Far West Texas - Day 1

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the last few days for us have been filled with activity! We left big bend on Friday and stayed in a small town just on the outskirts of big bend called Terlingua, it's a quirky,fun, odd little town. Felt lost in time but yet current all at the same time. We ate at this restaurant called Starlight cafe, it used to be an old theatre but the town started collapsing so the theatre got abandoned and people took all the scraps and roof from the building. Years later the town was revived again and the roofless building became a popular dancing and live music hall. 35 years ago the current owners bought the building and started a restaurant, they named it Starlight cafe because of the nice view of the stars. 😊 it did eventually gain a new roof and has become a really popular place yet again for dining, live music and an incredible view of the sun setting over the purple mountains.

We then decided to make the long drive to El Paso, even from west Texas, El Paso is still a long drive! We had a short list of things to see and do in this city but we actually ended up finding quite a few things! We camped at Hueco Tanks SP, (pronounced just like "Waco") it's a really neat park with a LOT of history but unfortunately has a lot of strange rules to go along with it. It's an outcropping of rocks that have created little water holding areas, it's a true oasis in the desert! Its been inhabited by many different people groups throughout the hundreds of years, all leaving behind either petroglyphs or pieces of pottery and such. The Butterfield overland Mail co. used it on their route from San Fransisco to St. Louis. It is now a popular place amongst rock climbers and archaeologist. I've included a link if you have some spare time to read more details about it, it's really interesting! http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/hueco-tanks/park_history

After searching amongst the boulders for the park's geocache we ventured into El Paso for a delicious Mexican breakfast and then went to the Wyler arial tramway. Interestingly enough It's also a SP so we planned on finding their geocaches as well after we rode the tram. The gondolas are on a counter weight system so the two gondolas take turns pulling each other up as the other one goes down. Was originally made and used to carry supplies to the radio towers at the top. It was really neat, you could see 3 states and 2 countries at the top. We started hiking one of the trails down the mountain but it was really tough, a little scary and took a long time. So after finding the geocache we decided to take the tram back down, much faster and less nerve racking. Haha

After our adventure there, we made the 10minute drive to Franklin mountains SP, it is the largest urban park in the U.S.! It's basically an entire mountain surrounded by El Paso. Its an incredibly popular park for trail runners, hikers and off-road cyclist, the mountain is covered in trails!

To finish up our day we went to a restaurant in downtown El Paso, it was from the 20's, it was an old speakeasy with a hidden casino in the back. It's changed names and owners now but the food is still authentic and really popular in the community. They also have a good website you can read about as well: http://visitelpaso.com/blog/116-if-walls-could-talk-l-j-cafe

Before we headed back to our campsite we attempted to drive by Fred Loya's home that'll at year won the TV show, "Christmas Light Wars". You can go on YouTube and see it. The lights were fun to watch as they danced to the synchronized music. It has become quite the attraction, they blocked off the road so that the thousands of people that were there could see the lights!

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Photos

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There were three different mountains of these boulders all encircling a valley.

Pecan grove
We actually drove by this on our way to El Paso, it was at least 2 miles of row after row of pecan trees!

tram time capsule
To be opened 2060. Haha

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This was such a cool location! And it was loaded with goodies!