Big Bend, Carlsbad, Bosque, Petrified Forest – Day 2

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

It never fails that getting away from a major freeway allows us to see the world change in dramatic and beautiful ways. We are well outside of El Paso now; as a matter of fact, we entered Texas at 6:00 this morning. By the time we stopped for this photo of the pony in the rising sun, we were on the US-90.

Good thing we have our ice chest with us because eating here at the old HiWay Cafe is now out of the question.

Well, no wonder the cafe had problems staying in business; the town of Valentine, where it’s at has a population of only 217.

Update: As of 2016, the population has dwindled to only 125 residents. By 2023, it was 73.

Welcome to Marfa! I’d already known the name of this town from a stint in drug/alcohol rehab I did back in 1983 (I think that was the year). By some freak chance, I ended up in a hospital in Century City, California, across the street from the Twin Towers as they were known (used for the exterior shots of the TV series L.A. Law), and after I’d been there about a week some homeless guy was brought in by a taxi driver who told the people that greeted this transient that he’d been on the floor of the taxi tripping out about the threat of being shot on his way in.

More than a few of us wondered why they allowed the heavily bearded old guy in this place on the edge of Beverly Hills. Over the next days, I’d walk by his room, and on one occasion I heard him listening to Kraftwerk, which at the time seemed kind of out of the ordinary. Another time, I caught the Screamers and thought, “NO WAY!” I was 20 years old and had been deep into the Los Angeles punk scene, and this dude was just too old for punk; he was probably about 50. Yeah, one more time strolling by, except this time, I thought I was hearing Devo’s rumored but unreleased Muzak recordings. I had to stop in and ask.

The guy had told me that the Screamers had recently played at his birthday party. I was incredulous. Regarding Devo, I was correct, and he told me that Mark Mothersbaugh was his friend. “So, who are you?” He answers me with another question, “Have you ever seen the film Giant with James Dean?” My answer was no, as I loved horror and sci-fi growing up. “Well, what about the film Easy Rider?” I excused myself, explaining I was a punk/industrial kind of person and that the hippy stuff of the late ’60s was more my dad’s generation than mine. “What about Apocalypse Now?” With that, he struck a nerve: he was the crazy photographer! I had just met Dennis Hopper. The old guy taught me a lot over the next couple of weeks, including planting the seed of taking an interest in his film career that early on took him to Marfa, Texas, where he was featured in the film Giant with James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor.

Out of Marfa and onto US-67 heading for the Mexican border. Along the way, we passed through the Shafter Ghost Town; not many ghosts, but many ruins remain, although they are fading from the sun and wind that constantly gnaw at their existence.

This old javelina didn’t make it out of town and was lying here drying out like the rest of everything that passes through. Looking back, I should have grabbed one of those fangs for a pendant, though I guess that practice was reserved for those who took the animal’s life.

Entering a familiar-looking country reminiscent of Arizona. Strange to think that we’re in America, but just a stone’s throw across the river is Mexico. We tried visiting Fort Leaton State Historic Site in Presidio, but it was locked up tight, the first place to put on the list of places to come back to.

How this “stream” got named the Grand or Big River is beyond me, but this slice between Mexico and the United States is the famous Rio Grande, sometimes known as Rio Bravo. It’s really true what Will Rogers once said about it, “The only river I know of that is in need of irrigating.”

Hoodoos in Texas, who knew?

Back in the day, maybe John Wayne and Clint Eastwood visited these places, but today, there are very few people wandering around and even fewer living out here. The truth is more mundane, with this place called Contrabando having been built in 1985 for a Roy Clark film titled Uphill All The Way.

Update: A flood six years after we visited caused serious damage, and by 2015, most of the buildings were removed.

This National Park right here is the primary reason for our visit to our southern border in deep Texas. Big Bend seemed like a remote enough corner that might not be too busy on Christmas day, and so here we are.

Just us and the tarantulas. Well, there are probably some snakes, scorpions, bats, coyotes, and a few javelinas roaming around too.

With a loose framework identified for this road trip, you can bet we don’t have much time to explore the longer trails that might show us some of the more off-the-beaten-path locations. We’ll just add Big Bend to the list of places we’d like to return to.

On our way to the park, we had stopped in Terlingua to check into the Longhorn Ranch Motel and RV Park to ensure we had a room for the night else we would have had to leave the area early and head up to Alpine, Texas, on the US-90 for our overnight. With plenty of time now available, we were able to take a hike out along the Rio Grande and enjoy the sunset. We can report that in our entire time along the river from Presidio to Lajita for nearly 50 miles and then again here in the park, we never once encountered the hordes of immigrants racing across the border that so many people up north fear. Matter of fact, in talking with some locals, they said the border issue is grossly overblown and that for hundreds of years, people have been going back and forth across this border for work and family without issue. Sadly that lack of hysteria doesn’t sell well to idiots who feel that the potentially shitty jobs that immigrants often take are under threat.

Caroline is dipping her feet in the Rio Grande near Santa Elena Canyon. She would have walked in, but how would it have looked if, at that moment, an official or border agent had seen her walking out of the Rio Grande coming from the direction of Mexico, which is just 30 feet away? What we did see in Mexico were a few wild donkeys yay, wildlife!

I have to wonder which side is Mexican sunset and which side is American sunset and if they have to have papers to cross borders. Merry Christmas, everyone.

America – Day 20

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Bed vibrating device at the Antlers Inn Motel in Flatonia, Texas

Oh yeah…a vibrating bed and it only costs 25 cents for 15 minutes…plenty long enough. Just where do you find this kind of luxury? At the Antlers Inn Motel in Flatonia, Texas, room 111 and it only cost us $40 – oh yeah!

The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas

Guess what happens when you arrive somewhere at 7:50 in the morning? You leave because the place is closed; that’s what you do. This was and is the Alamo. I suppose we’ll just have to remember the Alamo as a place we could have visited.

Caroline Wise and John Wise driving across Texas

In Junction, Texas, we turned black & white as we entered the Twilight Zone. This is Caroline driving. Flat, wide open, clear weather, and me being tired were all the conditions that had to align like planets in some celestial once-in-a-hundred-years event that triggered this rare phenomenon. Lost from this excursion into the Twilight Zone were my favorite sunglasses she was borrowing, my Dolce & Gabbana’s.

Ozona, Texas welcome sign

Ozona had us thinking of Arizona. Getting closer.

Big broad Texas on Interstate 10

We have a ways to go, but the landscape is beginning to look familiar.

Decrepit old house in Texas

Finally, after 20 days out in America, we are back home, not.

German V-2 rocket at Fort Bliss, Texas

An old German V-2 rocket that had been brought to the United States from Germany along with Wernher von Braun and 120 of his fellow Nazi rocket engineers. This fine specimen is sitting at Fort Bliss, Texas, where I was stationed with the Army back in the ’80s after I first left Germany. Caroline and I visited the base so I could show her a little bit more about my past. The barracks in the background are similar to those that I lived in during my short stay here in El Paso, Texas.

El Paso, Texas at sunset

Just finished an excellent dinner at Avila’s Mexican Food. Being back in the Southwest has its perks.

Western Motel in Alamogordo, New Mexico

Our last night on our cross-country adventure was spent here at the Western Motel (now the White Sands Motel) in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Nearly 13 hours traveling across Texas, accumulating over 700 miles.

America – Day 19

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Old house on the bayou in Louisiana

We’ve traveled from the desert over the Great Plains into the Great Lakes region before taking in the New England states down along the Chesapeake Bay and then dropping into Appalachia, the South, and now Bayou country. From a Sod House in Kansas to the White House in D.C. to this floating house in Louisiana.  While one is moving through these environments, it’s hard to register just how dramatic the shift in the landscape and cultures has been.

Creek in rural Louisiana

A bit of fatigue has started setting in and the thought of returning to our bed becomes more appealing. One thing that has become abundantly clear while we’ve been out here is that we want to see it all over again and visit the points in between that we have yet to explore. Before I veer too far out of the moment analyzing this journey, I suppose I should continue with the day at hand.

This was our first encounter with Brahman cattle, and we were struck by how incredibly beautiful these animals are. If they weren’t so enormous, I’d want to jump into their pasture and go ruffle those floppy ears and snuggle their furry, soft-looking necks.

Pink flamingos in Louisiana

To my untrained eye, I initially thought these were pink flamingos, but it turns out that they are roseate spoonbills. Well, that’s even more exotic in my book of experiences. Whoever heard of spoonbills anyway?

Caroline Wise and John Wise on the Gulf coast of Louisiana

Our backdrop is the Gulf of Mexico, which is pretty exciting to us. We’ve encountered the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, Great Lakes Erie, Ontario, Champlain, the Atlantic, Chesapeake Bay, and now the Gulf Coast. We are feeling inspired to drive over to California so we can include the Pacific as part of the journey, but I’d bet a dollar that when we get back to Arizona, we will stay put for a minute.

Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana

The Gulf of Mexico without us blocking the majority of the view.

Caroline Wise with a bag of shells on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana

We’ve been walking along the shore for quite some time by now, and the bag in Caroline’s hands is evidence of just how many shells we’ve collected.

Sea shells from the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana

Finding seashells here is not a problem.

Public toilets next the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana

I asked, and asked again, of Caroline if she was 100% certain she really wanted to use these public toilet facilities. She had to go while my knowledge of what the inside of those toilets looked like would forever be shrouded in blissful ignorance.

Snake in the Bayou of rural Louisiana

It doesn’t look venomous, and I can’t hear a rattle or it hissing at me, so how about you go and pick it up? Caroline did not oblige me, so we can only claim to have seen a snake on this trip as opposed to handling one. Maybe after we join the Pentecostals of Appalachia, we’ll learn just how to deal with these serpents and how to speak in tongues. There is so much to experience in America.

Wetlands of southern Louisiana

I’m fairly certain this is part of the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge.

Living floating island of Fire Ants in rural Louisiana

And people say Australia is full of loathsome creatures bent on killing you? What’s up with this state of Louisiana with gators, 14-pound beaver rats, snakes, and now this floating island of fire ants? I had this vision that if I stuck a stick into this nest, the ants, realizing they were not connected back to dry land, would swarm over me like hellfire on their trek back to safety, even if it meant sacrificing the host as they would bite me a million times on their escape. I left them alone instead.

Southern Live Oak with Spanish Moss in southern Louisiana

Live oak trees wearing Spanish moss because everything looks better with a fluffy beard.

Refinery in eastern Texas

This is not a strip club; nope, it’s a blurry refinery in eastern Texas photographed while driving fast on Interstate 10. We wanted to stay in Weimar, Texas, because Weimar, but with no lodging, we had to drive on, ending up in Flatonia, Texas, where not only did we get a room, we had some yummy barbecue at Joel’s Bar-B-Q. We have driven close to 7,500 miles since we left home nearly three weeks ago.

America – Day 2

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Texas border sign on Highway 287

Sure, it’s a dismal photo, but it’s all we got. By this time, we’d already been on the road for nearly two hours. This is looking south back into Texas on Highway 287 just north of Kerrick, Texas. Traveling this route involved a minor bit of backtracking, but we saw Rita Blanca National Grasslands on our map, and as we’d never seen such a thing, we took the detour. As we don’t have a fixed destination or a time when we need to return to Arizona, our opinion is we can go anywhere and do anything.

Welcome to Oklahoma on highway 287 with Caroline Wise and John Wise

Staring into the sun has never been an ideal situation for Caroline, and so after one tries to get this selfie in front of the Welcome to Oklahoma state sign, I had to give up. This was our first visit to the Great Plains, and for that matter, it would be our first time together anywhere east of here for the rest of the trip.

Grasslands across Oklahoma

We were never really sure where the “Grasslands” started and finished as most everything out here was flat and brown. The color of the landscape makes sense because it is well after summer and quickly approaching winter. This kind of flat expanse is something new to our eyes. If memory serves us, this is State Highway 171 traveling flat north.

Kansas state sign near Elkhart, Kansas on highway 56 with Caroline Wise and John Wise

Crossing into Kansas just south of Elkhart on Highway 56, staying away from the big roads.

Small shop in rural Kansas

It struck us that there is little out here besides grain silos, barns, and homes scattered about, and then we come upon this little “Beer To Go” shop with a drive-up window that doesn’t appear to have any way to drive close to. Or at least nobody has directed their vehicle there for a while. We’re still on the 56, heading northeast through Rolla, Kansas.

Moscow, Kansas

A standout city, this place is called Moscow, Kansas. It was here while getting gas ($1.63 a gallon) that an elderly guy approached me, curious about our Beetle. He’d not seen one yet in person and so he inquired about how we liked it. I assured him that it was amazing (I’d later grow to hate the thing). He asked if we were visiting family, and I answered no. He pointed out how far away the main highway was, and I agreed that it was a good place for it to be. Then he asked our ages, “Thirty-seven and thirty-two,” to which he said in near amazement how lucky we were to be so young and on such a big adventure. Those words stuck with me the rest of the trip, and little did I know then that they would travel with me for years into my future.

Edwards County Historical Museum And Sod House in Kinsley, Kansas

From time to time, we’ll take photos of places to act as reminders that we wanted to visit but didn’t have time or the place was closed while we were in the area. The Edwards County Sod House & Museum in Kinsley, Kansas, is one of those places. Note: Eighteen years later, we still haven’t made it back here.

Fort Larned National Historic Site in Larned, Kansas

We made a brief stop in Dodge City to visit the Boothill Museum but felt it was too expensive for what we saw. On the way out of Dodge, I had the “Epiphany Burrito,” which may have been the best burrito I’ve ever had. Back on the road, we took another break to visit the Fort Larned National Historic Site in Larned, Kansas. If there is an element of history to be learned about at any location we are traveling by, then more often than not, we feel compelled to stop. By the way, when we essentially pass through somewhere like Dodge City, the reasoning is if we can easily visit by catching a plane into a local airport and spend some quality time exploring more of what a larger city has to offer, we are probably using our time smarter by seeing the outlying areas.

Somewhere in Kansas

This is our last daylight photo worth sharing; it’s of the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area. Trying to keep things rural and off larger roads occasionally takes us down dirt roads with the hope of getting a truly alternative view. I’d say we scored with this route, as I don’t believe sunset could have been any better than right at this moment. A half-hour later, we were passing through the Quivera Wildlife Refuge, but we weren’t ready to call it a day and decided to keep on driving. We ultimately made it to Atchison, Kansas, about 250 miles up the road.

America – Day 1

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise and John Wise on their first cross country road trip to see America

Early in the day, at 10:00 a.m., in our little turbo VW Beetle, Caroline and I were venturing out intending to drive to the East Coast. We had a very loose agenda of where we were going, with the main objective being that we would avoid main highways. This first day out was meant to put as much distance as possible between us and Arizona. This photo was snapped near 64th Street and Bell Road next to the canal on our way from Scottsdale to the I-17 in Phoenix, where we’ll head north toward Flagstaff.

Caroline Wise and John Wise on their first cross country road trip to see America

In Flagstaff, we turned right and started our trek east on Interstate 40. Midday we crossed into New Mexico and Mountain Standard Time. Stopped in Albuquerque at Little Anita’s Mexican Restaurant and kept on going. After nearly 12 hours and over 730 miles of non-stop driving, we were pulling into Amarillo, Texas. The real adventure begins tomorrow.