Untitled Document

Upon leaving Big Bend National Park at the west end, Study Butte soon comes into view. The terrain in the area is called the Badlands, a much smaller version of South Dakota's treasure. From Study Butte, there are two major roads: one goes north to Alpine, and the other goes, for a short distance to Terlingua, then continues on in a southwesterly direction through the Big Bend Ranch State Park and on to Presidio. The area known as the big bend. It's here that the Rio Grande makes a dramatic turn - or bend - as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

That is the road my travel partner and I decided to take. And what a great choice we made. The wonderfully maintained paved two-land highway, Highway 170, is locally known as the River Road, as it travels parallel with the Rio Grande. It also marks the western edge of the Big Bend Ranch State Park, Texas' largest state park and most remote.

Big Bend Ranch is all wilderness. It's for those who really, really want to get away from it all and experience the true ruggedness in the middle of nowhere. The river road is the only accessible road in the park to low-clearance vehicles. The rest of the park is void of any other paved roads.

The big bend is also known for its dark skies; in fact, the darkest in Texas. Not a surprise since there are no lights, barely civilization, of any sort for miles in any direction, save the Barton Warnock Visitor Center located near Lajitas, a tiny don't-blink town 20 miles south of Terlingua.

All the photos on this page were taken along the River Road.

There's a quirkiness to Terlingua that kinda makes you want to linger. It's a semi-ghost town, though in all directions one can see evidence of its early 1900s heyday when four companies and 3000 people extracted mercury from the surrounding hills. The population today is around 58. Terlingua Ghost Town has a few redeeming qualities: an active theater with weekly performances, a huge souvenir-type store that sells everything from hot sauce to Tidly Winks, an eatery slash guesthouse called La Posada Milagro and a cemetery with graves dating back to the mining days.

The Rio Grande headland is in the southern part of Colorado. It travels some 1900 miles south through New Mexico, Texas and the country of Mexico before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The river is by no means "grande"; in fact, it's not even navigable except by kayaks, rafts and such. In the Big Bend area, it serves as the border between Texas and Mexico where, in some places, one can actually walk across the river. Legally, an American citizen can make the walk into Mexico, but it's illegal to return into the U.S.

The cemetery at Terlingua dates back to the mining days of the late 1890s. Many of those buried here were miners whose death was caused by the dangerous working conditions. Gunfights were common as well, and in 1918 many, succumed to the influenza epidemic that swept the area. Locals use the cemetery today, and each November 2nd the Day of the Dead celebration is held.