We left Terlinqua this morning, but not before browsing at a small local gallery. I really liked some photographs they had of a church in Contrabando, but the print quality was low. Turns out that Contrabando is a small movie set town just west of Terlinqua. We stopped off to capture our own pictures, and since all the buildings were nothing more than stucco fronts to a movie set, most of the facing had come off of the small church. Still it was an interesting quick stop to see this "town" right on the Rio Grande and the host of about half a dozen movies (e.g. Streets of Laredo).
Down the highway a bit more west, we stopped at a small State Park to see a box canyon that goes down to the Rio Grande. This pic is just outside the canyon. We had met this really funny retired guy (and his wife) in the parking lot. He asked us if we had been there before (no), and told us that there was a big boulder in the canyon that blocks the way to the Rio Grande. The last time he was there the boulder thwarted his attempt to reach the Rio Grande, so this time he was not to be stopped. He pulled a kitchen utility step stool out of the back of his truck, attached a rope to it, and announced he would use the stool to climb over the boulder, then use the rope to pull the stool over the boulder for the return crossing. OK. He was set. He took his wife and started off. We were several minutes behind him. As we trekked into the canyon the recent rainfall had made the rocks slippery and the sediment like deep quick sand in places. We soon caught up to the other couple, and discovered they were trying to cross a deep patch that had a lot of rain water. They had stripped down to their underwear, determined to make it all the way to the river. Since I had already nearly bought it in a patch of quicksand, we weren't going any further. I did however snap their picture in case they turned up missing. (yeah right, I just like taking pics of strangers in their underwear.)
After the box canyon bail out, we continued along the River Road (Hwy 90) that traces the Rio Grand all the way to Presidio. The road was fun and great views of Mexico. We got to Presidio where we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch.
Here my "Car Tape" Spanish was not only welcome, but necessary. I was speaking as a native.As you'll remember from those handy childhood Texas History classes, Presidio was settled thousands of years ago by naitive Indians, and much later (1500's) the Spanish explorers came up from Mexico. Pancho Villa was there for many battles. But currently it's one of the few legit places for a legal border crossing to Mexico. Most recently in 2010 Presidio built the world's largest sodium-sulfer battery to keep the town's elecricity on since they have only a single line to the ERCOT grid that gets cut not infrequently. I tried to ask where the battery was located, hoping to go see it, but no one at the lunch restaurant knew.
So we headed north to Marfa, and contined to see Border Patrol and crossing checks. If I hadn't mentioned before, most of the traffic we saw in South Texas were all Border Patrol, and when you have to stop at their traffic stops, they have really big German Shepherds that jump menacing at the end of their leads. Since we were on motorcycles without the protection of a car door between us and the K-9s we were usually waved through.
In Marfa we rented a great apartment for the two nights we were there. More on Marfa (a.k.a Judd-ville) in the next post.
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