, but hadn't been able to find a computer that would read it. Kathie was running down the rather short list of publicly available computers in Fort Davis that might accommodate her when I offered one of the two laptops we had brought with us. I pointed out that if we could use Kathie's printer, we could take care of the chore in a heartbeat. I retrieved MLB's ThinkPad from the room and while I was connecting the old SCSI laser printer, the woman noticed my Hero Bracelet which I wear in honor of SSG. Will. She said that her son was also now in Iraq, with the Texas Army National Guard. I asked if he was deployed out of Fort Hood; she said yes. She looked at the bracelet again and said "he's in the 3/112 Armored Division, too!" The world kept getting smaller. "In fact, he's company commander for Alpha Company, and is currently located at the Talil Airbase south of Baghdad." Well, if you've been paying attention, you know that Talil is where Will is now deployed, although he's in Charlie company. But, still...how amazing is that? I need to write Will and ask if he knows the guy. Anyway, after all of that, we had her document printed in mere seconds and instead of using the whole morning trying to get that chore accomplished, she could now do some fun stuff.


• Our plans for the day centered around a 20-mile bike ride to Marfa to eat lunch and look around at the little town that's starting to attract some national attention as a "regional arts and culture center" (whatever that means). We left about 10:30 and stopped a couple of times to take photos, including some great shots of the small group of antelope that was grazing next to the highway. If you click to the large photo, you'll note the lone buck in the background; he serves as the lookout for the group. Every herd has one, standing off by himself, full of self-importance. We obviously weren't deemed to be threats, judging by the herd's unwillingness to stop grazing in order to give me the time of day. We saw a number of other antelope along this stretch of highway, along with some big mule deer. One advantage of traveling by bicycle is that you're moving slowly enough to notice such things, and it's convenient to stop to check them out.


• Marfa seemed to be a little more subdued than we remembered, although there was a fair amount of construction (remodeling) going on, and several new restaurants and stores, mostly of the "too cute and trés chic" style. We had pizza and salad for lunch at an old converted service station which is now named "The Pizza Foundation." The food was excellent.


• We returned to Marfa that evening for dinner (traveling by car this time), having scored last minute reservations at Maiya's Restaurant. I had a ribeye and MLB had halibut; we shared a pear crostata which was served with crème anglaise and vanilla bean ice cream. The bill for dinner worked out to about 4 cents for every resident of Marfa, which is small but not that small. Was it worth it? Well, I've never had a meal that I thought was worth $100, in and of itself. I enjoyed the endive salad with toasted walnuts, gorgonzola, pears and Dijon vinaigrette, but I'm equally at home with a chicken strip basket and a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. But I guess it's the whole ambience thing, the "we're on vacation so who cares" thing. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that most of the crowd that night was really pretending to be in Santa Fe, if you know what I mean.


• Oh, here's a travel tip: if you're going to look for the Marfa Lights viewing area after dark, have a general idea of which direction to head. Because, otherwise, you could find yourself driving to Presidio on a highway with a narrow shoulder and a long line of cars and trucks behind you with no way to pull over and turn around. Not that I'd know about that or anything. I'm just saying.


• Saturday was the scheduled death slog up to the McDonald Observatory Visitor Center. It's just over fifteen miles from the B&B to the Center, and it's pretty much uphill all the way, with grades of 6-10% for most of the latter half of the ride. As you can imagine, the return trip is much quicker, unless your stoker (that's the rider on the back of a tandem, for you non-tandeming readers) has control of the rear wheel brake. But, we did take the time to get a photo or two from the scenic overlook.


• Remember, way back at the beginning, how I was talking about the weather being unpredictable in October. In 2003, when we last made this trip, we went through shirt-sleeve and shorts weather until we awoke on the last day to six inches of snow. This year, we also experienced a drastic change in weather as a front blew through just as we left Fort Davis to head home. We didn't get any snow, but the gusty winds and low hanging clouds made us grateful for the beautiful conditions we had for our outdoor activities in the previous days. The front also provided some great photo ops.

If you're still with me, well, bless your heart. I had to leave out some good stuff, like the crashed iPod and the pirated wifi hotspot and the description of a night sky that's so star-filled that I wouldn't even bother trying to describe it to you. Oh, and the fact that one of the other guests at the B&B is the brother of one of MLB's co-workers, and she serves on a board with another of the guests. But if I had included details like that, this would have been mind-numbingly detailed, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

In conclusion, I'm working on a detailed hand-drawn map that will bring a new perspective to all of this. Stay tuned for that striking development. And if you're ever at The Veranda in Fort Davis, tell Kathie we said hi.

Update: Following literally minutes of painstaking research and toil, the map is now available and you may view the full sized version in all its glory by clicking on the thumbnail at right.

Technorati tags: Davis Mountains | Fort Davis